Welcome to Digital Directions, a new LGA podcast where you’ll hear directly from the people leading and delivering transformation in local government. We have candid conversations with sector leaders, experts and thinkers, digging deeper into their experiences, learning and achievements.
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Episode 7: Building a cyber resilient culture
In this episode of Digital Directions, we focus on building a cyber resilient culture. Joined by Gloucester City Council’s Managing Director, Jon McGinty, and Public Digital’s Non-Executive Director, Rob Miller, we explore some lessons learned from cyber incidents. We discuss the changing nature of attacks, what preparedness can look like and how leaders can ensure organisations are secure by design.
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What does a truly digitally enabled council really look like? In this episode, we go beyond the buzzwords with two of the sector's leading voices: Catherine Howe (Chief Executive, Adur & Worthing) and Kit Collingwood (Chief Digital Officer, Royal Borough of Greenwich). Discover how they view digital as a foundational mindset for reimagining public services.
In this episode, we discuss that leadership and culture are the real engines of transformation. This series features candid conversations with the people leading and delivering change, and this episode gets to the heart of how to create an environment where innovation can flourish.
In this episode of Digital Directions, a panel of experts explores user centred design (UCD) as the essential link between strategy and delivery. The discussion covers hands on techniques for improving services, overcoming cultural barriers, and shares insights from the LGA's research on the Government Service Standard, providing actionable advice for any council looking to build services that genuinely work for residents.
This episode of Digital Directions provides a candid look at laying the essential technology foundations for long term resilience, agility, and innovation.
In this episode of Digital Directions we explore the question ‘How can we ensure the digital world includes everyone’. While this is core challenge for residents, the conversation also turns inward, examining how can councils deliver a digital-first service to the public if staff aren’t digitally included?
In this special episode, guests including Rt Hon Ian Murray MP, Minister for Digital Government and Data, joins us to mark the launch of GDS Local, signalling a major new era of collaboration between central and local government. We unpack how this initiative will extend central resources to councils to help fix legacy markets, upskill the workforce, and deliver next-generation public services.
In the latest episode of Digital Directions: What next for councils? we explore how councils are transforming communities through place-based digital and data activity. Host Lisa Trickey is joined by three leaders from Cheshire West and Chester, Tewkesbury and Luton share practical insights on leadership, culture and impact. A reminder that digital transformation isn’t about systems, it’s about people:
- Simone Thomas, Data Insights Lead, Cheshire West and Chester Council
- Claire Evans, Director for Transformation, Tewkesbury Borough Council
- Atika Mohammed, Director for Digital, Data and Technology, Luton Borough Council.
In this episode of Digital Directions, we focus on building a cyber resilient culture. Joined by Gloucester City Council’s Managing Director, Jon McGinty, and Public Digital’s Non-Executive Director, Rob Miller, we explore some lessons learned from cyber incidents. We discuss the changing nature of attacks, what preparedness can look like and how leaders can ensure organisations are secure by design.
Podcast transcripts
Lisa Trickey: Welcome everyone to our local government podcast, Digital Directions. What next for councils? This episode is focused on digital transformation and what we really mean by digitally enabled councils that serve digitally empowered communities. What might that modern council look and how do we create it?
Today I've got two fantastic guests, Catherine Howe, chief Executive of ADA Worthing, soon to be at Dorsett Council and Kit Collingwood, chief Digital Officer at Royal Borough of Greenwich. Thank you so much for joining us today. So we've been talking about kind of digital transformation in the sector for what feels over a decade, and it's definitely evolved in over that time.
But the last five years probably in particular, the sector has been impacted by pace of change, perhaps more complex societal issues. Global events, technological advancements. We can't be in a conversation without AI being mentioned, but yet actually we've got things quantum computing on the horizon.
So technology is going to continue to change and evolve as well. The start of the year saw the government set out, its. Digital vision in the blueprint for modern digital government, which actually references local government 29 times. And I think digital transformation isn't really an option for organisations anymore.
Even the old steam railway endorser here has now recently connected to the internet in order to take cashless payments. So I am really interested to know how do you describe and position digital transformation at your council? So ki are you happy to kick us off?
Kit Collingwood:
So I mean, we can talk about digital transformation in a, in a number of ways, but if I kind of o open the conversation by saying, I think it's the, the model and the mindset that we use to create the best possible council and the best services using digital data and technology. I think at the moment that has to be contextualised with the context that you've given Lisa.
And also things MTFS pressures and that bring kind of unique context to now. , from my point of view, that increases both the opportunity, , and the pressure to use digital ways of working in kind of ever more. Imaginative and collaborative ways, and then how we break that down. Every council does it different, but I think it's everything from investing in the actual technology itself to digital skills, digital leadership, and ultimately, I think the goal is to redesign and reimagine how we do business on mastery.
Catherine Howe: Yeah, so, so I'm sort, I'd sort of pick up where, where Kit left off there. cause I really, I really agree, but I think it's this point about re-imagination is that after a long time spent arguing digital onto the agenda, it's actually, it's all about how you are re-imagining and creating stuff that feels modern and relevant.
Because if, if we are not doing that right now, we are not facing into the right challenges for our communities. So for me, digital transformation is a strand of an overall focus on how you reimagine public services for the now and for the next 50 years. , particularly reflecting on the, the need to do that at pace, given the various pressures that sit around us.
We've got responsibilities to our communities to be relevant and that's the priority for me. Have
Lisa Trickey: you got any examples that you can share around sort of transformation in your council that you are particularly proud of?
Catherine Howe: So I'm going to, if I get into it a little bit and then and then hand to ki because she'll have loads of really impressive. I love the stuff that Kit's been doing.
We're too small councils down on the, on the south coast with considerable pressures. And Worthing, , has, has got exceptional funding support. So, I, I say that for the context of that this is not a, this, this is not about, so you have the money, therefore you can do it. This is about the fact that the, the digital transformation work for us is absolutely foundational.
Not something that happens on the side, so, so when we realised the scale of some of the challenges that we had and also the opportunity in front of us, we've done a kind of a full stack redesign of the organisation looking at people at process, at governance, at systems, at assets that we've looked, we've looked everywhere.
And so I suppose the thing that I'm really proud about, if I think about it from a digital perspective, is two things. One is that we've designed digital roles in at the start of each design process. So in every service design, the first question is, what are the digital roles that are going to underpin this?
Where is your systems administrator? Where's your product owner? Who's going to look after the data? I think that's quite as assertive, such aggressive in the change space, but it set a certain expectation with our teams, but it's also set the teams up for success. And while that was really painful because I was asking people to make choices between roles that they understood and roles that they didn't understand, as it starts to cut up, get up and running.
It really is making a difference. The second thing I think, and there's loads of examples about this, is about where we, we split our roadmaps into three. So we've got kind of big old enterprise technology things, which are kind of , which are a necessary evil in every organisation. We can come back to the evil later if you .
Then you've got things that you really do need digital specialists to do, and then you've got things that those new roles of product homes and systems administrators can drive a systems road a, a digital roadmap from the point of view of the service. And what I'm really proud of is to start to see that happening and with really good use of low code and also currently with quite enthusiastic experimentation and, and just discovery around what AI can do for us.
We are a Google House. So that's, that's Gemini. Is that what you start to feel is a sense of rising digital confidence, which then as we do a skills conversation, you've got people who want to learn because what we're not doing is saying, you must learn this. We're not saying here is the, , here is something we're going to do to you.
We're being really participant about it and we're supporting people to be led by their curiosity and all of those things together really reset the organisation in quite a different way. And while we are very, very early in a lot of that journey and other people have done more impressive stuff. I feel really confident that we've put that kind of digital mindset right the way through the organisation.
It's not perfect yet, but it's absolutely wired all the way through, and that's the brilliant foundation to build on.
Lisa Trickey: So really focusing on that kind of ways of working and effective team working. And Kit, I've heard you talk about curiosity as well, so it's interesting that you're, you both use that.
Kit Collingwood: Yeah, absolutely.
And I think, I mean if I give a completely different example then, 'because I think that example really nails the internal factors that you need to do whole scale change. I know overwhelmingly, I think Catherine, I would probably agree that there's something about. Around your exec board where you've got to go in shoulder to shoulder to any of this change stuff.
cause it does incur considerable, , risk and turbulence for an organisation. You can't have your digital team do it at the organisation. So that is, that's just a fantastic example and, and probably the best across the sector. , if I give a, a different example, , I think one of the things I'm really proud of as of the last couple years is our assistive Technology Enable care program, which now we've now got a different acronym for it.
So Digital health and care we call it now. . What that the, the vision we have for that, which we've now implemented and it's now a service, is to make technology be absolutely the new normal as part of our health, health and care services. So that looks providing devices into people's homes and eventually into care settings to help them stay better, more independently surrounded by their family and friends and loved ones for as long as possible.
And what that looks is that point at your assessed for care and then for certain health needs and more as we grow. , we can put devices, technology, , and software in with you that help you stay well, stay independent. , so a range of sensors, alarms, wearables, prompts, video calling devices. , the reason this is so profound from my point of view is a few things I.
I'm really proud of the fact that it's integrated. So it's the NHS and the council working together, which is, it's no mean feat to do that. And things shared funding models are, , that's a, a real trick to pull off. And the fact that, that we are both financially in that service means something for how people work, and that's really profound.
The second thing that's profound is it wasn't a pilot. So that is the new normal. That's now, it's just a service. It's just part of our health and social care regime. , and that means that there's no going back. And it means that there's a new opportunity for creativity and conversation with residents.
, so currently between social workers, occupational therapists and carers and the people they're working with, and then soon nurses and doctors. So that, that's really, , amazing as well. And then, , the third thing is. , data basically, if I were to sum it up. So what is the potential of understanding, , how people are doing from those devices with their consent of course.
And then what does that mean for our ability to be able to, , working in more preventative ways in our communities? , that has been, , two to three years in the making, but it's testament to what can happen if you just don't back out of a vision. And it's also testament to what. Can happen if you have great health and social care leadership and hopefully good di digital leadership and the trust of that in-house team.
Oh, and the, sorry. There's one thing I should add to that. It pays back, it's got return on investment and that is sort of miraculous to me, and it, it kind of, I'll stop talking now, but it speaks to a point which is I think that digital is one of the last levers we can pull where you can make services better and cheaper.
There aren't many of those left and , I, I think digital is the last big one that we haven't leveraged properly.
Catherine Howe: I, I just want, I, I can firstly, I love that example. , but, and there's a few things that I really want to pick on that, that last point about it is the last big lever. You can make things cheaper and much better, and people need to understand that.
The second thing that you said, which was the kind of the no piloting, this is the new normal. Super important is that, , we don't need to, nobody needs to test this stuff anymore. This is about how do you get the design right for you? Test, iterate, learn deli, deliver. And I think that thing about the kind of the confidence of the vision is really important in it.
But that thing about you, , you and I Kit and I think probably Lisa as well, we've all experienced that arguing digital in feeling. And I think what we're talking about is what happens if you assume digital works and then you figure out what to do with it. And I think that's the, that's an important lesson, I think the leadership teams to learn.
Lisa Trickey: Absolutely. It's very rare that we're on the cutting edge of anything new, isn't it? In this space. I also particularly that holding your vision as well. This stuff takes time, doesn't it? To truly embed into organisations. So really important to maintain that. , we're always, I guess, trying to learn from other people, so other things that you are seeing elsewhere in the sector that's inspiring you or maybe in other countries, I don't know, but.
I wouldn't mind
Kit Collingwood: kicking off with this one.
Lisa Trickey: There's a few things. I
Kit Collingwood: mean I think, I don’t know, Catherine if you're this, but I'm a magpie sometimes for the people's work. , I'm a firm believer in the fact that there are no new ideas, but there are new tapestries of existing ideas. And I suppose our job as digital leaders is to take the best of what we see elsewhere, contextualise it, make it viable and feasible, and then get it going.
, , we are sometimes at our own. Magic to that as well. , though a lot of the work that I'm thinking about at the moment for inspiration is, , hyperlocal, neighbourhood based working, and those models are bound right across the globe. , there's, , there's the OG model, which is quite famous, , but I think.
The reason that is so profound to me is cause as I think about the shifting role of accounts in the future, what we can and can't afford to do, what we should or shouldn't do, the thrust is overwhelmingly from my point of view about meeting people earlier in their lives and understanding them better, whether that be directly or through data that we understand them.
Basically, trying to get upstream of their escalating need that, and that's good for us as a council and good for our wide, wide system partners the NHS because people tend to be cheaper when they have lower or less complex needs. So that's good for us, but it's obviously good for them if we're foreseeing certain events and trying to, , head them off how you do that.
For me, one of the privileges we have of working local government is geography. So we know our patch. They're definitely our people. Yes, they come and go. , but we get to operate within a space where we get a great degree of privilege, , as a council of being legitimate. Space so we can reach out to the vts.
We can work with health partners, we can work with different markets. So there's something about the power of coming together and not assuming that the council's got this kind of Patricia, this power dynamic with its residents. And then the trick of that is how you create that conversation and the legitimacy to work differently.
Catherine Howe: Yeah, I think that power of place stuff I think is really important, but I think it's also, so actually a lot of the stuff that I'm looking at and thinking. About at the moment is in the participation in civic tech space, to some extent. Extent, a great extent. So, as I say, taking complete, kind of lo loving what you are doing in that kind of, in that health and social care space and all of that kind of deepening practice in services and the stuff that we are doing to predictive analytics in Revs and Bend, for example, which other people are doing is really, is really important.
But that how do we create, how, how, what's the technology that is creating the blurring of boundaries that allows co-creation. What's the stuff that's enabling people to, to safely self-organise? , and I think there's a lot in that mission framing that people Camden have done, but is, , is roaming around because of government's interest, which is very much about kind of much more modern ways of organising.
That then need to be reflected in the organisational design so you can meet those different ways of organising and so that you could dream about stuff, which is a bit bigger than the council. , and Sam clung up in Cumbria Westmoreland ship. Some of the stuff that she did before she, before they unitised, she did a lot of imagination work in Barrow.
Using digital platforms because they did it during COVID and if you track that investment in that experience through to, they've had a massive investment in future bar on the back of those kind of conversations. And I guess it's about, it's, it's, it's slightly different to the digital transformation, but it's, it's that, that dig, that digital enabling of the, kind of the, the co-creation I think is really important.
And I'm. Really interested in platforms Plints, which are some of the first digitally native platforms that, that I'm seeing. , and how we're going to build that in, because, , sort of the, if we're going to get stuff done, which is bigger than us, and if we're going to expect that, we're going to need to work differently with communities because of our constraints, but also cause there's always a reset between citizen and state.
Those, that civic infrastructure tool is going to be really important. And it's something that I think is, is having, it's there. But it needs a bit of a push and a little bit of love in order to reach the potential that it should have.
Lisa Trickey: So if we take that down into more of a, perhaps a, a service level and how we really make sure that the services that we're creating are truly meeting the needs of the local community and our residents.
Have you found any kind of particular engagement strategies that are really helpful to, to work with people? I,
Catherine Howe: I think that, that, we've done a lot of experimentation in this and we are doing a lot. This is something which is the, the relationship between, between how you did do good community work, participation, co-production of stuff, and how you build good digital services is very, very, very similar, which is you go out with curiosity, you properly understand user needs, and then when you come up with solution, you test and learn until it's right.
