A short note written during a pause from packing bags ahead of a few days away.

Sharing our digital thinking with councillors

On Friday the Mayor and I co-delivered a talk and Q&A about Hackney’s digital journey at a ‘digital masterclass’ event for councillors from across the country, organised by the Local Government Association. It was the second time we’ve done this and I found it interesting to talk about digital from the perspective of both an elected Mayor and a Council officer.

Some of the key things we talked about included:

• ‘Digital’ is an important lever of change, not just e-forms. We shared how projects like Spacebank and our work on connectivity are using public assets to help our communities. And we also talked about how technology and data are helping support people at risk of homelessness.
• Growing digital skills is about changing the market, not just competing. The councillors at the event were really interested in our digital apprenticeship programme and we encouraged them to be bold in their approach to this (and also shared Cate’s excellent ‘How to HackIT’ guide).
• Why not having a separate ‘digital strategy’ is important, so that technology and data are recognised as being core components of service strategies, not sidelined as a ‘techie’ thing.
• The importance of focusing on end-to-end services, making sure that our measures, policies and processes don’t create unhelpful barriers, friction and unintended problems for our users.
• How designing governance to enable delivery at pace means that we need to challenge many of our existing habits. As part of this I noted how much more useful I find project weeknotes and show & tells than traditional highlight reports and project boards.
• And we also reflected on how important it is to take a long-term view, recognising that the work we’re doing now is only made possible by the hard work that was put in over previous years to get the basics of our service model and infrastructure right.

I also…

• Joined the NHS London digital transformation portfolio board for the first time. There were quite a few faces I recognised on the group and I continue to be impressed at the hard work that’s taking place across our region to join up health and care data. I suggested that we might want to consider whether we’re making sufficient space in the agenda for looking at ways we might understand end-users’ needs and explore new ideas (I think there is lots of opportunity to build on the work that’s already taking place to #fixtheplumbing and am keen to see how the approaches we’re taking in HackIT might help with this).
• Had a couple of useful DMT sessions looking at some of the OKRs we’re focusing on, including getting an update from Henry on the engagement that he’s leading with the finance systems and HLT ICT teams as part of the work we’re doing to integrate our teams.
• Had a quick catch up with Jenny from Finance to check in on our budget forecast for the year. This is much improved from ten months ago and reflects the hard work that’s taken place across our team to make sure that we’re managing our money well.
• Had my regular 221 meeting with the Mayor and Ian (my boss). I talked through the work we’re doing to design MOKRs to organise our work, gave some updates on the progress across the work we’re delivering and also a summary of on our service performance and user satisfaction feedback. It was also good to have Susan join us as part of some shadowing we’ve arranged.
• Had my last swimming lesson. I’ve found this really useful and might do a further series later in the year. I’m also wondering whether I can be inspired by Cate’s example and do some early morning swims at London Fields Lido…

Something I’m learning

This weekend I was amused by this small example of data security that hasn’t been thought through very well. This large retailer appears to code the price of their ‘sold by weight’ food into the barcode for each pack, in plain text. I didn’t take advantage of it, but simply choosing the ‘key in code’ option at the self-service tills and then changing characters 9 to 12 in the barcode lets you name your own price!

I thought it was a useful reminder of how an approach that might initially appear to be an easy way to get something done can leave a business exposed to risk.

(I’m taking a break this week, so my next weeknote will arrive in w/c 2 March)

Getting together with peers

On Friday, Matthew and I joined a group of great people from several councils to compare notes from our digital journeys, share the challenges we’re grappling with and think about ways we can support one another. The idea for the meet up was sparked by Paul Brewer at Adur & Worthing and the group represented councils stretching from the Channel coast up to the northern borders.

I won’t try to outdo Paul’s excellent write up of the conversation and that areas that we plan to focus on moving forward. I highly recommend taking a few minutes to read that here: https://medium.com/@pdbrewer/we-made-a-local-gov-cdo-group-4f87932bd34b.

Making sure that we continue to recruit and develop a great team

At Thursday’s HackIT strategy show & tell I talked about the work we’re doing to update the market supplements that we use to make sure that we are continuing to develop a great team in HackIT. We want roles in our team to be opportunities to:

• Make a real difference for our residents
• Develop your skills and career
• Work in an energetic and ambitious team, and be involved in fun, exciting and rewarding work
• Meet smart and creative people and learn together
• Be competitively paid

The slides I talked through explain how we’ve approached this and how we are making sure that the update to our benchmarking is effective: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ryOYucmuScCo09EuDmX91Zd3ElBkM40FiWCZcLla0GE. Do please let me know if you’d like to find time to talk through any questions you have about this.

