UK
The data deluge in Formula One has lessons for Public services. That was the view from the Cognizant’s partnership with the Aston Martin Formula One team, in this fascinating look into the most technological sport on the planet.

https://youtu.be/1qNl-BrL5HU

Scotland
Taking lessons from Mars exploration this fascinating talk from a former Nasa expert put the case for the business opportunity for Scotland in growing it’s Space Economy

https://youtu.be/XVjVpwcyNFE

Wales
Wales set out a national strategy to improve, engage and include the whole country in its plan to emerge from the pandemic, but how can they do it? We found out in the annual lecture from a local government perspective.

https://youtu.be/JWI6S2tGRa4

Northern Ireland
That AI is transforming the utilities sector was the underpinning idea investigated in this lecture as we looked at how the water industry in Northern Ireland is transforming itself into a digital first business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAXmjfE8_HQ

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The strategy is, of course, being published, at an extraordinary time.  Our thoughts are rightly with those who have suffered in so many ways and those who have worked so tirelessly to help others.  The use of digital technology is only a very small part of the story, but I do believe that it’s worth telling and worth reflecting on – as the updated strategy does – how it has changed our economy, society and approach to public services so dramatically. Every sector of our economy has spun up new services and scaled old ones, embeded new digital business models and worked remotely in unprecedented numbers.  We’ve relied on digital infrastructure to shop, engage with public services and keep in touch with our family and friends – and we’ve seen a compelling illustration of the importance of digital inclusion.

It’s against this background – the interest and opportunity it’s created in digital transformation, culture and business models – we have chosen to set out our plans.  I can’t summarise it here, but I think it should rise to the top of that pile of reading that many of us collect because I believe it’s a strategy that truly reflects the world in which we live – the digital world with its ability to network, exchange data and collaborate at a speed that changes everything.  I think this can be seen in a number of ways:

First, it’s been produced jointly by Scottish Government and Scottish Local Government – with each having an equal voice and both being committed equally to its delivery – both at a policy level and through very practical commitments to common standards and a shared Digital Academy.  This it seems to me is collaboration in practice;

Second, it commits Scotland to engaging with other governments to develop ideas and promote solutions to truly global international challenges – around the ethical use of data, the regulation of the technology industry, the application of technology to tackling climate change.  No one country has a monopoly of wisdom, and no one country has all the levers required to respond to what are, in many senses, the defining public policy challenges of our age;

Third, it positions government in Scotland at the heart of an ecosystem – familiar words, I know, to those involve in Digital Leaders – but words that we translate into new ways of working with the commercial market, extending our CivTech incubator to use public sector challenges to stimulate and scale new businesses and working to support the third sector in its own plans for digital transformation;

Finally – and I believe this runs through the whole document – the strategy aims to ensure that everybody benefits from the opportunities that lie ahead.  A focus on inclusive design, on developing digital skills, extending connectivity and tackling the financial barriers to digital inclusion by building on our Connecting Scotland programme to ensure world class levels of digital inclusion.

Our strategy is about enabling our country – the whole of our country – to thrive.  I know you all have many competing demands on you at the moment, but I hope you find something in it that’s useful and would really love to hear any comments you might have.

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The programme pre-dates the GovTech Catalyst programme that Digital Leaders has supported, run by GDS as well as the great programmes run by Dan Korski and his team at Public. We and they have already benefited from the pioneering work that Alexander Holt and Barabra Mills have led alongside others at CivTech supported 100% by Colin Cook and the Digital Scotland team.

CivTech takes problems in public sector organisations and solves them in collaboration with innovative businesses by using systems common in the private tech sector but rare in the public sector. These include open challenges like the current one and also tech accelerators. At CivTech’s heart is an Innovation Flow which culminates in the CivTech Accelerator, when innovative and ambitious teams, selected through an open and easy-to-enter selection process work to solve Challenges public sector organisations have set. Last week’s launch was the start of this process for the first time since Covid-19.