There's something about, there's a superpower in joining up the people who are out there in our communities, having those conversations into those kind of test and learn experiences that build better services with people, and, and I think that's the, that's the thing that we've been, we've been looking at.
I don't think we've done it, , to the scale that we can, but we're starting to see that, , really kind of becoming a really positive feedback loop and it's really engaging and inspiring for the teams involved. But it's also, it's brilliant for the, for the citizens, you kind of say, actually, I feel seen and heard.
Mm-hmm. So it's a, it's a joining up of those two worlds, which I think is really interesting.
Kit Collingwood: Yeah. There's something really, , that we've had some really fun exercise in humility on this front as well, because. Typically when a digital team engages for a piece of service design or some new software or whatever, , we would engage through kind of existing user research paradigms.
We nothing wrong with that at all, , and there are, there are ways of doing that which are sensitive and which get to the heart of things. , but I've had a really profound experience over the last few years learning different teams ways of engaging and understanding their methods. So public health is a classic one where, , there are, the public health officers have been out with communities for so long, doing so many.
, exercise is one of a better word, that they have relationships and legitimacy that a digital team won't have. , and I think I knew that intellectually, but seeing how they operate the, the conversational style was very different. , and a researcher might say, oh, , but how would you understand that You are comparing , for without conversation structure, which is also a legitimate question.
It's what happens when you get this kind of elixir of these teams working together and you say, well, hang on. What does engagement look for you? , the, these communities, we don't know them. What can we learn from you? , and then, , who's to say that's the limit. Our housing tenancy officers have got fantastic relationship with ants, , a state by state.
, we have something to learn from them as well. So I think so much of this, and I'll pro I'll probably bang on about it too much, is about humility and creating the conditions where people can learn from each other. And that going right up to your top table where people can break down not just their professional boundaries, but their, , curiosity.
Again, the desire to learn and ask for help from each other, ? And that is, I think that's kind of the special source that runs through the whole thing,
Catherine Howe: to know. cause one of the things that I've been pondering on recent is I think that people took the wrong lessons from Agile as a method. So agile as a method is really great, but, but the multidisciplinary teams building psychological safety.
Genuinely spending the time to understand each other's professional perspectives. That's, that's the superpower. And, and the, the, the get going. , kind of all of the, kind of , what's, what's your velocity? Kind of sprint planning. That kind of tech row stuff isn't the thing that's as powerful as actually investing in how a team dynamic operates and getting the best from all the people involved.
And I think that's, that's something that we are learning a lot at the moment and really appreciating.
Kit Collingwood: And I think, , you and I have both been through this, , bit of digital government where the concept of being agile or, , being a scrum master for example, just became a weird pseudo prince project man, still different cult.
Have something that isn't a cult though. , , so that, I think that was, , I mean I had the privilege in Greenwich with building the digital team from scratch, so we just didn't import those kind of weird ritualistic. Kind of behaviours. , but I've certainly seen it before where you get digital teams who just can't talk in the language of government and whether you it or not, , to be legitimate in these sectors, you have to be able to talk, , politics and money and risk and, and , there's no way that you can weave digital through the heart of an organisation if you start talking about agile this and agile that, , you have to turn up as a human first and then, , we build the, and it's also, I don’t know if you experienced this Catherine, but there was a weird.
Paradox in agility or being agile, being the new way of being flexible. But it came, became oddly rigid and I, I don't know how it happened, but it happened before our very eyes that it became oddly inflexible it because of the weird passion of everyone implementing it. So it was, it was nice for me, , this is my first job in local government and it was so nice not to support that over, cause I didn't have to argue on either side of this crazy.
Divide the people he created.
Catherine Howe: So just before we let Lisa back in with another que I, I know exactly what you mean. It's kind of the, the, the irony of the rigidity of the Scrum master's. , I just it. This really defeating the point a little bit. How did that happen? It was so funny, there were lots of people who didn't understand it, who were being told it was a magic bullet and so they were kind of, there was a little bit of cargo cult going on.
And I also think the thing that. Agile team's. Demand is autonomy, and I think it was a way of asserting themselves, but it was profoundly unhelpful a lot of the time and, and a little bit weird. I know exactly what you mean. I
Kit Collingwood: mean, it is a delicious segue into digital maturity if you want to get into that at all.
Lisa Trickey: What's really interesting is we've just, , we've recorded our user centered design episode and language came up there and I think what I've heard through this is actually not to be constrained by your professional and organisational boundaries. And when you are doing this stuff in an organisation, really drawing on the strengths already within the organisation as well.
So, super helpful.
Catherine Howe: I think that's really true, but I think one of the things my observation would be is that the organisation has to feel a degree of safety to do that.
So as a practitioner, you need to feel confident enough in your practice to be able to let it go a little bit, but to be able to experiment and to think in public and to be a bit messy.
Requires you to be supported in the environment. And, and I think that's, that's something not to be underestimated because I think this, this speaks to the slightly different skills that you need to lead a digital organisation. So if you're properly, if you properly embedded that digital mindset, and actually you do think kind of this stuff is just.
Normal is that you have to be comfortable with a degree of experimentation. You have to be, you have to be comfortable with the fact that you're dealing with a lot of complexity in systems terms, but also, , kind of people systems and that sometimes stuff will happen and, and if you don't, if you've got a very command and control mindset, it's very difficult to lead that messiness.
Comfortably. And if you're not comfortable as a leader, you're not going to make your, your organisation comfortable, and the feedback loop is not, is not there. So it's, it's a hard thing to do and needs paying at. You need to pay attention to your risks. You need to pay attention to the stuff that keeps you safe, but kind of rigidity isn't the thing that keeps you safe.
Lisa Trickey: Can you share any sort of partnerships or collaborations that have helped you to advance your council's digital maturity?
Kit Collingwood: I'm not, I'm not sure how easy it's to answer that. , well, I'm not, how sure how easy it is to answer it in a way that will be useful to listeners. , so from my point of view, I think rather than sort of name individual partners, which I don't, I don't think is really the thrust of what you are talking about here for me.
I suppose a useful thing for people to hear would be that, , well for me, overwhelmingly getting change done in a way that's meaningful and tackles our TFS challenges and deals with the politics and deals with the risk and deals with, , , hideous, , topics that people have to grapple with, the rising cost of children's social care.
, just sort of problems we don't solve. You don't solve that problem. You can only impact it or not in either direction to have that level of conversation. It obviously involves partnership right at the top of the organisation, so you need the top table to be completely bought into that. That is no mean feat.
And I, when I think about why that's no mean feat, why is that so hard to legitimise digital at the top of a, an organisation and get that partnership across? I think it's a few things. I think until very recently this conversation called digital hasn't seemed intrinsically linked to this conversation called Children's Social Care, what do they have in common?
And although we know that now, everything from. AI and the efficiencies for social workers, working residents. Yeah, that's a simple example, but also the power of data to predict certain things happening or to automate certain things. And even more profoundly the power of organisational service design, which is, that's the real win of that conversation.
It's not about this, these, , platforms. It's about how you rise it up. I think we haven't been great as the digital sector of describing that power at the top of organisations. At the same time, top tiers of councils rarely include a digital native. That's why a lot of people look to Catherine. She's the first digital native chief exec.
So the, the fact there's only one is weird, ? Why is that? And I think some of this is, well, we have to remember, we're talking at a point in time, , we're, it's our collective responsibility to imagine our sector and then to create the reality that we've imagined. So the reality that I imagine is that you have digital native leaders.
At the top of the organisation across the sector. So A, it's not weird. B, it's well described, and C, you can inject the whole of that exec level with that humility, that porousness that leads to the shared learning is exactly what Catherine just said. It's the what if, but what if it were different, but what if we tried this, , what's the real danger here?
Often the real danger is people are very afraid to fail, , and very afraid to waste time when the, the immense pressure on leaders to just act has to look more certain than it truly
Catherine Howe: is. There's so much in there, kit. cause I, I also think that kind of , I, I think as a, as a digital native, I think that I, I, and I've, I reflected on this cause I've got, I've got, , Paul Brewer who's, who's really brilliant digital practitioner, who's in my team.
I've got no hat, who's also, who's a, , really big, , proper design thinker. I, I think our confidence in some of this stuff is much greater than the balance of confidence you get in other leadership teams. So I don't, nobody needs to prove to me that it's a good idea to do something with technology, so I might interrogate it differently.
But actually you're already at the races when you bring me the thought. So it's a, it's a very different risk review that I think that you get in other leadership teams. , and I, again, I'm quite interested Kate, cause I think it is slightly curious that I am the, I am the. First person me in the chief exec role, I'm hoping it's not a coincidence, I'm going to have another one.
, is that, so what, what, what is that? And also what, what are we doing in the sector to encourage it, I think is a really important question. So don't think local government will thrive unless we have more digital practitioners at senior levels. And, and that kind of needs interrogation a little bit.
The other thing I was going to say on Lisa's actual question was, is that, is that I, I'm similarly not going to name actual. Partners. cause that feels a bit , we, we feel we ought to be a bit more B, b, C than that. , but the, the two things that I, I sort of speak to the team about, about partnering is, firstly, are these people bringing you knowledge you didn't have?
Or are these people bringing you capacity that you need? The danger bit, the bit where partnerships go wrong is where you're buying. You think you're buying capacity and they try and tell you what to do. So there's a bit about, be really clear. Do they have knowledge that you need, in which case you're partnering with them and you need to do that?
Or are they, are they bringing capacity, which is equally valuable. Don't mix up the two because that's where, that's where these things, , conditioning often goes quite wrong
Lisa Trickey: and I think it's more about how do we, it's, it's, none of this stuff is easy to do on our own and it's about how do you create that ecosystem as well in terms of the place agenda that we were talking about.
So I wonder whether you have any advice for how to navigate the investment that we need for digital. Councils kind of face the ongoing financial pressures that they do and also how do you evaluate the impact of digital initiatives as well? cause that kind of plays into the investment as well and showing how you can demonstrate impact.
Kit Collingwood: Yeah. So Sha kick ka off. Yeah, I mean, I suppose I, if I give the example of how Greenwich has the note, which I don't think is some canonical source of wisdom, but it's very visceral to me. cause I, cause I did it. I think, , firstly, I'll say the obvious thing is digital investment has to be to a purpose.
You have to know whether you're trying to save money, invest money, or invest money to save it. , and I think so many, , digital initiatives have been become dragged down by not understanding, or, sorry, not agreeing with the top tier, exactly what they're trying to do. So it's completely defensible to have pure investment in digital.
So renewing a cyber platform to modernise it, ? Yes, absolutely do that. No, don't try and get your money back. There are initiatives which are, which will purely just, , save money. Okay, great. But I think the vast majority now are, okay, here's, here's what we're going to put in and here's what we're going to get back.
, and to do that with the high degree of fidelity. So if I mention how we're kind of cutting it up here, when I did my first digital investment plan in this organisation, it was , here's the money in, here's the money out. It was a single pipeline, , made up of change programs initiative. So pretty simple.
And that's what we needed at the time we were. , dig new to digital. Four years down the line, it looks very different. We have three different investment strategies for digital, right? So one is, , how do we invest in maintaining and optimising the BAU? So that is just stuff cyber investment.
, I'm not going to try and reduce that cost. How do you do, , invest to, , change? So, , what your big change programs, how much are you going to put into improving your social care systems services? Organisational input and then what you're going to get out, if anything. And that's straight into your MTFS commitment.
And then what's your investment in new platforms, , , new capital, what stuff we're just going to spend and see how that works out. Might have an MTFS commitment, might not. So we're trying to start that because sometimes you're trying to reduce or optimize spend. Sometimes you just need to spend more money on something you're resolving debt.
Sometimes you're basically paying every business case is a gamble. , here are our big gambles for the year. , it's taxation, it's social care, it's housing. Here are big gambles. Here's the money in. And then in that area there is, we've really grown in maturity and impact modelling. So that's our version of a, it is the financial end of a business case basically.
And we are very clear in saying, and we use a theory of change to back it all up. Here are the inputs, here's how we get to outcomes and here's the money. , and what we found is huge benefits to us as a. Team because obviously you can't, there's nowhere to hide is there. But that, , expression and that shared, , business case, but with that very analytical rigor behind it is what we found has intrinsically tied this idea called digital into MTFS and our existing governance mechanisms.
And I do think that increasingly you can't really have digital teams, even small ones, just off in a corner experimenting. I just don't think it's viable anymore and it's inevitably going to reduce stress.
Lisa Trickey: That's really helpful and that the way that you managed to integrate that and also kind of think about that real mixed portfolio that you've, that you've got.
Catherine Howe: No, I was going to say I, cause I, I think, I think here you've done this really well and I think that there's a, there's a massive amount to learn from how you've gone about it. The, the only, the only things that I'm kind of , which, which I'm pondering at the moment is as a sector, do we have the right level of expectation about the level of investment?
So if I look at a, if I look at a, at a non-governmental business, what percentage of its spend is actually on technology And, and I do think we need a little bit of a sense check to understand how under invested we all are. One of the things that we, we manage through the redesign is we mainstream some things which we've done bolt on year on year funding for stuff, which is pretty fundamental.
So there's, so we've done one round of kind of , no, we need to pull it into the core, but I think all of us are underestimating what the level of spend ought to be in this. And that will be quite helpful as a sector for us to do some work on, set on, on expectation setting, so that within the lifespan of the MTFS, you've got a, you've got a, a, an approach for getting closer to what that proportion ought to be.
The other. The other thing I think is your impact, your impact stuff is we, we've been talking about it as benefit realisation is that money and money out is a good overall proxy, but it's actually what actually is the value. That's what you actually done there and you need to have a bit of rigor about benefit realisation, measuring.
Again, we are quite early in doing that here and very, very, very thin on the ground because of our kind of light size and financial situation. But I do think that needs to be looked at cause I think. One of the reasons why senior teams are a little bit leery about this stuff is that they, , that, and it may, , there's a bit about they've bought naively, but they've also been sold badly.
And so, so they need that reassurance of the rigor of the measurement. I think in order to build their confidence back to something which makes this a, a sort of a more certain landscape for them to invest in. Can I just plus one some
Kit Collingwood: of those points? , I, I really, really agree and it reminds me of a few things that I've been, , thinking about recently.
One is the absolute dearth of analytical skills in local government. So when I was a civil servant, there were plenty of economists around and you, when you moved, it had an economist on it. Any kind of new piece of policy development, , which is what digital soften is. , if you're not faffing around at Girds, it involves re reshaping policy.
, we just don't have that in-house. Skill and we, , it is very hard to hire, really hard to hire. So that's something, , I don’t know if we'll have time on this podcast to talk about a future digital skillset. , but on top of things ai, which are kind of obvious ones, impact modelling and economics.
I think statisticians, , maths, people all of that. I think we're lacking that in spades. So, and then the next thing I wanted to say was, , the, the legitimacy of a human shaped business case is so profound, , cause when you say business case. You expect an accountants look at it and say, is that you lying?