I also…

• Joined Henry and David (our Director of Housing) for our ‘Digital quarterly’ meeting with the Mayor, Cllr McKenzie and Cllr Nicholson. Our discussion focused on the progress that’s being made with the digital connectivity work which Henry summarised in his weeknote last week. I’m excited by this work because it’s a real opportunity for Hackney to use assets that the Council owns to encourage new connectivity providers into our borough and address the shortcomings of existing provision – which is a source of significant frustration for many of our residents.
• Caught up with Lucy and a colleague in our Public Health team to learn more about the work they’re doing to use data to help improve the health and wellbeing of residents of the City and Hackney.
• Had a good catch up with Lucy and Sarah, our Director of Children’s and Families Services, to talk through ways that we might help develop our support for the service.
• Went to the Senior Managers Network meeting, where we heard from Tim (our Chief Exec) about the work he’s doing to review the Council’s senior management arrangements following the recent voluntary redundancy scheme and also an update on the work that’s taking place to promote Hackney as a great place to work and develop your career.
• Was pleased with the pace that’s developing with the integration of the Hackney Learning Trust ICT team and the HackIT team. This week Bertie (HLT’s Head of ICT) joined us at our HackIT DMT meeting and I went along to the first meeting of the Education Change Programme Board, where we checked on progress across the programme of work that’s taking place to bring finance and ICT support for education in Hackney closer to the Council’s core services.

Something I’m learning

I’m taking a few days off over half term. I’m trying to decide how best to fix my backlog of stuff ahead of that – which is going to take some fairly ruthless prioritisation….!

Learning more about our support for people at risk of homelessness

In last week’s note I wrote about the rough sleeper count that I took part in the previous week. To follow that up, on Wednesday I joined nine other colleagues for a ‘meet the service’ day where we were taken through other areas of the work that colleagues in the Benefits & Housing Needs service do. It’s awesome that the service makes the time to do this – the main purpose being to help colleagues from across other Council services think about how their teams’ work can contribute towards reducing the risk of people becoming homeless in Hackney.

We learned that Hackney is very unusual in having brought benefits and housing needs together in a single team. This makes it easier for the teams to work in an integrated way and we were given lots of examples of how they are able to work with residents to help them manage debt and guide them towards support such as financial advice, employment support and health services. As with the colleagues I met when I joined the rough sleeper count, I was impressed by the compassion that the team showed for the people they support, even when it isn’t easy for them to meet their needs.

Something that stuck with me is how long term ‘temporary accommodation’ often is. It’s not unusual for individuals and families to be in temporary housing for ten years or more, and from visiting one of our hostels as part of the day it was evident that this is far from a low cost or comfortable option for those people. Many areas of London have seen big increases in the cost of housing and reduced availability of social housing, but the dramatic changes in Hackney’s rental market mean that there are also very few affordable rented options available through private landlords, so the team have to work incredibly hard to find suitable accommodation and there is often a very long wait. Sometimes families are offered homes outside of London, but this can be very difficult for them given family ties, school places and work in Hackney. The day gave me a really valuable insight into the team’s work and respect for what they do at the sharp end of many of society’s most challenging issues.

I’m pleased that our teams in HackIT have been working with the Benefits & Housing Needs service to help them with this important work. Our work together in preparing for the introduction of the Homelessness Reduction Act a couple of years ago was an important first step, which has made the process of assessing people’s needs much more efficient and compassionate. And this is now being taken further through the service redesign work that is being delivered in partnership with FutureGov and Made Tech. Projects such as Single View are already showing real promise, helping to reduce the time it takes to look up information across multiple systems by 10 – 25 minutes per case.

LOTI update

I finished the week by joining other CIOs from the LOTI councils for our regular LOTI member meeting. I thought that this was the best meeting yet, with a good showing from across the councils. It was also great to have new faces joining the team, with Kit and Steve who have recently started as the technology and data leads for Greenwich and Kingston | Sutton coming to their first LOTI meeting. We covered a range of topics including data analytics projects, getting the most out of our supplier relationships and reflecting on what LOTI will have achieved when it reaches its first anniversary in the summer. 

You can read more about the things we covered in the latest weeknote from the LOTI team here: https://medium.com/loti/loti-weeknote-27-d382ab23b05d.

I also…

• Had a good planning meeting with Katharine, Mac, Nick and Tom, making sure that we’re well prepared for the quarterly Information Governance Group meeting which is due in a few weeks time.
• Was very impressed with the progress that Tony has made working with finance colleagues to make sure that the Print Unit is in a sustainable financial position. What had been reported as a significant shortfall at the start of the year is now a balanced budget and Tony’s identified several good ideas for ways we can develop the service further and continue to provide high quality, good value print services for Hackney.
• Went with Lucy and Meg to join the regular ‘IT enabler’ board meeting, where we reviewed the progress of the technology and data elements of health and social care integration across the City and Hackney.
• Chaired the Council’s corporate resilience group, which was a useful opportunity to reflect on the reviews of the Council’s responses to a couple of recent major incidents (a fire and a major flood). Teams from across the Council’s services did a great job responding to the incidents, making sure that residents were supported and keeping focus on the longer term recovery work. It was encouraging to see how the Council is able to make a difference for our local community.
• Had a really good meeting with Kit, Cate and Eddie at the start of the day on Friday, talking through ways that we could link up OneTeamGov and LOTI as part of building the community of people working to transform local public services in London.
• Felt like I had a mini-breakthrough in my swimming lesson when there was a moment when it actually felt like my limbs were working together to move me through the water with reasonable grace. This might not have been apparent to anyone watching, but I felt encouraged nonetheless.

Something I’m learning

On Tuesday night I relearned how to change tyres on a bike (it’s a very long time since I last did that). I was pleased to find that I managed to remember how to do it and even more pleased to find that my wheels stayed on and the tyres stayed inflated when I rode to work the next morning. I’m now hoping that the new tyres will be more robust and I don’t have a repeat of last Monday morning’s puncture…