This time CivTech 5.0 has ten Challenges, from a wide range of government directorates and public sector organisations, tackling a wide variety of problems the public sector would like to solve. Of course this time it launches in unprecedented circumstances. But the things that have driven the CivTech team since the very beginning — innovation, digital transformation and economic opportunity – are now perhaps even more important to Scotland’s future.

Challenge Sponsors this time include the Scottish Government itself, the Digital Academy, Transport Scotland, Lantra, Nature Scot and NHS Scotland. And the two near home working Challenges are parts of a much wider work local initiative being delivered by multiple parties and agencies across the nation.

Challenge areas reflect the Scottish economy and include: the future of learning; forestry management; IoT; rural transport; wildlife management; rural skills and learning; environment improvement; and two focus on the highly relevant “near home working”. 

It’s often said that need drives innovation so I would say to all our SME’s and innovators in the Digital Leaders community that this is an opportunity to take a public sector problem and collaboratively build a solution hand-in-hand with a blue-chip customer.

Its your opportunity, when we are all looking for ways to pivot our business, to grow new sources of revenue to build a business and to help public services to become better and more efficient.

You can find more information and take a look at CivTech 5.0 Innovation Flow https://www.civtechalliance.org/civtech-5

I urge you as a digital leader to take part. I also know that if you are interested in running similar programmes for your own area or region that the team at CivTech embrace the Digital Behaviours we encourage of Acting, but then sharing and learning. Good luck and I hope to meet you and your ideas at the 5.0 Demo Day in late January 2021

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On the plus side, there’s an opportunity to drive better services and therefore improved outcomes, shift from reactive to proactive activity and drive operational efficiencies. At the same time, there’s a huge challenge around how you manage and utilise the vast quantity of data constantly being captured.

One of the delegates at the Digital Leaders event, which was hosted by Wigan Council, commented that the biggest issue faced at their council was understanding the data. “We can get thousands of data points, but can’t actually do anything with them, other than see them on a dashboard,” they said.

This is a common theme that we often hear when working with councils. The risk is not the implementation of technology, but rather failing to implement technology correctly so that available data is unusable. With that in mind, how do we feed data in and get better results out?

The answer exists in developing a robust and effective data management and transformation strategy, which is about more than IT. Tech analyst Gartner sums it up well: rather than reacting to wider organisational change, CIOs must position information and technology at the heart of the overall business strategy.

Building the business case

It was clear from the Workshops in Wigan that those organisations leading change are bringing together multiple sources of information. This goes beyond the four walls of the authority to include data from other local organisations, including those in education and the third sector. While this helps bring data together to enable prevention rather than intervention, it can be tough to develop a strong enough business case needed to underpin any strategy.

Consensus amongst delegates was that there’s a need to focus on outcomes, rather than technology, when building a business case. Rather than talking about how data saves money, or IoT gives us this data, we need to be focusing on behavioural change. What are the improved outcomes? How will it improve service delivery and drive efficiencies? The value comes when you use the data and the information. Or, better still, automatically integrate data into service delivery.

Five tips to help build a data management strategy

1. Integrates information in actionable events to drive service process improvement
2. Focus on outcomes, not technology
3. Take a multi-stakeholder approach
4. Change culture is vitally important to ongoing success
5. Embrace collaboration with outside organisations

This leads us nicely onto questions around problem solving. No council in the country needs a network of sensors to tell us what we already know, and if there’s no clear data strategy focusing on what needs to be achieved, the danger with IoT is that you can quickly get swamped with data and never get anywhere.

Therefore, there’s a clear need to identify the problems that need to be solved (or those you would like to solve) before putting the tech in place. Do this and there will be real delivery behind it.

“Our remit is to move from being a reactive council to a proactive one,” one delegate told us in Wigan. “Therefore, we are trying to keep the services focussed on tactical improvements and where real citizen outcomes can be improved the most.”

It was interesting talking to those present at the Digital Leaders event in Wigan to hear how the power of collaboration is paying dividends for some authorities. Newcastle, for example, is enjoying some great success through its Urban Observatory, a Newcastle University led project gathering over 50 data types on everything from flooding to air pollution, traffic flows and even the behaviour of bees so that informed decisions can be made. This project allows different data sets to be overlaid and intertwined, enabling a deeper understanding of behaviour.