Basically, does it add up? , how much of a gamble is it? Blah, blah, blah. I think, and there's something you've named, which is more profound than that, which is what are the, I would say when does the world change, which actual humans are going to have a different experience from this? cause if, if you're buying a new cyber platform, it's, you're the goalkeeper.
It's a visible work, isn't it? You only get blamed when you let a penalty in, so that's fine. We just do that. But , we're not modelling the human impact. But for big change stuff, we need business cases, which speak to the humanity in all of us. And if the money comes out the end, that's part of it.
And you need the accountants to look at that. And we do need to have a handshake on how we're delivering those savings. And we do need the theory of change, but that theory of change is modelled on people's lives. And again, that involves a maturity of conversation at your exec level where you can't just have your 1 5 1 pouring over business cases.
That's not. About how the world turns anymore, you're trying to hit this win-win of improving or maintaining people's outcomes and getting the money out. And that's a different, that involves different trade offs and different levels of uncertainty, and it's deeply behavioural. And again, , that's leadership skill is still maturing, I think.
Lisa Trickey: Absolutely. I think all that talk of business case and finance, it's time to do our own bit of dreaming now. And if we were to design that council now for the next decade, , what would be different about it? If anything was possible and we could start from a blank sheet of paper, what would we create?
What would the role of data and design and technology play in kind of shaping that vision?
Catherine Howe: Such, such a, so I did have a little, I did have a little mull about this. I, I think one thing is that , practical, practical is that we would have that level of investment at a relevant level, , so it would be properly embedded in, but more importantly.
Is that you would've embedded the skillset in the workforce, and that's so, so I completely agree with Kit about the scarcity of some specialist skills, but there's also a sort of an underlying lack of digital confidence and that expectation of going somewhere and the tech, , the technology helping you to go somewhere, which I just think is just really missing and it's been really lovely.
We are just starting to let the Gemini stuff loose, but we've done it deliberately just with curiosity and, and have a go, go, go and see what it does. So this is a, and the expectation here, our theory of change is it give people the right tools, they do better stuff. And that I trust that people, nobody wants to be stuck on a photocopier.
Nobody wants to process a load of forms. Nobody likes the PDFs, , so, so if you give people the tools, they'll kind of sort it out themselves. I think the other bit about the dreaming is the kind of the, actually you've got an integrated service design, which is, which is really orientated around what people need from public services.
But, but I think to get to that dream, you've got to have a better conversation about what's the purpose of public services. And that feels that's a little bit missing. So it's a bit there, it's a bit, it's all getting a bit better, but I think that conversation with your communities, with what do you need and what role do we play in that long-term stewardship of this place.
So I think that's a big part of the dream. I think the final bit would be that we are not forced to buy really rubbish technology anymore. So it's a bit inside, outside. But actually the, the, by becoming future councils of a more profound nature is that we've also done it in a way which has shaped the market around us to something which is actually helping us to grow and to do better and to test and to learn.
Rather than that, we're forced to exist in the market, which is sticking us in the past to a great extent. So I guess that's a, that's, that's a really, that's a really, I've got a procurement dream that's really dull, but it's really,
Kit Collingwood: that's a legitimate dream. , I swear we did not compare notes before this.
I wrote five qualities and we have three in common with what you just said. So if I, if I do my five, , and I phrase them differently, so hopefully you'll still be interesting. . The confidence of leadership and skillset of feeling that it can change itself so that, , if I see a future council, councils are often over reliant on partnerships and buying, buying crappy tech.
It's a poor buyer of, of technology, , and also of consultancy. And that speaks to a lack of intellectual confidence, ? So it's not I want councils to be super intellectual, but I'd love for councils to feel that they have the confidence of being able to do change well to themselves by themselves.
With themselves. And that speaks to that. , that, , we had the word confidence in common. , another one we had in common. So I've put, , more embedded in the community and greatly self-aware of its power base. So that speaks to that kind of place making, place, building role of a council to be able to have the intellectual flexibility to say, hang on, do we always have to deliver the service to people?
Can we do it with people? Can we not do it at all? Maybe we just pass through funding so they can do it. And having the, again, it's confident leadership say, well, hang on, maybe we either don't need to do that, or we can do that in a, a different way. And that sense of embeddedness and that sense of deeply belonging to a place, , that would mean a lot to me.
, one we didn't have in common. I've put prevention and there's something about using, well, using a range of tools to meet people earlier in their life journey and to be. Coming away from kind of crisis management, crisis reaction to people's events. So homelessness is a, a typical one, a health event.
And so, hang on, how might we use this sense being embedded, this confidence to get up closer to people and help them earlier in their journey, that win-win. Another one was being data driven. We could do a whole podcast about how a capsule, , does that. But for me it's this mindset of resources are always going to be scarce.
How do we become an arrowhead to use data to focus on what works? And I think we don't necessarily have an eagle eye on exactly what works for certain things in certain situations. , and sometimes we've built up a kind of mythology about our. , how effective we are in certain situations where the data will tell us very differently.
So that involves holding a mirror up to ourselves with evidence. And the last one, which we have in common, I put. Curiosity and humility. So how might we build a council, which always learns, man, if you're going to always learn, it's intrinsically has to come from a place of confidence. You have to be kind of post therapy as a council, you have to be through it.
You have to be not defensive because counsels do have personalities, right? You have to be a non-defensive councils. You have to be porous, approachable, willing to learn. You have to have a high degree of skill that can go and investigate things very quickly and come back and share learning. There's a softness to it, ?
It's how we soften up. , yeah, that was it. I lo I love how much
Lisa Trickey: we, I love the Venn diagram. It's amazing. It is amazing. And I think. I guess, is there any advice that you would give as lead to leaders now in terms of the levers that they could start to pull to move towards that?
Catherine Howe: Okay, so the, I think the really big, , so in, in all the leadership stuff, it's kind of the whole mastery of self thing, which is get to the races.
Is that look carefully at yourself and saying, how confident do I feel with this stuff and how, what will help me avoid othering it? cause there's a thing about if you're going to be in the work, and I've been saying this for a while, but it's now really true, if you're going to be in the workforce for the next year.
Then this stuff is relevant. So as a leader, what do you need in order to be confident in this space so that you can shift the paradigm for your team? Because I think we've got to take responsibility for that. And there's a, it was a, it was a long time ago and probably ki while you were at GDS, where somebody was kind of civil servant said to me, it's kind of we've got more people that speak Latin, think and write code.
And I, I think I challenge the kind of , to what extent has that actually shifted in senior in senior stakeholders? To what extent should it shift, which is quite a lot.
Kit Collingwood: Yeah, absolutely. , and I, I'll give a different answer that's got a lot of, , similarities actually, and that it is just, it, it's basically become a, , meme that I, I say it a lot.
Which is the biggest risk to our sector is a chronic lack of imagination. And I say it over and over again and I never feel that it's any less true because imagination is not some kind of soft waffly thing over there. It's the power to dream with purpose. And I think if you can galvanise an organisation about dreaming with purpose, no, not dreaming about we're going to go and become a retailer or sell.
Apples or whatever. No, we're going to be a council. Our core purpose remains. , but if we can create a, culture of imagination, then you're constantly asking what if in every problem space? And it's only nobody ever created a reality that didn't dream. So I don't, I don't to, that word othering, Catherine.
I love that. I don't to other, the concept of dreaming. It's not waffling, dreaming. It's the beginning of a vision. And a vision becomes a target operating model. A target operating model becomes a business case, and a business case becomes reality. So it's not, it's. But the, the language of imagination, dreaming, curiosity, , these kind of softer piece of language we use can be othered, particularly by, not by one five ones, but in that culture of , oh my God, how are we going to follow the cash?
How does imagination help us do that? Well, it does, and it's, it's lining your teams and your leadership and your skills up and behind that. That would be the advice I would give.
Catherine Howe: And I just going back to something that you said, sort of at, at the top of the conversation is that thing about if, if we don't re, , digital and the ability to do things differently is the last big lever that we have to, to pull for, for public service reform.
And so, and therefore that kind of , that ability to imagine that things could be different is absolutely critical.
Lisa Trickey: I just take the opportunity as well to say thank you to Kit. cause Kit's been helping me out with the Springboard delivery around total leadership, , , sorry, all this delivery for total leadership and Springboard cohorts.
And that's all the, , we've been trying to talk to them about. It all starts with self-awareness and how do you think about how you shift your practice. So really, really relevant. So thank you for Kit for your help with that one. You're welcome. So just thank you to, just to wrap up then, would you be happy to share an action that you have taken and would recommend to others?
To start to, I guess, increase their digital maturity to, , for people listening, they could, they could actually do something practically in their council.
Kit Collingwood: Well, we've got two minutes left. So this is a bit of a, I mean, I think, I think one of the single tools, which I would recommend to join the dots between this single digital, which can seem .
Maybe slightly rarefied or a specialism or something that. And the hard end of running a council is a theory of change. , that is probably the most profound tool that we use day to day to say, how'd you get from all of these skills and this multidisciplinary working and this iterativeness and all this stuff we talk about to the actual wellbeing different?
And that theory of change that runs through that and the impact model you'd have to do. , that's, it's one of the most profound shifts we've made internally, that's for sure. So
Catherine Howe: I absolutely echo that. But if you want a kind of a small, kind of little habits, go and play with ai, I don't just , kind of read load blogs about it.
Just go and, , , I put all of the, I put all of the LGR responses from my area into, into the Google Notebook, LLM, and it did me an analysis and timeline in two minutes. , you go and check it, you do all the responsible things and stuff that, but go and play with it. Go and explore it because you're not going to be able to imagine how you can use it if you haven't got that visceral connection to it.
So go and play and, and don't be afraid.
Lisa Trickey: And also just be able to make decisions that impact on other people, isn't it? We've got a responsibility to do that. Thank you so, so much both of you. That's been absolutely brilliant. Thank you for sharing your experiences. It's been such a privilege to listen to you.
We've got some useful reading there on the Theory of Change to take away, and we will come back to an episode, particularly on digital skills, so you've got that to look forward to. Thank you to those of you listening to the podcast, please do share your comments and feedback, and don't forget to subscribe so when the next episode is available.
That brings us to the end of this episode of Digital Directions. What's next for councils? Our sincere thanks to Catherine Howe and kick calling word for joining us on this episode. We hope this discussion on digital transformation spark some ideas. We would love to hear your thoughts and continue the conversation.
You can get in touch via the local government association CDT LinkedIn page to share your views and hear more about our work. Don't miss out on future insights. Hit subscribe on your favourite podcast app now and join us next time as we tackle other digital books.
Lisa Trickey: Welcome everyone to our local government podcast, digital Directions. What Next For Councils? This episode is focused on the role of leadership and culture in driving change. Today I've got. Two fantastic guests. Alison Mackenzie, Foland, chief Executive of Wiggin Council, and Richard Brooks, executive Director for city Operations at Birmingham City Council.
Thank you both so much for joining us today.
Richard Brooks: Hi Lisa.
Alison Mc-Kenzie Folan: Hi, Lisa. Great to be here. Looking forward to the conversation with you and Richard. Fantastic.
Lisa Trickey: So just thinking about what we're gonna be talking about today, you know, the world around us has changed significantly. Over recent years, whether that's climate change that we've experienced, the pace of technology advancement, societal and demographic changes.
You know, we've had to go through the experience of a pandemic. The sector has faced a number of challenges and arguably is facing greater complexity and uncertainty than ever before, and I think this has impacted on. Organizations and how we need to think about the workplace and the workforce. And through the conversation today, it would be great to explore whether we feel that requires different skills from our managers and leaders, as well as the wider workforce and how we go about creating the types of organization that are equipped to respond to the environment that we operate in today.
So to start us off, I'm asking this question at the beginning of all podcast episodes to get a picture of how senior leaders think about digital. So how would you describe and position digital transformation at your council? Alison, can I come across to, to you at Wiggin?
Alison Mc-Kenzie Folan: Of course. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks Lisa.
And I'm sure that, uh, you know, through Richard and I, we'll we'll probably compare notes and be on a similar journey, but certainly for Wigan digital transformation, um, yes, the technology is important, but it isn't really just about the technology. Uh, most of our transformational journey has been about culture, values, uh, and the people that we work alongside.
So, um, I've been here now 16 years. Certainly for the last 10 years have been really invested heavily in our sort of digital leadership, um, across the organization. And that's been rooted in those relationships, really in building a culture of trust and psychological safety and a trust of, um, trust that people can get on and do innovation, you know, permission to do the right thing is what I say to people.
Um, and if you've got brilliant ideas, um, let's bring them on. So certainly our digital transformation is not. Been confined to the, you know, to the IT team or to people just doing service, uh, redesign. It's about that total thinking. It's rethinking the whole organization, particularly rethinking it from the perspective of our residents.
You know, ultimately we are public servants and everything that we do, um, we do, uh, because that's what we are. That's, you know, we. Uh, public servants. So listening to our residents, listening deeply to them, seeing our residents and understanding how we, um, you know, how we build the organization for the future is really important.
And, um, you know, that means I think for us having a real different sort of social movement for change. So one of the things that we've been doing here, uh, and over the last 18 months is a mission led organization and mission led place around progress with unity. And that's, I suppose, building on that. Um, intrinsic motivation of public service really, and that we're trying to empower innovation at every level and every part of the organization and with our partners.
And I think if you embrace that innovation and be courageous, then. You start to put the culture and practice in place where you really do get on with, um, you know, digital transformation then. So our missions are around inequalities. That first mission is about facing into inequalities, making sure that our residents, our families, our children, um, we really address that fairness.
And then the second mission is around making sure that neighborhoods thrive. Um, and our places are really happy and healthy places to live. So if we see those as our missions and that, how do we bring digital transformation into supporting the missions for a place? And that really then is around, um, you know, that culture of creativity and.
Technology and data can really help us with that. They are amazing tools, aren't they? I'm still, uh, daily, um, you know, absolutely amazed by the power of ai, but thinking that in a really resident based way is important to us. So I think it's critical, um, that we use data and digital to help us on our mission delivery.
Um. And I think also that you can use it to sort of overcome silo working in an organization, really encouraging people to see things across a whole organization, a whole system, a whole place. Um, and that I think it can really help, particularly the data when we know that data in local government, um, is so important to us.
But it can really help us with that decision making and contribute to the missions. Um. Uh, and for us really contribute to addressing those inequalities. So it's a massive part of what we're about in Wiggin. I think it's a really exciting part, um, of being in local government where we embrace digital transformation and fundamental that we all as local government, all councils really grasp the opportunities in a, in a considered way, but in a really ambitious way, and try to really embed that in our cultures, our values, and our behaviors.
Lisa Trickey: That's, uh, fantastic and I know Richard, you are very passionate about data as well, aren't you? And, and how it can be used to help transform ways of working and services.
Richard Brooks: Absolutely. Um, I mean, I think Alice has just given a really brilliant, sort of holistic view of this. Um, and, and, you know, making that link between what do we want for our places?
What do we want for our people? You know, what kind of organization do we want to be? And that being at the heart of why do we care about digital? It's really important. It's powerful. Um, that's a very powerful articulation. I mean, I suppose at, at the very simplest, um. I see digital as just a huge opportunity, just an enormous opportunity is just this endlessly giving kind of, you know, different range of opportunities for service transformation, improving outcomes for citizens, improving the experience of, you know, of, uh, of residents, both engaging with services and the, you know, councils engaging with their partners.
Just, it's just an enormous opportunity. At the same time, there's an edge to this, which is, there's a necessity to get on top of this stuff because in many ways, you know, the, the, the, the public sector has got some catching up to do, you know, the leading private sector organizations, uh, makes such unbelievably powerful use, uh, of data and digital.
Um, and, and we're also under a lot of pressure. You know, we're under pressure of expectations. We're under a lot of financial pressure. My own organization, Birmingham City Council, it's been under really serious financial pressure and actually the imperative to, um, not just cut services to balance budgets.
But to do things in a different way, um, which is more efficient to replace old fashioned manual ways of doing things or laborious, time consuming ways of doing things with more efficient digital solutions. You know, it's both an opportunity and it's also a, and it's also a necessity, but, but I, I do think that.
Where Allison started, which was about culture and values is that's, that's a great place to start by situating digital. It's always better to start with the why than the what, and it's ultimately because this agenda can really help us achieve more, more for our residents, more for our places.
Lisa Trickey: You know, I think the local gov sector has a fantastic history of responding to change and innovating and you know, we've seen that really recently with the, um, all the AI sort of use cases that we've been collecting in the LGA about what's been, you know, what.
What councils have been doing. But we often see kind of focus on sort of one process or one service area. So my question is how do we help scale that? I think some of that probably leads, leads back to your point around starting with the culture and, and the people, but it's, yeah, how do we scale? How do we shift from sort of service transformation to more systemic approaches that are perhaps whole council and people place-based approaches.
Alison Mc-Kenzie Folan: Do you want me to have a go, Richard? And then you come in? Or did you wanna carry on? Yeah.
Richard Brooks: Okay. Go ahead, Alison. I'll, uh,
Alison Mc-Kenzie Folan: yeah, uh, I, well, really, I think, uh, Lisa, just to sort of follow on from what Richard said, I, I. Our chair is passionate enthusiasm where you've obviously well matched us today in terms of really, uh, seeing digital transformation as a massive opportunity.
And, and as Richard said, you know, Birmingham and, and places like we facing, rising in complex demand, facing really significant, uh, financial pressures and also that just resilience of, you know, what we've been through over the last, uh, years. The fact that now we can see the advantages particularly of AI in terms of reducing those administration burdens.
Um, you know, we've seen massive gains in social care, um, integrated health and care models, um, really enabling us to be more agile and responsive. Um, and. I think for me, one of the things that we've learned is actually to see, as you said, Lisa, not to see it as a sort of silo based transformation. So it's taking the learning from parts of the organization that are going at this quite fast.
Um, so we've got, um, you know, parts of. Of our council at the moment that are really pushing the boundaries on using some of the digital transformation and AI work in, uh, particularly social care and adults. So actually taking that learning into other parts of the organization and seeing it as a, as a collaboration.
And I think it comes down to, um, really it's the ways of working for me. So actually. In a council if you're trying to get systematic change and move away from silos, it's about that social movement. It's about a movement for change. And what we've done here in Wiggin is, um, we've actually drilled it down to six ways of working, and if you can put those six ways of working at the heart of digital transformation and transformation across the whole of the system, then for me, you probably can't go far wrong.
So I'll, I'll briefly say them just. Um, sort of, uh, articulate what I'm trying to say here. So the first is see the person. And I think it goes back to what Richard said, that actually everything that we do has to be person centered. So we focus on our residents. We focus, focus on the strength of our residents and what they can do.
As public servants, we then the second thing is listen deeply to them, and that means really listening to our communities co-product, you know, co-production of services. The third thing I think is really important is knowing our community. So know the place that you, that you're serving. Um, and that's around what Richard said around actually we sit on huge amounts of data.
So not seeing that in silos, seeing that for the whole place. Connecting then to neighborhoods. So you don't do this if you were working in a silo, you'd connect to your neighborhood as that part of the organization. But connecting to neighborhoods means connecting with the rest of the public and the community sector.
So connecting to the local school, connecting to the gp, connecting to the NHS, connecting to the rest of the people working in our neighborhoods. And really thinking about digital transformation at, in a place. Um, the fifth thing, and this is my real, um, I suppose one of my favorites is, goes back to setting the conditions.
And what I say to people I work alongside is you sort of know when you're doing the right thing. Um, so you have permission to do the right thing. You don't need to wait for someone to tell you. So creating the great. Conditions for ideas and digital transformation to flourish, I think stops that sort of silo based approach.
And then the last thing, um, I. It's actually about, uh, love and compassion and having some pride in the jobs that we do. So we talk all the time about our behaviors of being accountable, being courageous, being positive, and being kind. So if you put that at the heart of digital transformation and think about whole system and not silos, then you can really focus on those principles and behaviors and break down that silo based working, thinking about strengths, thinking about communities, um, and spreading across that across the whole.
I suppose organization for me has been really, really important. Um, and we've done that in some practical ways. So we've got, um, a team, we're an experience that 5,000 staff have been through and it's immersive experience where people spend time thinking about the six ways of working, what it means to them, and digital transformation.
And then they can really grasp that they're not looking at things through a, a small lens. And, um, that really sort of. I think for me thinks about a whole council whole place, whole borough approach. And, um, we're still on a journey 'cause we, you know, we've not cracked this yet. But I think having those, um, embedded ways of working and having that sort of way of trying to, to break down the barriers, um, has really helped people in terms of thinking about it, uh, across the place.
Richard Brooks: So how, how do we go from, um, sort of individual improvements to, to sys system change, I think is a, is a really interesting question. Um, I, I, I think. It really helps to, it really helps to start small sometimes, you know, actually there are quite limited, um, scale things which are worth doing, but which can also help really build momentum and understanding of this, this agenda.
I think there's lots of people who are quite simultaneously. Uh, interested in digital as an agenda, but also a bit scared of it. Uh, and it can feel, especially for people who are actually further on in their careers, like, oh, you know, I've got expertise of a certain kind. Does it really, is it really relevant in this, um, you know, in this new fast moving world?
It absolutely is. And I think giving people the confidence to feel that is really, is really important. So, actually starting small. Um, demonstrating success. So having some sort of shorter term things that you can then start to communicate, demonstrate to people, uh, they work, and then starting to scale the things that, that work is a, is a good way of going from the small to the, to the larger.
Also, I think really important to stop stuff. You know, to be making decisions about, well actually we're trying a couple of different things. We're not putting all of our eggs in one basket. Um, being realistic that not everything works and therefore it's fine to stop those things and we'll, we'll invest more of our time and effort where we do think things are working, um, and start up new, new opportunities as well.
And then actually that does start, I think, to motivate people. Really important to spread the opportunities as well around the organization. It was so impressive, Alison, to hear about the number of people who've been involved in, you know, in, in your work. We found it's been quite radical actually getting a lot of relatively junior stuff to be in meetings with, you know, directors and um, you know, other senior council folk and partners.
Talking about what they do, talking about the changes that they're making and actually that giving other people confidence to participate in this, in this world. Um, and also they make the best advocates, you know, they make the best advocates for the change changes that actually make a difference, and in many cases are making their work better.
So, you know, it's when you hear someone who's leading a team that has been manually redacting or checking invoices. Or Yeah, doing some kind of, you know, necess previously necessary, but frankly boring. Dull hard work and actually finding that you can automate some of that and that frees you up to spend more of your human intelligence on, on the more valuable, valuable activity.
That's incredibly powerful and that starts to draw a lot, a lot of other people in communicating, communicating this stuff. It's important, you know, it's exciting. Gives people a sort of, you know, sense of momentum, a flywheel effect. And, and gives more people the opportunity to sort of shift from being, oh, I'm not sure about this, to actually, there's a valuable thing that I can do here, not just for in my organization and my community, but for them personally as well in terms of the skills that they gain.
So we found that actually there is an appetite for people to be involved in, you know, digital work because it's great learning for them. Gives them really valuable capabilities. So I suppose it's this sense of. You know, um, a journey, an evolution that I'm, that I'm trying to get across. Again, it it trying to encourage people not to see this as a kind of, you know, a cliff to climb in one go, but as a series of, you know, a series of steps, many different routes, uh, many different routes to success in.
Lisa Trickey: And you had a big event last week, didn't you? We did, yeah. The first Foundry Live, was it
Richard Brooks: not the first? No. Digital founds been running digital found Foundry's been running for 18 months now. In Birmingham City Council, it's built and built and built momentum. We're now running two big annual events and, you know, that draws in people from across all the services of the council, draws external partners in.
Um, we've, you know, we've got kind of competitive suppliers in the same room collaborating with each other, which is quite fun, fun to see. Um, and, you know, it gives you an opportunity, again, to, to spread the, the understanding, uh, across the organization and to make rapid progress on specific challenges.
Lisa Trickey: That's great to hear about the momentum that the Foundry has built and how it's involving people from across the council, external partners and suppliers. You know, it's a, it's a really great example of skill building and collaboration. And in fact, we worked on a case study about the Foundry that's just launched on the LGA website and it does really highlight what a brilliant way to go about building skills and capability across an organization.
Speaking of impactful experiences, Alison, I had the opportunity obviously to go through the Wiggin experience and it was, it was fantastic and I, it was just so brilliant how you just integrated everything and in a relatively short space of time could really help somebody understand what the council stands for, what the place is like, and how those values and behaviors sort of.
Integrate throughout all that work and I, I don't want to talk, I don't wanna give anything away for people that haven't, haven't gone there, but it was, it was incredible. It was really inspiring and when I did my questionnaire, I did come out as positive. So that was my, uh oh. Did you, alright. Probably not a surprise to, to some people.
Yeah. But no, it's, it's really fantastic. So just moving on from the, the, the kind of behaviors and, and the values, I guess skills is another area where we're starting to think about actually are the skills that we need of our managers and leaders today different to, you know, perhaps what they have been in the past or need to be kind of amplified with other, other skills.
You touched right at the very start on psychological safety. Mm-hmm. And that's something that recently come up in conversation. And we were at local gov camp and we were talking about, you know, what is it that we need from our managers and leaders to really help, uh, enable digital to sort of thrive in an organization?
And psychological safety was, was really important in that, but I just wondered what else that you, you have, you would think.
Alison Mc-Kenzie Folan: Yeah, Lisa, I probably do, and I think you know me a little bit, don't you? And you've, we've done some work together in the past, so, um, I'm very much into being value driven. So, um, that compassion and kindness is public servants.
Um, those softer skills, um, I think are really strategically important. So for me, um, you know, where, where that's not perhaps got as much emphasis than I think it, than I think it should have. So, um, so. When I became chief executive, one of the things that we started talking about here was much more around kindness and compassion as a core behavior and a core skill really.
Um, in terms of, I think kindness in the workplace really needs leadership champions to do that and talk about it. Um. It's ultimately why we're in public service, really to see that whole person and listen deeply and think about things differently. And I think that then helps the organization because you strengthen relationships with your own colleagues, with partners, with other organizations because you are carefully listening to each other.
You have that understanding, you have that empathy. Um. And I think it's particularly important for leaders to display those values and, you know, represent their organizations and they need to have the skills, Lisa, I think, to shape the culture of an organization, that's ultimately what, why we're in these jobs really, isn't it?
Um, and shaping a culture of the organization is where you foster and support those real, um, those real ways of working in terms of relationships. So, so I think on the theme of psychological safety, it's been. Personally important thing to me, I've talked about it here in Wiggin for a number of years now, and that's around supporting honest conversations where you can challenge each other, where you talk about failures together and they can be shared without fear.
Um, and what I've seen is that actually we are building trust, resilience, and learning as an organization. When you talk openly around psychological safety. Really is amazing to see. 'cause then what happens is that, um, you see that sort of experimentation and innovation going on because people aren't frightened there.
And it's all right if it goes wrong. It doesn't really matter if, you know, if the wheels fall off or, um, you know, it's not quite how you worked because there's no fear of failure. There's no fear of being judged because you're encouraged, um, to have honest and open conversations. You're encouraged to experiment.
Um, so having the right culture. Is really, really important. And it's not just about, um, when we talk about sort of permission to innovate, but it's that doing the right thing. Doing the right thing as public servants for our communities, for our systems, for our residents, um, and what's best for the organization.
So. I think it links amazingly well with the digital transformation agenda because actually having that type of culture in an organization really unlocks, um, the potential for digital and ai. So they're, the skills I think we should be having is skills around relationships and compassion and pushing the culture of setting the tone and conditions of psychological safety.
And for me. For any modern leaders these days? In answer to your question, I think it's thinking those things first. Um, and now as we are moving into being a really mission, uh, led organization, thinking, community thinking place, thinking outside of those organizational silos and focusing on relationships is key.
Um, and that's why. We see this is a bit of a movement for change. It's not some sort of separate transformation program. It's, it's definitely around the, the skills that you need are, um, are really around being, um, you know, those movement shakers, those move, you know, that's what, that's what we need people to have these days in local government.
Lisa Trickey: It's um, it's interesting to hear you talk about kindness and compassion and, and listening. 'cause on other episodes of the podcast we've been talking to people and talking about the language barrier for digital, and I think that's what's interesting about what you've been able to do in Riggin. The way you've mainstreamed it is using just normal.
You don't talk about citizen focused or user focused or whatever that might, you know that, whatever that might be. And I feel like you've managed to create that real learning organization. And I know as well you've opened up opportunities inside the organization to learn what other people do, haven't you?
Alison Mc-Kenzie Folan: Yeah. Yeah. So I think one of the things that we try to say is that we're a learning organization, so, you know, open ourselves up, but then go and find out what, um, other organizations are doing. And I think it's, I suppose you're creating spaces for innovation. Aren't you really allocating that time and that dedication to, to learning, to innovation.
So probably a good example of that is, um. We've been doing a lot of work around, like all councils around artificial intelligence. Um, and we've got sort of AI labs that have been developed where people can explore the different applications of AI in a, in just sort of, it's okay approach. It's, you know.
You can play around with the technology co-pilot or whatever, whatever we're using. Um, and that's seen people come together with developers, social workers, you know, just coming together as a community really, and getting a real understanding as a community about how can we apply some of this digital work, uh, you know, transformation AI into sort of co-developing solutions together in a.
AI lab in a community lab, um, you know, how can they help us with our case management systems? How do we actually give social workers more time to focus on what truly matters, matters? You know, spending time with residents and, and communities. And, um, for me, having that sort of. Um, approach has really helped sort of experimentation and learning.
In answer to your question, I think it's, um, building that sort of culture of curiousness really, and getting people to come together. And, um, it goes back to sort of the values of the organization, doesn't it? That you are a learning organization and you, you can sort of share those learning journeys together and being open about what you can do, what you can't do, what you don't know what goes wrong, um, has been really important to me.
Lisa Trickey: What about you, Richard? Do you feel that our managers and leaders require different skills to help their teams, you know, operate in the world that we're in today?
Richard Brooks: So do people need different skills? Uh, I mean, yes, to some extent, but I think that can easily be, easily be overstated. And it's definitely not about people having sort of specific technology skills.