If you don’t change the culture, you won’t make the change

The example of collaboration in Newcastle leads us nicely onto another key point in the development of a successful strategy – the need to involve multiple stakeholders and drive a culture of change.

Leaders at the Workshop in Wigan highlighted how they aren’t prepared to wait for their IT function to offer new solutions. Rather, they enable multi-disciplinary teams to identify where new technologies can enable better outcomes for citizens through more effective service design.

Interestingly, it was also agreed during discussions that organisational agility is a driving force behind transformation success – by giving mobile tools to people whose jobs involve remote working, multiple benefits can be delivered to service users.

This highlights how the concept of a “strategy fit for the digital age” is an important step forward from the closed idea of a “digital strategy”, because it allows space for a broader view that encompasses more people at different levels within an organisation, as well as non-technology factors.

Change leaders must shape the overall strategy by placing particular emphasis on how digital technologies are continually changing society, and what opportunities this presents for local government. It’s about senior leaders recognising and understanding the art of the possible, starting with the culture of the organisation. It’s about moving to a culture that can keep pace with constant change, where new ways of working and plenty of collaboration are energising rather than frightening. Above all else, it’s about bringing people on the journey with you, because delivering a strategy fit for the digital age is not something a technology leader can do in isolation.

To conclude, on the one hand we have access to more data than ever before, providing the opportunity to drive proactive service provision and improve citizen outcomes. On the other there’s a danger of being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data available, especially if it remains unstructured. The key to unlocking the true potential of data and information is a data management strategy that integrates this information in actionable events and drives service process improvement. That’s the first and most important step in dealing with the data tsunami.

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Through my role at DCMS leading on the Urban Connected Communities programmes with West Midlands 5G, I was invited to host two sessions on 5G, exploring how 5G can enhance the lives of citizens in city regions. The discussions were wide and varied, reflective of different people’s experience and understanding of 5G, both as a technology and its ability to impact how we think about and design public services.

What I came away with, were three key areas where DCMS and other bodies can best support Local Authorities to enable them to fully realise the potential of 5G in their localities;

1. Upskilling local authorities on how 5G can transform public services

From the delivery of social care, digital health, connected autonomous vehicles, 5G’s higher speeds, low latency and the ability to connect all our IoT devices in real-time. It focusses as much on connecting things as it does people and this distinction is critical to understanding potential applications.

Recently, BT in partnership with West Midlands 5G and University Hospital Birmingham demonstrated the potential for 5G connected ambulances, bringing together virtual and augmented reality along with haptic wearables. Through a VR headset, the clinician can view a high-definition feed enables the to visualise in real-time what the paramedic is seeing, and direct them through the haptic glove. 

Though the understanding of the technology varied, the three key benefits of higher internet speeds, low latency and the ability to connect more devices to the network were generally well understood. However, it highlighted a need for more upskilling across local authorities to ensure that more of them are aware of and champion the possibilities that 5G offers their cities and citizens.

2. Understanding the value of local authority assets

4G networks could space masts up to 10 miles apart, whereas for 5G, the millimetre wave frequencies mean transmission distances can be as little as a few hundred metres. This necessitates a much denser network of masts and cells, particularly in cities as 5G can be blocked by trees and other objects. Local authorities are suddenly finding themselves key players in the collaborative ecosystem that will need to evolve to enable and accelerate the deployment of 5G infrastructure in cities. This is exactly the problem that the Infrastructure Acceleration team has been busying themselves with over the last year. Part of West Midlands 5G, the body set up to administer the £25m Urban Connected Communities programme. They’re building a map of all local authority and public sector assets (think buildings, lamp posts, traffic lights, etc)  in the West Midlands, adding in other data sets such as fibre cabinets, and developing a consistent streamlined methodology across the region to help MNOs and local authorities engage constructively in developing planning applications and compensation plans.

Connected Places Catapult’s 5G Action Learning Network is seeking to support local authorities to realise and leverage the value of their assets in develop neutral host networks for 5G. The idea being that the costs of infrastructure deployment are best overcome by a neutral party, in this case the local authority, building and operating a small cell network which participating MNOs can all share. The potential is for infrastructure deployment to be accelerated and at lower overall cost, with

the local authority earning a continuous licensing fee. A win for the local authority, and the MNOs.

3. Positive community engagement

Whilst 5G has the potential to have a significant positive impact on people’s lives, its benefits are at a citizen and community level, often being over-shadowed by concerns over the potential impact to health. Public Health England’s guidance on 5G, and Ofcom‘s recent tests showing that the UK’s 5G network network is well within safety limits, have demonstrated that there should be no consequences for public health, and that they will continue to monitor this as the technology develops and scales. This however hasn’t stopped a flood of enquiries across local authorities from concerned local citizens seeking more information about the potential health effects, with one local authority having to address a co-ordinated campaign seeking to have the technology banned. Local authorities are in need of positive examples of where 5G has been trialled and tested in towns and cities across the UK to point to the benefits that this new technology can bring to citizens. DCMS’s six Phase 1 testbeds, announced in 2018 are examples of just that. As these projects come to an end, UK5G will be disseminating their results.

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Cities are becoming smarter than ever before, with a plethora of startups looking to transform how we interact with our urban spaces. The rise of the smart city, however, poses a new and difficult problem for governments: as more services move online, and the nature of those services becomes increasingly complex, they risk becoming inaccessible to large groups of the population. A diverse group of European startups are working to tackle this problem by developing solutions to make smart cities work for all inhabitants, regardless of their accessibility needs.

‘Smarter’ does not always mean easier

Cities are increasingly incorporating digital innovations to make their urban centres smarter, with the aim of improving the well-being of their inhabitants. Case studies like this are common across European cities, from the municipality of Albertslund, in Denmark, using smart sensors to optimise the collection and route planning of waste; to the city of Athens using Novoville, a citizen engagement platform, to let its citizens access a number of key local services.

However, the technologies that are becoming increasingly integrated into our cities can make life in the city more difficult for some population cohorts. In particular, many innovations that are supposed to make cities smarter are not sufficiently accessible to those with disabilities.  For example, the digital platforms and apps that are increasingly used to allow citizens to directly communicate with municipality officials are often not accessible to those who cannot access (touch) screens, such as people living with physical or visual impairment. The increased presence of screens and buttons in the built environment also frequently creates accessibility challenges. In fact, research by the SmartCities4All initiative found that  60% of global experts confirm that smart cities are failing disabled people.

Moreover, new smart city solutions are often not focused on improving the quality of life of those with additional needs: despite 15% of the world population having some form of disability. The same SmartCities4All research found that 96% of ongoing digital development projects worldwide do not even mention people with disabilities.

A new market and a big opportunity

A collection of startups are working to solve this problem, and make cities smarter for those with disabilities. Not only are they focused on making existing technologies accessible, a collection of startups is also working to develop solutions to improve city life, specifically for those with additional needs. In making cities more accessible, local businesses and attractions also benefit, given that the consumer spending power of disabled people and their families is around £249bn (€249.6bn) in the UK and €1 trillion world-wide.

Having scouted the European ‘Accessibility Tech’ market, we’ve found three broad categories of startups that are working to make cities more accessible for all their inhabitants: First, there are start-ups that make smart cities and their integrated technologies more accessible. Second, there is a collection of businesses that make using transport and navigating around the city easier for those with disabilities. Finally, there is a category of start-ups that are focused on making visits to shops and venues a better experience for those with accessibility needs.

Making city technologies accessible

Touch screens are used in a range of smart city solutions – from citizen engagement apps, to ticket kiosks to displays providing data collected by smart sensors. However, the information displayed on touch screens is not always accessible to those with visual or physical impairments. German startup Speech Code and Spanish-based Mouse4all are seeking to change this.

Speech Code makes touch screens accessible for those with visual impairments by providing technology that generates a QR-like code that holds the entire content on a given display. Once scanned with the free SpeechCode App, it presents the content – without Internet access – as text and/or in audio format.

Mouse4All provides an app that allows those who cannot the screen by touching it with their hands to command the screen with an alternative input interface suited to one’s physical abilities, such as an adapted mouse, a trackball or joystick.