Um, I mean the, you know, the, the, the, particularly at sort of digital leadership level, you know, the, the classic leadership skills are still really important. Think about strategy, think about people, also think about data in order to understand how, how the world is. Um, and I think. Probably behavior is more important than, than skill, certainly at the, at the leadership level for, for this agenda.
So really valuing the opportunity of digital, actually genuinely believing in it. You know, that means that you invest your time and energy. It means that you, you know, you make space for your people to do these things. Um, and then the sort of culture of curiosity and innovation, um, those are probably more important than specific skills.
I, I think if I was gonna pick out. Some more sort of classical skills, then I would say there is, I think a shift. In, in terms of the value and importance from some of the classic kind of heavy project and program management skills towards a more sort of agile and flexible way of working. Um, and that's, that's for a, a couple of reasons.
One is that. Actually a lot of the technology is changing so fast that very long waterfall projects kind of get left behind by the technology. Um, and, and the sort of, you know, build, test, iterate, um, approach, I think is, is particularly effective in relation to, to digital tech, digital, um, digital development and opportunities.
So, you know that, I think those agile skills, the. The ability to get things spun up and working quickly, and then to test them with people, get feedback and improve them. I think those are, those are really important. Um, there are also skills in, um, in, in understanding data and outputs. Definitely. So some of the sort of, um.
Sort of data and intelligence skills I think are particularly relevant here because that that's what allows you to see the impact of these things. And often I've found that the thing that sort of flips people from thinking, oh, we, should we do this? Maybe we should do this to yes, we definitely should, is actually getting a hold of the data about what's really going on in your organization.
What do people do all day? What do they actually do all day? What do they spend their time on? You know, how many of this. Thing do they do? Bringing that in front of people and, and allowing people to understand, oh my God, we've got a backlog of thousands of these things. We've got more coming in than we can process in that time period.
Therefore the backlog's getting bigger. You know, understanding some of that actually helps generate the, um, the real motivation fuel for, for driving digital. So I guess those are two things that I would, I particularly pick out, but you know. Listeners would've noticed that I've not talked about any of the kind of technical development skills or, you know, understanding systems and infrastructure and, you know, coding and stuff like that.
But, um, that obviously those are critical to the success of the projects. But if we're talking about digital leadership, I don't think people need to be put off by that.
Lisa Trickey: That aligns really nicely to a conversation at the gov camp where the group identified from, from their leaders. Actually, it was about being content with progress, not perfection.
Being comfortable with uncertainty. Um. You know, bringing a bit of fun and energy into, into the mix and that test and learn approach that you talked about. So it lines really nicely
Richard Brooks: that some of, some of my, one of the, the digital digital Foundry team in Birmingham's got this lovely graphic, um, and it says not like this.
And it's got a picture of a black box, and then a car emerges from it. It says instead like this, and it's got a picture of a skateboard and a scooter, bicycle and a car. It's like, yep.
Lisa Trickey: Being comfortable with, with iteration, it's, yeah. So in terms of thinking about how we consider approach change that positions us better for the longer term, you know, and creates ambition.
But the reality is we're, we're dealing with the challenges of today. How do you, how do you balance that and how do you, how do you still manage to sort of create the future whilst in the here and now?
Richard Brooks: It is hard. You know, we, we, all of us have to be able to deliver the things that keep us alive from day to day.
There's no getting around that. You've got to carve out some capacity in order to step back, think, do some things differently, and, and it, it, it's really interesting when, you know, when you, when you try and make that time and you bring together a group of people to think about a problem in the round.
There's often reluctance to, oh, we've gotta spend two days together doing this. I mean, you know, there's so many other things that we, that we need to get on with. Um, and so I think demonstrating to people quickly, the value of doing that is, is really important. Um, and again, it's about flywheel effect.
Doing that with some people who can then talk to others and say, do you know what? I met these people. They're just downstream of where I am in this process. And I'd never met them before. I'd never actually, we'd never been in the same room together. We didn't understand that they were doing this thing that's important and relevant.
Relevant to us. So, you know, building up some of that, that sort of, that understanding of the value, generating the value rapidly so that you people start to, um, be prepared to invest the time that's necessary. And things that can initially feel a little bit, a little bit luxurious is, um, uh, is really important.
You just, just have to invest time and change. Otherwise, we do the same things all the time. So there's got to be a, a, a recognition that this is not around the edges, uh, of what people do in their day jobs. It's got to be carved out, and we've gotta create some of the space for that.
Lisa Trickey: So how about you, Alison?
How do you balance the challenges of today whilst looking to the future?
Alison Mc-Kenzie Folan: I think it's probably both. You know, Lisa, I think, um. You, you sort of meet the challenges of today, um, by being true to the values of the organization and the principles and perhaps what sometimes gets in the way of that longer term ambition is, um, is not perhaps sticking with those values and the behaviors.
And, um, that gets the win the way for me then of the sort of long-term ambition. So I, I think we've probably always tried to take a long-term strategic approach here in wig. Um. If I think back to some of the work that we've done on sort of just thinking about austerity and the financial management approach, we've always invested in long-term transformation.
So built the business cases and then the investor save around actually avoiding, um, short-termism decisions that are wrong for the organization. So let's build a long-term ambition to get through the financial challenges. Um, so for digital transformation, I think it's the same really that, um. Having a thought process, that's long term to say.
Digital transformation is actually gonna make us more effective and more efficient and save us money in the longer term, and most importantly, deliver better services for our residents. So for me. Um, taking that long term approach is, is really, really important. And obviously we work in political environments, don't we?
So taking politicians with you is really important. So they can, they get it, they can lead on the approach though. And also the politicians need to be courageous, the longside, the officers to invest in the long term, invest in being innovative and actually, um, being up for taking some risks, which. I feel really lucky with because I know in other councils talking to colleagues, um, you know, perhaps they haven't had that same, um, conditions.
And so I'm really grateful that here we've been able to build that sort of long-term strategic planning approach, which means we have been able to do the investment in digital transformation, which then I suppose reaffirms that, you know, sticking to your principles, sticking to your values and behaviors and, uh, for all being a mission led organization.
So I. I think that's sort of my take on how we've tried to do it here. Um, and it's been, it is been through that really great relationships between, um, the politicians and the officers to be able to build on that long-term planning
Lisa Trickey: and whether it's the wig and deal that, or progress with Unity as a leadership team, you've managed to create that really strong narrative for change that has inspired people.
Alison Mc-Kenzie Folan: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and we've done that. I mean we did the sort of that journey we've been on the last 18 months. We did um, work with some external organizations, so Collaborate and IPPR, but we didn't ask them to come in and gave, give us the answers because we knew the answers were really here within our own community and with our own organization.
So what they've been able to do is help us on a journey of self-reflection, and I think that's a privilege really to have spent probably. Time together as partners with our communities, with our, um, business sector, with our residents, just understanding about what it is we've done over the last few years.
What do we need to do differently and how do we, um, learn as a place in an organization and, um. I think collaboration's been really important because of the complexity of the challenges we face. I mean, even, you know, places like Wiggen, we are still facing real significant inequalities in our communities, a massive demand, um, on our public services.
Um, and that just requires us to collaborate more and more. So having, um, you know, having that sort of ambitious approach together and, um, I. Sort of really thinking about, for me it's now this mission-based working co-designing with partners a whole place. Commitment is what we're talking about, to tackle some of the challenges that the borough faces.
Um. And it's been really heartwarming to see partners come together. So head teachers, gps, um, the hospital, the sports partnership of sports partnerships have been amazing. Um, and they're all, they're all really signed up to the two missions. They want to do something collectively together about facing into the inequalities and making sure that our neighborhoods thrive.
So for me, um. Moving to that sort of networking matrix leadership style approach. No rigid hierarchies not working in silos in organizations not being task-based. It lends itself amazingly, doesn't it, to digital transformation. 'cause you can see it across, across the whole of the sort of partnership. Um, so I, you know, just reflecting on what you've just asked, and I think mission-based leadership and digital transformation sit really well together.
And that's what I think what we're trying to do here in we.
Lisa Trickey: It's quite a different approach though, isn't it, to the way that we've led in councils historically. So have you had to, have you had to do anything in terms of your sort of leadership programs to adapt to this?
Alison Mc-Kenzie Folan: Yeah, I think you're really right.
Actually. We are, um, on a learning journey ourselves because what we're saying to, and if you think about, I suppose a typical senior management team, people would work in hierarchies, wouldn't they? In silos and directorate somewhere saying that's gone. You work in a networked matrix whole system approach.
And, um, it does challenge traditional thinking and it can challenge, you know, I suppose people's boundaries and people's ways of working. And we are going through a learning journey ourselves. Um, Nestra produced actually a really good report on this. I, um, I didn't find it, one of my colleagues did. Um, and that's really setting the conditions for, um, mission leadership.
And actually it does challenge you individually to think differently, and that's moving beyond traditional models, really embracing a new approach. Um, and what that means is a different way of thinking on leadership. It means really thinking about the psychological safety that we've talked about. Um, it means.
That you are managing through empowerment. So it isn't about sort of traditional ways of having hierarchy and control. Um, it's really about. Getting rid of bureaucracy for me. So really thinking about how you break some of the policies and rules and power over compliance. 'cause traditionally in local government, we are sort of stuck to compliance, haven't we?
About, you know, sticking to a policy or sticking to a procedure. So you've got to challenge yourself on that. Um, and if you are a network organization, you're not working in hierarchies. So it's connection over structure. You don't. You don't talk about structures, you talk about relationships and connections.
And so yes, it is a personal challenge. It's definitely a challenge for you, you know, your teams, because what we're saying is we've gotta all work in different ways and we're on a journey at the moment.
Lisa Trickey: And it probably requires people to be really self-aware as well, doesn't it? So,
Alison Mc-Kenzie Folan: yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, yeah, and I think you've probably done it yourself, Lisa.
We all, you know, whatever your MBTI is or your, your preferred learning styles, we did some work on the colors in the past, and you've got to, um. You've got to be aware of that, which probably goes back to our six ways of working, which is see the person and listen deeply and we're all different, aren't we?
Um, and actually celebrating that, but encouraging that inclusive approach to leadership style and network way, um, is what we're trying to do here.
Lisa Trickey: So Richard, what are some of the practical things that you do day to day that help to kind of create the environment for digital?
Richard Brooks: So a lot of that is about micro behavior.
Um, and, um, if I had to give people one sort of nugget to take away, uh, from this podcast, it would be to think really carefully about the question that you ask when things go wrong. So the, the, the tempting question is to ask why did this go wrong? But I think that can really easily be heard as who is to blame?
And a much better question, I think, is what have we learned? And you know, you can, you can signal to people as much as you like, we know that things are gonna go wrong. That's okay. You know, it's really important to be transparent and open. We can then make good decisions about what we do next. As much as you say that when you start off, often people don't really believe you.
You know, they think, oh, that's all very well, but when something actually does go wrong. So really key moment is the first time something goes wrong. Or you know, the stage in the program where you start to think, do you know what, maybe this is a bad idea. Maybe we shouldn't have done this. And actually the conversation that you facilitate there where you say, okay, let's be honest.
Let's review this. You know, we've spent six weeks working at this. It's much more complicated. It's likely to be more expensive than we thought. Maybe it's not the right thing to do. Do you know what? Let's stop. Let's just stop. That's fine. What have we learned? That genuinely drives culture change. So I've really seen people take that and, um, and, and run with it and open up and to, to feel a sense of empowerment and then be able to tell that story to other people in ways that mean that they're willing to take a bit of a risk as well.
'cause there is risk in this, in this kind of work. We've gotta take risks in order to improve.
Lisa Trickey: So that's great. So starting with ourselves and thinking about the language that we can use to help create change, what a fantastic bit of advice to end on, Richard. Thank you. And Alison, what would you add to that?
Alison Mc-Kenzie Folan: Um, I, I think, oh gosh, it's hard to summarize all of that, isn't it? But I think it would probably, um, come back to those relationships actually. Um. To create change, you only create change through great relationships. So actually focusing in, if you are trying to do some big digital transformation or even some small digital transformation actually, um, ultimately the world's about people, isn't it?
And the world's about relationships. So I do think it's about building that trust and those relationships. Um. You know, Richard made a good point earlier, didn't he, in terms of, sometimes it's just about getting on with it. So start wherever you can start actually. Um, and what I found here is that you soon grow, um, amazing ambassadors.
Um, who suddenly talk about things in a really great way. So they grasp the opportunities themselves because they've, they've been doing some digital transformational, some AI work. So I think starting somewhere or just get started really is the message. Start somewhere and, uh, and find the wonders of that, the actual, uh, amazing transformation that you can do.
And I think you'll be surprised in organizations that you can get a long way. Um, and then I suppose my last message would be that, um. Challenge the way we do things in a traditional way. AI is changing the world of around us. It's absolutely amazing. Um, so really take time to actually spend some time getting into this world because, um, it's changing our whole lives.
Uh, whether you like it, whether you're frighten about it, whether you're excited, you have to embrace it. Um, and I think it's a really valuable and exciting journey. So, embracing digital transformation is, is what we need to do.
Lisa Trickey: I think that's, that's really great advice and I think there's so many passionate and talented people in the sector.
You know, everybody's here 'cause we want to make a difference. So thank you so much both of you for taking time out to share your experiences and some great practical takeaways there for our listeners. That brings us to the end of this episode of Digital Directions. What next for councils? Our sincere thanks to Alison Mackenzie Foley and Richard Brooks for joining us on this episode.
We hope this discussion on leadership and culture spark some ideas, and we would love to hear your thoughts and continue the conversation. You can get in touch by the LGAs. CDT account on LinkedIn to share your views and hear more about our work. Don't miss out on Future Insights. Hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app now and join us next time as we tackle other digital topics.
Welcome everyone to our local government podcast, digital Directions. What Next For Councils? This episode is focused on the role of leadership and culture in driving change. Today I've got. Two fantastic guests. Alison Mackenzie, Foland, chief Executive of Wiggin Council, and Richard Brooks, executive Director for city Operations at Birmingham City Council.
Thank you both so much for joining us today. Hi Lisa. Hi, Lisa. Great to be here. Looking forward to the conversation with you and Richard. Fantastic. So just thinking about what we're gonna be talking about today, you know, the world around us has changed significantly. Over recent years, whether that's climate change that we've experienced, the pace of technology advancement, societal and demographic changes.
You know, we've had to go through the experience of a pandemic. The sector has faced a number of challenges and arguably is facing greater complexity and uncertainty than ever before, and I think this has impacted on. Organizations and how we need to think about the workplace and the workforce. And through the conversation today, it would be great to explore whether we feel that requires different skills from our managers and leaders, as well as the wider workforce and how we go about creating the types of organization that are equipped to respond to the environment that we operate in today.
So to start us off, I'm asking this question at the beginning of all podcast episodes to get a picture of how senior leaders think about digital. So how would you describe and position digital transformation at your council? Alison, can I come across to, to you at Wiggin? Of course. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks Lisa.
Alison Mc-Kenzie Folan: And I'm sure that, uh, you know, through Richard and I, we'll we'll probably compare notes and be on a similar journey, but certainly for Wiggan digital transformation, um, yes, the technology is important, but it isn't really just about the technology. Uh, most of our transformational journey has been about culture, values, uh, and the people that we work alongside.