Buttons, which are also increasingly used on digital kiosks and sensors around the city, pose a problem for those with visual or physical impairments. The Button app, developed by startup Neatebox, helps overcome this challenge by allowing users to press buttons, like those at pedestrian crossings, by using their smartphone.

Transport and navigation

While apps like Google Maps, TripAdvisor and Citymapper have made planning journeys around the city much easier, these platforms are often not as useful for those with additional needs. The standard navigation apps often do not include information about accessibility or when they do it is incomplete or unreliable. When reliable accessibility information is included, it is often in the form of labels like ‘accessible or ‘inaccessible’, which is unhelpful as people’s accessibility needs are diverse.

Apps like SociAbilitiy and AccessAble are aiming to provide an alternative to TripAdvisor and Yelp that do include detailed and reliable accessibility information about shops, restaurants, museums and other venues across cities in the UK and the US.

Meanwhile, CityMaas helps those with disabilities plan their travel to these venues by generating travel routes that include a range of accessible transport modes. If assistance is needed at any or all stages of the journey, the CityMaaS Assist will even help arrange that. Booking is taken care of in-app, and it covers everything from bike hire to the subway.

French startup Wheeliz is aiming to increase the amount of affordable accessible transport available by providing an Uber-style peer-to-peer user adapted car rentals service. Created in 2015, the website offers individual owners of an adapted car the possibility of renting it directly to a wheelchair user who needs it.

Finally, UK startup Wayfindr allows vision impaired individuals to navigate through transport hubs independently by providing auditory navigation cues. The cues are generated from bluetooth beacons placed in the stations which connect to the user’s phone and allow the user to receive the cues via an app.

Visiting shops and venues

Even when businesses or restaurants can be reached by accessible transport, visiting these venues can still pose challenges to those with additional needs. Often, visitors with accessibility requirements receive inadequate customer service due to lack of disability awareness and confidence of staff members.

The Welcome app developed by Neatebox aims to tackle this problem. Businesses can use the app to inform customers of their accessibility features, and users with disabilities can notify venues of their requirements before arrival. When a customer with additional needs notifies the venue of her intention to visit, staff receives information about their specific needs so that they can provide appropriate support once they arrive.

Handiscover provides a similar solution for travel accommodation. Through the platform, consumers can search for and book travel accommodation based on various accessibility needs and communicate their needs with the provider before booking their trip.

Finally, Be My Eyes allows visually impaired individuals to access products, services, and websites by connecting them with sighted volunteers or customer service representatives via live video call. Via the video call users receive visual assistance to navigate around shops, perform tasks and access information. The business model here is especially intriguing: Be My Eyes offers its accessible technology to businesses, who can use an advanced version of the Be My Eyes app to connect their customer service staff with blind and visually impaired individuals. For example, Microsoft uses Be My Eyes to provide blind or visually impaired customers with off-site technical support. Using a B2B model like the one Be My Eyes employs is a smart option for disability tech businesses, as it keeps the prices for the often expensive technology low for disabled users. In addition, when selling one’s products or services, businesses can be easier to reach than disabled individuals as there are pre-existing accessibility barriers that prevent those with disabilities from using the internet, smartphones and visiting venues.

The funding landscape

The disability tech market is still young and VC funding has been relatively low in the last decade. Out of 75 European assistive tech start-ups founded in the last 10 years that we looked at, only 9 had raised a series A round and only 3 had received series B funding.

However, the market has been growing and there is reason to think that it will continue to do so.  According to a Crunchbase analysis, global venture investment in disability tech grew by 133% 2012 and 2017, from €108.6 million to €253.3 million per year. During that same period of time, the number of VC deals grew by 87 percent, from 38 deals struck in 2012 to 71 in 2017.  An increased interest in disability tech can be explained by an increasing awareness that an ageing population means that more people will experience some form of disability during their lifetime.

Governments are beginning to take notice

Governments are also becoming increasingly interested in funding and supporting entrepreneurship in the field of assistive technology. The Canadian government was one of the early movers on this challenge, freeing up €15.3 million euros in 2017 to support innovators and entrepreneurs developing new assistive technologies.