So, um, I've been here now 16 years. Certainly for the last 10 years have been really invested heavily in our sort of digital leadership, um, across the organization. And that's been rooted in those relationships, really in building a culture of trust and psychological safety and a trust of, um, trust that people can get on and do innovation, you know, permission to do the right thing is what I say to people.
Um, and if you've got brilliant ideas, um, let's bring them on. So certainly our digital transformation is not. Been confined to the, you know, to the IT team or to people just doing service, uh, redesign. It's about that total thinking. It's rethinking the whole organization, particularly rethinking it from the perspective of our residents.
You know, ultimately we are public servants and everything that we do, um, we do, uh, because that's what we are. That's, you know, we. Uh, public servants. So listening to our residents, listening deeply to them, seeing our residents and understanding how we, um, you know, how we build the organization for the future is really important.
And, um, you know, that means I think for us having a real different sort of social movement for change. So one of the things that we've been doing here, uh, and over the last 18 months is a mission led organization and mission led place around progress with unity. And that's, I suppose, building on that. Um, intrinsic motivation of public service really, and that we're trying to empower innovation at every level and every part of the organization and with our partners.
And I think if you embrace that innovation and be courageous, then. [00:49:00] You start to put the culture and practice in place where you really do get on with, um, you know, digital transformation then. So our missions are around inequalities. That first mission is about facing into inequalities, making sure that our residents, our families, our children, um, we really address that fairness.
And then the second mission is around making sure that neighborhoods thrive. Um, and our places are really happy and healthy places to live. So if we see those as our missions and that, how do we bring digital transformation into supporting the missions for a place? And that really then is around, um, you know, that culture of creativity and.
Technology and data can really help us with that. They are amazing tools, aren't they? I'm still, uh, daily, um, you know, absolutely amazed by the power of ai, but thinking that in a really resident based way is important to us. So I think it's critical, um, that we use data and digital to help us on our mission delivery.
Um. And I think also that you can use it to sort of overcome silo working in an organization, really encouraging people to see things across a whole organization, a whole system, a whole place. Um, and that I think it can really help, particularly the data when we know that data in local government, um, is so important to us.
But it can really help us with that decision making and contribute to the missions. Um. Uh, and for us really contribute to addressing those inequalities. So it's a massive part of what we're about in Wiggin. I think it's a really exciting part, um, of being in local government where we embrace digital transformation and fundamental that we all as local government, all councils really grasp the opportunities in a, in a considered way, but in a really ambitious way, and try to really embed that in our cultures, our values, and our behaviors.
Lisa Trickey: That's, uh, fantastic and I know Richard, you are very passionate about data as well, aren't you? And, and how it can be used to help transform ways of working and services. Absolutely. Um, I mean, I think Alice has just given a really brilliant, sort of holistic view of this. Um, and, and, you know, making that link between what do we want for our places?
Richard Brooks: What do we want for our people? You know, what kind of organization do we want to be? And that being at the heart of why do we care about digital? It's really important. It's powerful. Um, that's a very powerful articulation. I mean, I suppose at, at the very simplest, um. I see digital as just a huge opportunity, just an enormous opportunity is just this endlessly giving kind of, you know, different range of opportunities for service transformation, improving outcomes for citizens, improving the experience of, you know, of, uh, of residents, both engaging with services and the, you know, councils engaging with their partners.
Just, it's just an enormous opportunity. At the same time, there's an edge to this, which is, there's a necessity to get on top of this stuff because in many ways, you know, the, the, the, the public sector has got some catching up to do, you know, the leading private sector organizations, uh, makes such unbelievably powerful use, uh, of data and digital.
Um, and, and we're also under a lot of pressure. You know, we're under pressure of expectations. We're under a lot of financial pressure. My own organization, Birmingham City Council, it's been under really serious financial pressure and actually the imperative to, um, not just cut services to balance budgets.
But to do things in a different way, um, which is more efficient to replace old fashioned manual ways of doing things or laborious, time consuming ways of doing things with more efficient digital solutions. You know, it's both an opportunity and it's also a, and it's also a necessity, but, but I, I do think that.
Where Allison started, which was about culture and values is that's, that's a great place to start by situating digital. It's always better to start with the why than the what, and it's ultimately because this agenda can really help us achieve more, more for our residents, more for our places. You know, I think the local gov sector has a fantastic history of responding to change and innovating and you know, we've seen that really recently with the, um, all the AI sort of use cases that we've been collecting in the LGA about what's been, you know, what.
Lisa Trickey: What councils have been doing. But we often see kind of focus on sort of one process or one service area. So my question is how do we help scale that? I think some of that probably leads, leads back to your point around starting with the culture and, and the people, but it's, yeah, how do we scale? How do we shift from sort of service transformation to more systemic approaches that are perhaps whole council and people place-based approaches.
Alison Mc-Kenzie Folan: Do you want me to have a go, Richard? And then you come in? Or did you wanna carry on? Yeah. Okay. Go ahead, Alison. I'll, uh, yeah, uh, I, well, really, I think, uh, Lisa, just to sort of follow on from what Richard said, I, I. Our chair is passionate enthusiasm where you've obviously well matched us today in terms of really, uh, seeing digital transformation as a massive opportunity.
And, and as Richard said, you know, Birmingham and, and places like we facing, rising in complex demand, facing really significant, uh, financial pressures and also that just resilience of, you know, what we've been through over the last, uh, years. The fact that now we can see the advantages particularly of AI in terms of reducing those administration burdens.
Um, you know, we've seen massive gains in social care, um, integrated health and care models, um, really enabling us to be more agile and responsive. Um, and. I think for me, one of the things that we've learned is actually to see, as you said, Lisa, not to see it as a sort of silo based transformation. So it's taking the learning from parts of the organization that are going at this quite fast.
Um, so we've got, um, you know, parts of. Of our council at the moment that are really pushing the boundaries on using some of the digital transformation and AI work in, uh, particularly social care and adults. So actually taking that learning into other parts of the organization and seeing it as a, as a collaboration.
And I think it comes down to, um, really it's the ways of working for me. So actually. In a council if you're trying to get systematic change and move away from silos, it's about that social movement. It's about a movement for change. And what we've done here in Wiggin is, um, we've actually drilled it down to six ways of working, and if you can put those six ways of working at the heart of digital transformation and transformation across the whole of the system, then for me, you probably can't go far wrong.
So I'll, I'll briefly say them just. Um, sort of, uh, articulate what I'm trying to say here. So the first is see the person. And I think it goes back to what Richard said, that actually everything that we do has to be person centered. So we focus on our residents. We focus, focus on the strength of our residents and what they can do.
As public servants, we then the second thing is listen deeply to them, and that means really listening to our communities co-product, you know, co-production of services. The third thing I think is really important is knowing our community. So know the place that you, that you're serving. Um, and that's around what Richard said around actually we sit on huge amounts of data.
So not seeing that in silos, seeing that for the whole place. Connecting then to neighborhoods. So you don't do this if you were working in a silo, you'd connect to your neighborhood as that part of the organization. But connecting to neighborhoods means connecting with the rest of the public and the community sector.
So connecting to the local school, connecting to the gp, connecting to the NHS, connecting to the rest of the people working in our neighborhoods. And really thinking about digital transformation at, in a place. Um, the fifth thing, and this is my real, um, I suppose one of my favorites is, goes back to setting the conditions.
And what I say to people I work alongside is you sort of know when you're doing the right thing. Um, so you have permission to do the right thing. You don't need to wait for someone to tell you. So creating the great. Conditions for ideas and digital transformation to flourish, I think stops that sort of silo based approach.
And then the last thing, um, I. It's actually about, uh, love and compassion and having some pride in the jobs that we do. So we talk all the time about our behaviors of being accountable, being courageous, being positive, and being kind. So if you put that at the heart of digital transformation and think about whole system and not silos, then you can really focus on those principles and behaviors and break down that silo based working, thinking about strengths, thinking about communities, um, and spreading across that across the whole.
I suppose organization for me has been really, really important. Um, and we've done that in some practical ways. So we've got, um, a team, we're an experience that 5,000 staff have been through and it's immersive experience where people spend time thinking about the six ways of working, what it means to them, and digital transformation.
And then they can really grasp that they're not looking at things through a, a small lens. And, um, that really sort of. I think for me thinks about a whole council whole place, whole borough approach. And, um, we're still on a journey 'cause we, you know, we've not cracked this yet. But I think having those, um, embedded ways of working and having that sort of way of trying to, to break down the barriers, um, has really helped people in terms of thinking about it, uh, across the place.
Richard Brooks: So how, how do we go from, um, sort of individual improvements to, to sys system change, I think is a, is a really interesting question. Um, I, I, I think. It really helps to, it really helps to start small sometimes, you know, actually there are quite limited, um, scale things which are worth doing, but which can also help really build momentum and understanding of this, this agenda.
I think there's lots of people who are quite simultaneously. Uh, interested in digital as an agenda, but also a bit scared of it. Uh, and it can feel, especially for people who are actually further on in their careers, like, oh, you know, I've got expertise of a certain kind. Does it really, is it really relevant in this, um, you know, in this new fast moving world?
It absolutely is. And I think giving people the confidence to feel that is really, is really important. So, actually starting small. Um, demonstrating success. So having some sort of shorter term things that you can then start to communicate, demonstrate to people, uh, they work, and then starting to scale the things that, that work is a, is a good way of going from the small to the, to the larger.
Also, I think really important to stop stuff. You know, to be making decisions about, well actually we're trying a couple of different things. We're not putting all of our eggs in one basket. Um, being realistic that not everything works and therefore it's fine to stop those things and we'll, we'll invest more of our time and effort where we do think things are working, um, and start up new, new opportunities as well.
And then actually that does start, I think, to motivate people. Really important to spread the opportunities as well around the organization. It was so impressive, Alison, to hear about the number of people who've been involved in, you know, in, in your work. We found it's been quite radical actually getting a lot of relatively junior stuff to be in meetings with, you know, directors and um, you know, other senior council folk and partners.
Talking about what they do, talking about the changes that they're making and actually that giving other people confidence to participate in this, in this world. Um, and also they make the best advocates, you know, they make the best advocates for the change changes that actually make a difference, and in many cases are making their work better.
So, you know, it's when you hear someone who's leading a team that has been manually redacting or checking invoices. Or Yeah, doing some kind of, you know, necess previously necessary, but frankly boring. Dull hard work and actually finding that you can automate some of that and that frees you up to spend more of your human intelligence on, on the more valuable, valuable activity.
That's incredibly powerful and that starts to draw a lot, a lot of other people in communicating, communicating this stuff. It's important, you know, it's exciting. Gives people a sort of, you know, sense of momentum, a flywheel effect. And, and gives more people the opportunity to sort of shift from being, oh, I'm not sure about this, to actually, there's a valuable thing that I can do here, not just for in my organization and my community, but for them personally as well in terms of the skills that they gain.
So we found that actually there is an appetite for people to be involved in, you know, digital work because it's great learning for them. Gives them really valuable capabilities. So I suppose it's this sense of. You know, um, a journey, an evolution that I'm, that I'm trying to get across. Again, it it trying to encourage people not to see this as a kind of, you know, a cliff to climb in one go, but as a series of, you know, a series of steps, many different routes, uh, many different routes to success in.
Lisa Trickey: And you had a big event last week, didn't you? We did, yeah. The first Foundry Live, was it not the first? No. Digital founds been running digital found Foundry's been running for 18 months now. In Birmingham City Council, it's built and built and built momentum. We're now running two big annual events and, you know, that draws in people from across all the services of the council, draws external partners in.
Richard Brooks: Um, we've, you know, we've got kind of competitive suppliers in the same room collaborating with each other, which is quite fun, fun to see. Um, and, you know, it gives you an opportunity, again, to, to spread the, the understanding, uh, across the organization and to make rapid progress on specific challenges.
Lisa Trickey: That's great to hear about the momentum that the Foundry has built and how it's involving people from across the council, external partners and suppliers. You know, it's a, it's a really great example of skill building and collaboration. And in fact, we worked on a case study about the Foundry that's just launched on the LGA website and it does really highlight what a brilliant way to go about building skills and capability across an organization.
Speaking of impactful experiences, Alison, I had the opportunity obviously to go through the Wiggin experience and it was, it was fantastic and I, it was just so brilliant how you just integrated everything and in a relatively short space of time could really help somebody understand what the council stands for, what the place is like, and how those values and behaviors sort of.
Integrate throughout all that work and I, I don't want to talk, I don't wanna give anything away for people that haven't, haven't gone there, but it was, it was incredible. It was really inspiring and when I did my questionnaire, I did come out as positive. So that was my, uh oh. Did you, alright. Probably not a surprise to, to some people.
Yeah. But no, it's, it's really fantastic. So just moving on from the, the, the kind of behaviors and, and the values, I guess skills is another area where we're starting to think about actually are the skills that we need of our managers and leaders today different to, you know, perhaps what they have been in the past or need to be kind of amplified with other, other skills.
You touched right at the very start on psychological safety. Mm-hmm. And that's something that recently come up in conversation. And we were at local gov camp and we were talking about, you know, what is it that we need from our managers and leaders to really help, uh, enable digital to sort of thrive in an organization?
And psychological safety was, was really important in that, but I just wondered what else that you, you have, you would think. Yeah, Lisa, I probably do, and I think you know me a little bit, don't you? And you've, we've done some work together in the past, so, um, I'm very much into being value driven. So, um, that compassion and kindness is public servants.
Alison Mc-Kenzie Folan: Um, those softer skills, um, I think are really strategically important. So for me, um, you know, where, where that's not perhaps got as much emphasis than I think it, than I think it should have. So, um, so. When I became chief executive, one of the things that we started talking about here was much more around kindness and compassion as a core behavior and a core skill really.
Um, in terms of, I think kindness in the workplace really needs leadership champions to do that and talk about it. Um. It's ultimately why we're in public service, really to see that whole person and listen deeply and think about things differently. And I think that then helps the organization because you strengthen relationships with your own colleagues, with partners, with other organizations because you are carefully listening to each other.
You have that understanding, you have that empathy. Um. And I think it's particularly important for leaders to display those values and, you know, represent their organizations and they need to have the skills, Lisa, I think, to shape the culture of an organization, that's ultimately what, why we're in these jobs really, isn't it?
Um, and shaping a culture of the organization is where you foster and support those real, um, those real ways of working in terms of relationships. So, so I think on the theme of psychological safety, it's been. Personally important thing to me, I've talked about it here in Wiggin for a number of years now, and that's around supporting honest conversations where you can challenge each other, where you talk about failures together and they can be shared without fear.
Um, and what I've seen is that actually we are building trust, resilience, and learning as an organization. When you talk openly around psychological safety. Really is amazing to see. 'cause then what happens is that, um, you see that sort of experimentation and innovation going on because people aren't frightened there.
And it's all right if it goes wrong. It doesn't really matter if, you know, if the wheels fall off or, um, you know, it's not quite how you worked because there's no fear of failure. There's no fear of being judged because you're encouraged, um, to have honest and open conversations. You're encouraged to experiment.