In Europe, we have seen recent moves from cities and local governments to introduce new accessibility initiatives and programmes. For example, the German cities of Dortmund, Duisburg and Arnsberg secured €1.4 million in  funding from the European Regional Development Fund to trial and implement assistive technologies to support independent living over the 2016-2019 period. The Netherlands is also exploring how to increase the implementation of assistive technologies, but with a focus on employment. In 2018, the UWV (the Dutch Employee Insurance Agency) commissioned by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, provided grants worth €300,000 for businesses and innovators to trial the use of assistive technologies to improve employee well-being.

Multiple local UK governments and cities have explored how they can develop assistive technologies for local services over the past six months. Notably, in September 2019, The East London Inclusive Enterprise Zone, which is a £1.2 million (€1.4 million) project aimed at incubating and accelerating accessible innovation enterprises, was launched as the result of a collaboration between the Greater London Authority, Hackney Council, several London universities and non-profit organisations. More recently, there have been similar moves in specific sectors, from healthcare to education. Northamptonshire County Council is currently tendering for enterprises to be part of an assistive technology framework aimed at technologies that support independent living at home. In addition, the Department for Education is looking for a delivery partner for an edtech assistive technology testbed programme. 

One start-up that stands out for its collaboration with the UK government is Wayfindr. The navigation system for the vision impaired was awarded funding through the Transport Technology Research Innovation Grant and was given permission to trial its navigation tool on the London Underground at Euston and Pimlico station. Both of these trials have been a success and the start-up has been starting to roll out its technology in the US, while also implementing further trials to see how its technology can be used in different settings like hospitals and airports.

This blog was originally published here.

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Complexity in building digital capabilities in the government sector

There are 408 principal (unitary, upper and second tier) councils in the UK – 26 county councils, 192 district councils, and 190 unitary councils, and there are 343 councils in England.

All councils are facing the same challenge: how to prepare the right capabilities for digital economy. 

On the 12th of February, I was asked to facilitate a discussion in the Digital Leaders workshop in Wigan, where participants from councils like Manchester (GMAC), Wigan, Leeds, Sunderland, Suffolk, Cardiff, Newcastle and Bristol took part in an active debate about skills and training needs in the new digital economy.

As digital services become more commonplace in our everyday lives, councils are facing many challenges. Some of the underlying facts are that people are more mobile and can more freely choose where to live and where to work. Trade is moving online, which has a huge impact on local economies. These trends put pressure on rethinking the funding model of the councils’ service production and delivery. As the central government funding for the councils is declining on average ten per cent every three years, funds need to be allocated with good focus. Digitalisation can help achieving cost advantages while allowing better service production and delivery.  

“When we look at the 750+ services our councils are providing, we see a huge pressure on rethinking the way we deliver obligatory services and choose which optional services we can produce”, said one of the participants. “How we deliver these services is key, and digitalisation offers many options and tools to do things better”, continued another participant. 

The structure of the discussions

To get most out of the discussion about capabilities, the two groups I facilitated focused on slightly different sub-topics: building capabilities, deploying and using new capabilities as well as programs which can enhance the impact and uptake and build a better and more sustainable future for people, businesses and enabling council. 

Building and continuously improving capabilities

With our first table of participants we had a lively discussion about building capabilities, about necessary skills and training, and the mindset, which may sometimes require a paradigm shift. 

In the analog world, service delivery could be defined week one and delivered the next week over the counter. In the digital world, more effort is required in the initial phase. 

1. Describing individual services comes first. The key question is: ‘What are we doing and for whom?’
2. Documenting these services, their objectives and audience in the digital world is paramount. They form the basis of “needs”. Needs based analysis shed light on whether the options of various processes and systems can deliver the desired outcomes. 
3. Thirdly, the processes describing how the services are delivered require detailed attention. This initial work may already require breaking down silos which may currently exist in council organisations. But this work is crucial for ensuring that processes work.
4. Processes are supported by systems. All systems have features and functionalities based on needs and requirements, which need to be defined. Non-functional requirements like 24/7 availability, accessibility of systems, and desired time from starting a request to receiving a service can be based on current law (for example: how fast should a person get medical aid), or internally defined delivery objectives, like the maximum time for getting a response to a general enquiry. 
5. Features and functionalities are defined keeping the above in mind. To design the right features and functionalities, a list of additional requirements is drawn from understanding the underlying needs.
6. Selecting systems for digital service delivery may be simple or complex. The complexity depends on the desired outcome. Previously prepared service descriptions, processes and needs assessment help choose the systems which can deliver desired outcomes.
7. Systems themselves can be autonomous. But focusing on the outcomes helps understand the level of interaction between the systems. In large enterprises solution areas, combining several systems focusing on the shared outcomes, are be formed to manage complexity. 
8. To close the loop, outcomes need to be monitored and analysed in order to continuously improve processes and systems capabilities. Generally, this is done on process and solution level and cascaded down to the individual systems and processes they support. 

When it comes to skills and skill sets, this type of new environment requires new skills in the local government. As one of the participants explained; “it is hard to come by the skills which are needed to build (aforementioned) digital capabilities.” “The skills required to make an informed decision requires multidisciplinary teams and we don’t have all of these skills always available,” continued another participant. 

Today many projects fail due to the lack of disciplines which are required for successful outcomes. 

Disciplines such as social sciences, psychology, and user action design, user experience design, systems engineering and process engineering are disciplines not often seen in councils’ job announcement boards. However, these skills and roles are essential in council organisations as the hardest job in creating the digital world is to define what it should look like, feel like and result in.  It is not always cost-effective to outsource these tasks, as the work is never over. The digital world is all about re-iteration, continuous improvement and optimisation. It is all about feedback loops, delivering services better over time – and, “hopefully more effectively and efficiently gaining more empowered and satisfied citizens”, like one of our participants put it.    

One of the members added in the end of the discussion; “nobody cares what’s under the hood – people just want services that work.” And this requires a lot of pre-work.

Utilising services and interacting with councils

On the flip side of producing and delivering services are the customers. The aim is naturally to fulfil law stipulated requirements, but also to ensure that people are comfortable when utilising new digital channels. 

Wigan council’s ‘Big Listening Project’ is a case to the point. Instead of trying to come up with answers alone, the project was set up for listening to what people have to say. More than 10 000 ideas were obtained e.g. from one-2-one discussions. The insight helped the council define their digital mission as “Harness the power of digital to improve people’s opportunities and prepare for the future”, taking into account the people’s varied levels of knowledge of the digital world. The guiding principle was coined into the statement: “Consider our digital agenda whatever we do”.

“More than 12% of our people have never used internet, and a high percentage of our people do not have data access home or on their mobile phones,” explained one of the group participants.  

“Many new digital channels may also pose challenges to hearing and vision impaired. We have to have readiness to serve these audiences as well. Technology can help”, said one of the participants.

Designing digital services based on the lowest common denominator usually results in services that everyone can access and use. This might sub optimize some of the outcome’s objectives, but it is a necessary consideration that councils can’t afford to lose their sight on. The services really are for everyone. 

What to consider when setting your ‘digital-first agenda’ 

In the second group we discussed “digital life-skills”, and how to improve and up-skill people, and what type of activities and programs can help achieve more digitally savvy communities. 

Digital access

Sometimes we need to start from the beginning. Several members explained that actions like organising digi-courses, handing out tablets and computers as loan devices, and offering free Wi-Fi had been effective ways to familiarise people with new digital services and technologies. Understanding that the digital world requires investments – and investment support on individual level was seen as an important factor to get people to use digital services. 

Digital literacy

Digital Eagles by Barclays was mentioned by some as exemplary work towards improving digital literacy in communities. Many councils also offer free courses and deep dives ranging from using the internet browsers to learning how to code. These types of activities are an important part of the digital agenda and increase the inclusiveness and participation of everyone.  