Um, so having the right culture. Is really, really important. And it's not just about, um, when we talk about sort of permission to innovate, but it's that doing the right thing. Doing the right thing as public servants for our communities, for our systems, for our residents, um, and what's best for the organization.
So. I think it links amazingly well with the digital transformation agenda because actually having that type of culture in an organization really unlocks, um, the potential for digital and ai. So they're, the skills I think we should be having is skills around relationships and compassion and pushing the culture of setting the tone and conditions of psychological safety.
And for me. For any modern leaders these days? In answer to your question, I think it's thinking those things first. Um, and now as we are moving into being a really mission, uh, led organization, thinking, community thinking place, thinking outside of those organizational silos and focusing on relationships is key.
Um, and that's why. We see this is a bit of a movement for change. It's not some sort of separate transformation program. It's, it's definitely around the, the skills that you need are, um, are really around being, um, you know, those movement shakers, those move, you know, that's what, that's what we need people to have these days in local government.
Lisa Trickey: It's um, it's interesting to hear you talk about kindness and compassion and, and listening. 'cause on other episodes of the podcast we've been talking to people and talking about the language barrier for digital, and I think that's what's interesting about what you've been able to do in Riggin. The way you've mainstreamed it is using just normal.
You don't talk about citizen focused or user focused or whatever that might, you know that, whatever that might be. And I feel like you've managed to create that real learning organization. And I know as well you've opened up opportunities inside the organization to learn what other people do, haven't you?
Alison Mc-Kenzie Folan: Yeah. Yeah. So I think one of the things that we try to say is that we're a learning organization, so, you know, open ourselves up, but then go and find out what, um, other organizations are doing. And I think it's, I suppose you're creating spaces for innovation. Aren't you really allocating that time and that dedication to, to learning, to innovation.
So probably a good example of that is, um. We've been doing a lot of work around, like all councils around artificial intelligence. Um, and we've got sort of AI labs that have been developed where people can explore the different applications of AI in a, in just sort of, it's okay approach. It's, you know.
You can play around with the technology co-pilot or whatever, whatever we're using. Um, and that's seen people come together with developers, social workers, you know, just coming together as a community really, and getting a real understanding as a community about how can we apply some of this digital work, uh, you know, transformation AI into sort of co-developing solutions together in a.
AI lab in a community lab, um, you know, how can they help us with our case management systems? How do we actually give social workers more time to focus on what truly matters, matters? You know, spending time with residents and, and communities. And, um, for me, having that sort of. Um, approach has really helped sort of experimentation and learning.
In answer to your question, I think it's, um, building that sort of culture of curiousness really, and getting people to come together. And, um, it goes back to sort of the values of the organization, doesn't it? That you are a learning organization and you, you can sort of share those learning journeys together and being open about what you can do, what you can't do, what you don't know what goes wrong, um, has been really important to me.
Lisa Trickey: What about you, Richard? Do you feel that our managers and leaders require different skills to help their teams, you know, operate in the world that we're in today? So do people need different skills? Uh, I mean, yes, to some extent, but I think that can easily be, easily be overstated. And it's definitely not about people having sort of specific technology skills.
Richard Brooks: Um, I mean the, you know, the, the, the, particularly at sort of digital leadership level, you know, the, the classic leadership skills are still really important. Think about strategy, think about people, also think about data in order to understand how, how the world is. Um, and I think. Probably behavior is more important than, than skill, certainly at the, at the leadership level for, for this agenda.
So really valuing the opportunity of digital, actually genuinely believing in it. You know, that means that you invest your time and energy. It means that you, you know, you make space for your people to do these things. Um, and then the sort of culture of curiosity and innovation, um, those are probably more important than specific skills.
I, I think if I was gonna pick out. Some more sort of classical skills, then I would say there is, I think a shift. In, in terms of the value and importance from some of the classic kind of heavy project and program management skills towards a more sort of agile and flexible way of working. Um, and that's, that's for a, a couple of reasons.
One is that. Actually a lot of the technology is changing so fast that very long waterfall projects kind of get left behind by the technology. Um, and, and the sort of, you know, build, test, iterate, um, approach, I think is, is particularly effective in relation to, to digital tech, digital, um, digital development and opportunities.
So, you know that, I think those agile skills, the. The ability to get things spun up and working quickly, and then to test them with people, get feedback and improve them. I think those are, those are really important. Um, there are also skills in, um, in, in understanding data and outputs. Definitely. So some of the sort of, um.
Sort of data and intelligence skills I think are particularly relevant here because that that's what allows you to see the impact of these things. And often I've found that the thing that sort of flips people from thinking, oh, we, should we do this? Maybe we should do this to yes, we definitely should, is actually getting a hold of the data about what's really going on in your organization.
What do people do all day? What do they actually do all day? What do they spend their time on? You know, how many of this. Thing do they do? Bringing that in front of people and, and allowing people to understand, oh my God, we've got a backlog of thousands of these things. We've got more coming in than we can process in that time period.
Therefore the backlog's getting bigger. You know, understanding some of that actually helps generate the, um, the real motivation fuel for, for driving digital. So I guess those are two things that I would, I particularly pick out, but you know. Listeners would've noticed that I've not talked about any of the kind of technical development skills or, you know, understanding systems and infrastructure and, you know, coding and stuff like that.
But, um, that obviously those are critical to the success of the projects. But if we're talking about digital leadership, I don't think people need to be put off by that. That aligns really nicely to a conversation at the gov camp where the group identified from, from their leaders. Actually, it was about being content with progress, not perfection.
Lisa Trickey: Being comfortable with uncertainty. Um. You know, bringing a bit of fun and energy into, into the mix and that test and learn approach that you talked about. So it lines really nicely that some of, some of my, one of the, the digital digital Foundry team in Birmingham's got this lovely graphic, um, and it says not like this.
Richard Brooks: And it's got a picture of a black box, and then a car emerges from it. It says instead like this, and it's got a picture of a skateboard and a scooter, bicycle and a car. It's like, yep. Being comfortable with, with iteration, it's, yeah. So in terms of thinking about how we consider approach change that positions us better for the longer term, you know, and creates ambition.
Lisa Trickey: But the reality is we're, we're dealing with the challenges of today. How do you, how do you balance that and how do you, how do you still manage to sort of create the future whilst in the here and now? It is hard. You know, we, we, all of us have to be able to deliver the things that keep us alive from day to day.
Richard Brooks: There's no getting around that. You've got to carve out some capacity in order to step back, think, do some things differently, and, and it, it, it's really interesting when, you know, when you, when you try and make that time and you bring together a group of people to think about a problem in the round.
There's often reluctance to, oh, we've gotta spend two days together doing this. I mean, you know, there's so many other things that we, that we need to get on with. Um, and so I think demonstrating to people quickly, the value of doing that is, is really important. Um, and again, it's about flywheel effect.
Doing that with some people who can then talk to others and say, do you know what? I met these people. They're just downstream of where I am in this process. And I'd never met them before. I'd never actually, we'd never been in the same room together. We didn't understand that they were doing this thing that's important and relevant.
Relevant to us. So, you know, building up some of that, that sort of, that understanding of the value, generating the value rapidly so that you people start to, um, be prepared to invest the time that's necessary. And things that can initially feel a little bit, a little bit luxurious is, um, uh, is really important.
You just, just have to invest time and change. Otherwise, we do the same things all the time. So there's got to be a, a, a recognition that this is not around the edges, uh, of what people do in their day jobs. It's got to be carved out, and we've gotta create some of the space for that. So how about you, Alison?
Lisa Trickey: How do you balance the challenges of today whilst looking to the future? I think it's probably both. You know, Lisa, I think, um. You, you sort of meet the challenges of today, um, by being true to the values of the organization and the principles and perhaps what sometimes gets in the way of that longer term ambition is, um, is not perhaps sticking with those values and the behaviors.
Alison Mc-Kenzie Folan: And, um, that gets the win the way for me then of the sort of long-term ambition. So I, I think we've probably always tried to take a long-term strategic approach here in wig. Um. If I think back to some of the work that we've done on sort of just thinking about austerity and the financial management approach, we've always invested in long-term transformation.
So built the business cases and then the investor save around actually avoiding, um, short-termism decisions that are wrong for the organization. So let's build a long-term ambition to get through the financial challenges. Um, so for digital transformation, I think it's the same really that, um. Having a thought process, that's long term to say.
Digital transformation is actually gonna make us more effective and more efficient and save us money in the longer term, and most importantly, deliver better services for our residents. So for me. Um, taking that long term approach is, is really, really important. And obviously we work in political environments, don't we?
So taking politicians with you is really important. So they can, they get it, they can lead on the approach though. And also the politicians need to be courageous, the longside, the officers to invest in the long term, invest in being innovative and actually, um, being up for taking some risks, which. I feel really lucky with because I know in other councils talking to colleagues, um, you know, perhaps they haven't had that same, um, conditions.
And so I'm really grateful that here we've been able to build that sort of long-term strategic planning approach, which means we have been able to do the investment in digital transformation, which then I suppose reaffirms that, you know, sticking to your principles, sticking to your values and behaviors and, uh, for all being a mission led organization.
So I. I think that's sort of my take on how we've tried to do it here. Um, and it's been, it is been through that really great relationships between, um, the politicians and the officers to be able to build on that long-term planning and whether it's the wig and deal that, or progress with Unity as a leadership team, you've managed to create that really strong narrative for change that has inspired people.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and we've done that. I mean we did the sort of that journey we've been on the last 18 months. We did um, work with some external organizations, so Collaborate and IPPR, but we didn't ask them to come in and gave, give us the answers because we knew the answers were really here within our own community and with our own organization.
So what they've been able to do is help us on a journey of self-reflection, and I think that's a privilege really to have spent probably. Time together as partners with our communities, with our, um, business sector, with our residents, just understanding about what it is we've done over the last few years.
What do we need to do differently and how do we, um, learn as a place in an organization and, um. I think collaboration's been really important because of the complexity of the challenges we face. I mean, even, you know, places like Wiggen, we are still facing real significant inequalities in our communities, a massive demand, um, on our public services.
Um, and that just requires us to collaborate more and more. So having, um, you know, having that sort of ambitious approach together and, um, I. Sort of really thinking about, for me it's now this mission-based working co-designing with partners a whole place. Commitment is what we're talking about, to tackle some of the challenges that the borough faces.
Um. And it's been really heartwarming to see partners come together. So head teachers, gps, um, the hospital, the sports partnership of sports partnerships have been amazing. Um, and they're all, they're all really signed up to the two missions. They want to do something collectively together about facing into the inequalities and making sure that our neighborhoods thrive.
So for me, um. Moving to that sort of networking matrix leadership style approach. No rigid hierarchies not working in silos in organizations not being task-based. It lends itself amazingly, doesn't it, to digital transformation. 'cause you can see it across, across the whole of the sort of partnership. Um, so I, you know, just reflecting on what you've just asked, and I think mission-based leadership and digital transformation sit really well together.
And that's what I think what we're trying to do here in we. It's quite a different approach though, isn't it, to the way that we've led in councils historically. So have you had to, have you had to do anything in terms of your sort of leadership programs to adapt to this? Yeah, I think you're really right.
Actually. We are, um, on a learning journey ourselves because what we're saying to, and if you think about, I suppose a typical senior management team, people would work in hierarchies, wouldn't they? In silos and directorate somewhere saying that's gone. You work in a networked matrix whole system approach.
And, um, it does challenge traditional thinking and it can challenge, you know, I suppose people's boundaries and people's ways of working. And we are going through a learning journey ourselves. Um, Nestra produced actually a really good report on this. I, um, I didn't find it, one of my colleagues did. Um, and that's really setting the conditions for, um, mission leadership.
And actually it does challenge you individually to think differently, and that's moving beyond traditional models, really embracing a new approach. Um, and what that means is a different way of thinking on leadership. It means really thinking about the psychological safety that we've talked about. Um, it means.
That you are managing through empowerment. So it isn't about sort of traditional ways of having hierarchy and control. Um, it's really about. Getting rid of bureaucracy for me. So really thinking about how you break some of the policies and rules and power over compliance. 'cause traditionally in local government, we are sort of stuck to compliance, haven't we?
About, you know, sticking to a policy or sticking to a procedure. So you've got to challenge yourself on that. Um, and if you are a network organization, you're not working in hierarchies. So it's connection over structure. You don't. You don't talk about structures, you talk about relationships and connections.
And so yes, it is a personal challenge. It's definitely a challenge for you, you know, your teams, because what we're saying is we've gotta all work in different ways and we're on a journey at the moment. And it probably requires people to be really self-aware as well, doesn't it? So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, yeah, and I think you've probably done it yourself, Lisa.
We all, you know, whatever your MBTI is or your, your preferred learning styles, we did some work on the colors in the past, and you've got to, um. You've got to be aware of that, which probably goes back to our six ways of working, which is see the person and listen deeply and we're all different, aren't we?
Um, and actually celebrating that, but encouraging that inclusive approach to leadership style and network way, um, is what we're trying to do here. So Richard, what are some of the practical things that you do day to day that help to kind of create the environment for digital? So a lot of that is about micro behavior.
Richard Brooks: Um, and, um, if I had to give people one sort of nugget to take away, uh, from this podcast, it would be to think really carefully about the question that you ask when things go wrong. So the, the, the tempting question is to ask why did this go wrong? But I think that can really easily be heard as who is to blame?
And a much better question, I think, is what have we learned? And you know, you can, you can signal to people as much as you like, we know that things are gonna go wrong. That's okay. You know, it's really important to be transparent and open. We can then make good decisions about what we do next. As much as you say that when you start off, often people don't really believe you.
You know, they think, oh, that's all very well, but when something actually does go wrong. So really key moment is the first time something goes wrong. Or you know, the stage in the program where you start to think, do you know what, maybe this is a bad idea. Maybe we shouldn't have done this. And actually the conversation that you facilitate there where you say, okay, let's be honest.
Let's review this. You know, we've spent six weeks working at this. It's much more complicated. It's likely to be more expensive than we thought. Maybe it's not the right thing to do. Do you know what? Let's stop. Let's just stop. That's fine. What have we learned? That genuinely drives culture change. So I've really seen people take that and, um, and, and run with it and open up and to, to feel a sense of empowerment and then be able to tell that story to other people in ways that mean that they're willing to take a bit of a risk as well.
'cause there is risk in this, in this kind of work. We've gotta take risks in order to improve. So that's great. So starting with ourselves and thinking about the language that we can use to help create change, what a fantastic bit of advice to end on, Richard. Thank you. And Alison, what would you add to that?
Alison Mc-Kenzie Folan: Um, I, I think, oh gosh, it's hard to summarize all of that, isn't it? But I think it would probably, um, come back to those relationships actually. Um. To create change, you only create change through great relationships. So actually focusing in, if you are trying to do some big digital transformation or even some small digital transformation actually, um, ultimately the world's about people, isn't it?
And the world's about relationships. So I do think it's about building that trust and those relationships. Um. You know, Richard made a good point earlier, didn't he, in terms of, sometimes it's just about getting on with it. So start wherever you can start actually. Um, and what I found here is that you soon grow, um, amazing ambassadors.