Skills & educational strategy

One mentioned area of disconnect was between the general education system and the needs of the local areas, and enterprises. “Education strategies and national curriculum could better reflect the needs of the local enterprises, and we have many tools at our disposal,” explained one participant. “The problem is sometimes connecting insights from local enterprises with educational institutes implementing the curricula,” continued another member. Collaboration would help create future skills pools, where people and future jobs are better connected. In the GMCA area, media, aviation and space technology, and biosciences were mentioned as examples. 

All discussion members agreed that on-the-job learning, shadowing, face2face learning, and internships were important elements of the education-mix to build future skill pools. Too few opportunities are still offered to satisfy the youngsters’ hunger for knowledge. 

The idea that local enterprises and schools (with council) could also do a lot together to support the young, got unanimous support. For example, offering portals on education and career advice was mentioned as one, where people could see what education options would unlock what jobs. “It is not always clear (for the young) that early choices in A-levels may unlock or block future education options”, explained one participant. 

The whole table also agreed that as many future jobs don’t even exist today, it is sometimes challenging to provide help and assistance for future education and career options and opportunities.

Digital principles

“As user demographics vary, anything we do we need to co-design with people”, said one of the members, continuing that “people should always know what data and information is collected and why. This is not always happening, and people are wary of giving their personal details to different services.” NHS services were mentioned as one area where people are still reluctant to use digital services – as not enough information is provided on who can access the data and how. 

One member stated “it would be prudent to give people a full access to their own data; whatever data is collected and stored of them”  – a service the central or local government could provide in the future, the idea being that access to one’s own data would potentially foster more trust and uptake of different services. 

In summary, building capabilities for the digital transformation requires a holistic approach in the way services are designed, developed and delivered, in how people are included in the process, and in ensuring trust, openness and transparency. Ensuring everyone can take part, be engaged in building a better future together requires a pro-active approach in up-skilling people – so that nobody is left behind. 

More on the Cities Programme

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Some recent news suggests that the local public sector may also need to be more careful, not just about their own use of people’s data, but about what goes on around them. Recently, research by the anonymising web browser Brave reported that users of services on council websites were being tracked. That is, their use of specific council services was being tracked – by a range of companies they would not recognise, for purposes they would not know of. Or, very likely, be comfortable with.

In some way, this just doesn’t feel right.

People – citizens – have established legal rights in the places where they live, and then they have a much looser set of (mostly reasonable and familiar) expectations. Users of local public services have certain more specific data rights, and on top of that, additional expectations about their experience as users.

By and large, providers of local public services design digital services in the hope that those will improve that experience for users, and perhaps ultimately even raise their expectations. This often isn’t easy to achieve in practice, at least for all or nearly all users, and not first time around. Happily, digital services also lend themselves to improvement.

But while digital services allow successive improvements – targeting services better, joining up datasets from different areas of service – they can also make possible more uses of data, that most of us probably feel are not within reasonable expectations.

Data protection laws require definite duties and protections of personal data, but in this case it feels as though we need something more than data protection rules alone. It feels as though we should be able to expect a positive aspiration to a wider “safe space” for people who use public services.

That was the latest bad news, but there are positives to balance reports of misuse of data.

For individual consumers, more and more services are emerging that help exercise control over our data rights. The Mine app, for instance, helps users find out what the internet knows about them and helps them get a grip on their digital footprint.

Even the tech majors are responding to concerns. Apple and Android have both released software updates that reduce default background tracking of users’ locations.

And when it comes to the ways data could be used in the wider public interest, there are promising developments.  Nesta has published a report summarising what the DECODE project has done to make a “data commons” work in practice. This follows on from work by the Open Data Institute and others on “data trust” mechanisms to gain the benefits of combining datasets securely and for common benefits.

The Nesta report has a lot of interesting recommendations, but the ones I find most interesting are at city-level and propose various ways of involving citizens actively in developing terms, norms and ethical standards. This feels like where we need to go: shared values and practices developed together.

More on the Cities Programme

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Although news of Europe’s ‘refugee crisis’ no longer dominates the headlines, refugees and asylum-seekers continue to face significant challenges long after resettlement.

Cities are leading the way in inclusive innovation

What still needs to be done

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Meet Jane

Meet Patricia and Jeff

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