Um, who suddenly talk about things in a really great way. So they grasp the opportunities themselves because they've, they've been doing some digital transformational, some AI work. So I think starting somewhere or just get started really is the message. Start somewhere and, uh, and find the wonders of that, the actual, uh, amazing transformation that you can do.
And I think you'll be surprised in organizations that you can get a long way. Um, and then I suppose my last message would be that, um. Challenge the way we do things in a traditional way. AI is changing the world of around us. It's absolutely amazing. Um, so really take time to actually spend some time getting into this world because, um, it's changing our whole lives.
Uh, whether you like it, whether you're frighten about it, whether you're excited, you have to embrace it. Um, and I think it's a really valuable and exciting journey. So, embracing digital transformation is, is what we need to do. I think that's, that's really great advice and I think there's so many passionate and talented people in the sector.
Lisa Trickey: You know, everybody's here 'cause we want to make a difference. So thank you so much both of you for taking time out to share your experiences and some great practical takeaways there for our listeners. That brings us to the end of this episode of Digital Directions. What next for councils? Our sincere thanks to Alison Mackenzie Foley and Richard Brooks for joining us on this episode.
We hope this discussion on leadership and culture spark some ideas, and we would love to hear your thoughts and continue the conversation. You can get in touch by the LGAs. CDT account on LinkedIn to share your views and hear more about our work. Don't miss out on Future Insights. Hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app now and join us next time as we tackle other digital topics.
Lisa Trickey: Welcome everyone to our local government podcast, Digital Directions: What next for councils? Today we're going to be talking about user-centred design and its role in helping the sector to modernise services. We've got a wonderful guest lineup for you today. I'm joined by Annie Heath, Head of User Centred Design at Birmingham Council, Phil Rumens, Digital Services Manager at West Berkshire, and Sarah Slate, Digital Advisor in the LGA. We also have a live audience with Sarita Solanki and Donna Roberts, who work in Annie's team at Birmingham.
I was reflecting before this podcast and thinking about when I started to learn about user-centred design. It's actually about a decade ago now. We started to work with an external organisation around considering our website, how we could start to think about that differently to make it easier for people to use online services and to reduce the demand on those kind of face-to-face visits and telephone calls. Then we started to apply that to our IT help desk and consider the experience and problems that people were having using it.
But compared to project management, user-centred design still feels like a relatively new discipline in local government. So Annie, I thought maybe we could start with a bit of an explanation for people that might not be so familiar with what user-centred design is.
Annie Heath: Yeah, that seems like a good place to start. So user-centred design is what it sounds like, in that we are looking at the services that we provide through a user-centred lens. We're always trying to put users at the heart of any redesign because, with the best will in the world, services can know what their users need to a great extent, but when you are working within the system, you cannot be sure that you know what the problems are for users with your processes and services. You know the language, you know the systems, you know what the different titles of service areas mean and who connects with each other, but someone on the outside doesn't. You can't find out all the ways in which something might be difficult for a user to navigate if you don't ask them.
You might also be assuming that they need something that you need as a service more than what they need as a resident. So user-centred design is the process of putting user needs and user testing at the heart of redesign, and it tends to also mean taking an iterative approach to that design.
Within my team, it contains some of the more specialist areas that have developed as the user-centred design profession has. My team includes business analysts, service designers, user researchers, and content designers, who are the ones that are good at making sure that the words are simple on the website.
Lisa Trickey: That's brilliant. And I guess when we talk about users, we talk about internal users, employees, external residents, customers, but I also noticed in the blueprint for modern digital government, they actually talk about businesses now as a distinct group of users as well. So we obviously deal with all those in local government.
One of the things I found hard is explaining to the organisation this kind of continuum of design, from the user experience digital interface space, but also how it can help us re-look at services that perhaps have operated in the same way for the last 20 years. It helps us think about the person that's using it and the technology that's now available to help us create those good user experiences, right through to organisational design and how we solve some of those really complex problems.
So thinking about the challenges facing the sector, how do you see user-centred design helping us?
Annie Heath: I think that the challenges that face the sector are ones around the amount of support that we have to provide, particularly in social care, which we know is exploding, and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), at a time when we're on the back of a decade of cuts. Therefore, there are fewer staff. The challenge is making sure that we're still able to show the value of why it's useful and necessary to ask users and test with users what they need, when it can seem like something that will slow down a cost-saving that's desperately needed.
Actually, if you don't do it, you could end up spending some of your precious time that is already very scarce—and money that's already very difficult—building something that no one will use. I don't think we can ever stress enough the need for taking a pragmatic and an incremental approach. Where user-centred design can address those challenges is by starting small to build up confidence in those processes and projects.
To make that sound a bit more real, we try and do small things, even if we're looking at a whole process. We might have things called "rapid reviews." For example, I was recently involved in one with the planning team. We were able to get them out of the day job into a room with us for a couple of days to look at their processes, to give them that time away from the day job to get together across the services, to understand their process and look at inefficiencies. There were some nice moments of, "Oh, do we still do it like that? I didn't realise you still did that," just from getting people together. At the same time, we could pinpoint places where we could identify ways to improve that process to make their lives, and the lives of people trying to get planning applications, easier. Like, "Oh look, there's an obvious way we can automate that," or "if we made that form not be paper anymore," or "if we allowed people to pay that online, that would help."
The way I think it can address the challenges is to bring that to life for really busy, stressed people who are generally by this point already doing three people's jobs, and to give them the confidence that it is worth doing and to feel ownership of it. It's not like the user-centred design team is something that is *done to* services. It helps much more if there's a sense of ownership from services as well, and to do that, they need to be practically involved.
Lisa Trickey:I love that. I love that idea of a rapid review and giving services the space and confidence to explore, whilst retaining ownership. Really great messages.
Annie Heath: What I found really interesting as well is how language itself can be alienating. Donna and I have been talking about this recently. We talk about using language that users recognise, but the language of user-centred design itself can be alienating without us realising it. Calling a three-day service design workshop a "rapid review" is something that is much more relatable. "Service design" feels like something the user-centred design team does; a "rapid review" feels like something that a service team does.
A "show and tell" can be something that feels very exposing, like you're going to have all your slides ready and everyone's going to ask you a load of questions and pull your work apart. Whereas, "review and feedback" or something like that just sort of takes that away. So, it's really interesting that we need to reflect on the language we use ourselves.
Sarita Solanki: At a previous council, when we were trying to infuse and evangelise for Agile, what we found out afterwards was people saying, "Why do you keep banging on about your favourite project management system when we've got stuff that we need to do?" We thought we were explaining this great new way, but instead, they're just like, "Yeah, whatever, they just keep banging on about agile and skateboards and stuff." So, interesting learning.
Lisa Trickey: That is a great learning point. Language is so, so important. Phil, did you wanna come in on that point?
Phil Rumens: Yeah, I totally agree with Annie there. You're making the task twice as difficult if you're teaching people new concepts and they have to learn new language at the same time to understand it. Annie's quite right there; you need to translate that into the language that most people understand and get away from our bubbles of service design, technology, and digital as a whole. Just use plain language to explain that. So "rapid review" is a great way of kind of getting started and working with business areas using some of these tools and techniques.
Lisa Trickey: How can co-design help councils address the diversity of needs that communities have and really help to enhance the quality and accessibility of our services?
Annie Heath: My team is involved in a customer service programme who have been putting in voice automation, and Donna has been the lead user researcher on that. Her co-design on that product has been a really great example of how co-design can help. People we've been working with wouldn't say, "Do you know what? What we want is voice automation." However, the co-design of that has made an enormous difference. I'll let Donna tell you more.
Donna Roberts: I apologise for becoming very over-passionate at this point, but actually, it just makes sense, doesn't it? If you are going to build things for people, then involve people, and people come in all shapes and sizes. So what we've done is actively tried to listen to those people that are seldom heard or those marginalised groups to understand lots of different needs. That's felt really important in the voice automation work that we've done.
In a really authentic way as well, we've been really clear in terms of our offer and our promise. What we learned was that different groups have got different needs. For example, people with learning disabilities, they want images. And people with visual impairments want fewer images because it interacts with their screen readers and disrupts it. But what they both wanted was simplicity, and that's the key. So it's about focusing on the things that make a benefit for many, many people.
And also being honest about what can't happen. That might be because of technical reasons or cost and budget. For example, they wanted to know if we could have a callback system so they wouldn't be on hold. Well, actually in the budget constraints that we've got, that's never gonna happen. But if you tell people that, "No, that's not going to happen," not only does it hold the developers to account, it also shows the residents and the people that have been involved that they've been valued, listened to, and heard.
When you've got people that we've worked with from Age UK telling you that they feel invisible and they feel left behind, you want to do a better job. When you've got people with learning disabilities telling you it takes away their independence, you want to do a better job. And when you've got stroke survivors telling you that when they phone up because their speech has been affected and the person they're talking to gives them a warning 'cause they assume that they're drunk, you want to do better.
So then that opens up conversations about accessibility needs. We are looking at accessibility flags so that when a customer contacts us, we understand his needs before he gets through to us and we can meet those needs. He said, "I feel worthless." He never feels worthless when he contacts our council again.
Lisa Trickey: What a fantastic example. Thank you for sharing that. I think I love that quote as well: "If you're going to build things for people, involve people." That's a good takeaway from today.
Annie Heath: The one thing I want to add to that is the feedback. The thing that has really made the difference is that when they have said, "we will tell you what happened," they actually have. That's the thing that often doesn't happen. You fill in the survey and then you never hear what the results are. The difference here has been that Donna has made sure that that has happened, and therefore they felt it has been worth it, and that builds trust and confidence in the council in general. It's those simple things, isn't it? Simple, but really powerful.
Lisa Trickey: So in terms of prototyping, which we talk a lot about in digital teams, what role does prototyping play in creating effective solutions for councils?
Sarita Solanki: Within the work of the Digital Foundry, it's all about the services coming to us with their problems, their inefficiency, and then us having the opportunity to delve a little bit deeper in terms of the problems that they're having and see what sort of small-scale digital solutions we can rapidly prototype and test, and then push out into life. For us, it enables us to really experiment with new ideas, look at solutions quickly, and work with our service areas. Like we said earlier, developing that safe space for our service areas to really talk about the problems that they have and work with them to ideate and prototype on potential solutions that might help them is really helpful.
They're the experts within their space. They are the ones that do the job day in, day out, and it enables them to kind of bring their ideas to the forefront as well. The feedback that we've had is that they've been really interested and intrigued in terms of the approach. One piece of really positive feedback we had was from a chap that was doing a really manual piece of work. We involved him in some AI development training, and he said, "Gosh, you know, this is something that I can do. I feel like I can do something like this." Before we'd gone in, it wasn't anything that he would have absolutely considered as a career path for himself. So it's kind of opening up new pathways for individuals as well.
Rapidly prototyping helps us to test those solutions, test them early, and use feedback to address the problems and reiterate and go back around that cycle again.
Lisa Trickey: So you are empowering people actually, and that must really help in terms of their motivation and job satisfaction as well.
Sarita Solanki: Absolutely. As part of the Foundry work, we have hack events as well. And as part of those hack events, we want people from the services to come join us, come and see what it's like to be part of a hack, to work on a problem and how all the different roles come together to look at the problem, ideate a solution, do some prototyping, and then see what it looks like in terms of building that. There's so many people from our services areas that actually really want to be part of those hacks now.
Lisa Trickey: Brilliant. We have got a case study on the LGA website for the work that you're doing, and we've actually got a new one that we're about to release around the work of the Foundry as well, more broadly. So some really interesting great work happening there. Thank you for sharing.
So I'm just going to take us back into the world of service design and how we measure its success. How do we know what good service design looks like in the context of local government and how do we know it's making a difference?
Sarita Solanki: Going back to the Foundry approach, what we try and look at is the value. What value is this piece of work going to bring to the service? And actually, if the value doesn't quite hold up in terms of the return on that investment, we won't necessarily pick that up. So when we push things out, what does that value bring? Is it bringing that time and cost saving?
Annie Heath: There's definitely a natural focus on 'will it save time and will it save money?' and that is how we are measuring the work that we are doing. The beauty of the Foundry work is that it is set up to look at smaller things that might never make the top of the priority list, but could really help a smaller individual team get on top of its workload, often through automation.
Sometimes the things that you might be helping them with might not save a lot of money, but might enable them to massively reduce backlogs. It can be a bit tricky with those kind of success metrics. It's also about culture change. If you are talking about needing to move an entire organisation forward in their values and in their non-blame culture and in their confidence to try things out, then fixing those small problems, that culture metric is massive.
Lisa Trickey: Thanks for that, Annie. That's really helpful. Phil, you are on the steering group for LocalGov Digital. Can you share a bit about the role of LocalGov Digital and the camps that it runs, and how that is helping with this agenda in local government?
Phil Rumens:Sure. So LocalGov Digital is a network of digital practitioners, mostly working in local government, but also around local government. We're very much a grassroots, bottom-up network of people just looking to do the same things in different councils. It's very much to solve common problems and create networks of people doing like-minded things. Driving digital change in local government can be quite lonely at times and going to LocalGov Camp, you can find your tribe, and that's really super helpful to give you energy to go back into your organisation.
Lisa Trickey: What are some of the barriers that you have heard about in terms of applying service design in councils?
Annie Heath: A barrier to good service design is how projects tend to start in local government. Quite often there are enthusiastic service experts who are given a project remit to improve a particular area with a budget. They come to the digital or IT team with a desire and a plan for everything that they want to do. That very often includes how something should be designed and what the word should say, and sometimes involves having already bought an off-the-shelf product. Because it has come in that direction, then it can be quite difficult to retroactively say, "Well, have we actually asked the user? Do we actually know if this will solve the problem you're trying to fix?"
And also when you think about what we know to be really good design, like Gov.UK services, you know that all the hard work has been done to make it simple. So what you might see is just some lines of text on a very simple webpage, but every single title, piece of language, format, the order it's in, has all been tested and designed. It doesn't look very exciting. So if you've been given a project that you are then told you need to deliver, and all you've got to show for it to your executive leadership team is some words on a website page, they might think, "We gave you all this money and you've given us some lines on a website." Not knowing that it's taken proper research and design to get to that point.
Phil Rumens: There's that quote, isn't it, from Mark Twain: "I didn't have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead." It's quite easy to make pages and pages of rambling stuff. It's actually more difficult to make something small and simple and really easy to use.
Annie Heath: And of course, one thing that we haven't talked about is that users often fall between the cracks of different services. Something they might want to do might run across different teams within a council. So each area might think that their bit's really well organised and designed, but it's the interactions and moving them between them that is where it can be really complicated as well.
Lisa Trickey: So, just coming towards the end of our podcast, LocalGov Digital, West Berkshire Council and the LGA have just collaborated on some research around the Service Standard. Phil, would you be able to give us a quick explanation about what the Service Standard is?
Phil Rumens: Sure. Yes. The Service Standard on the front page says it helps teams to create and run great public services. The current iteration was created by the Government Digital Service in 2019. It aims to solve a whole problem, not just putting a form online and hoping for the best, making sure services are inclusive so they work for the widest range of people possible, that they're developed and improved iteratively, and that they're secure as well.
Lisa Trickey:And Sarah, did you wanna tell us a little bit about the review that's been taking place?
Sarah Slate: Yes, of course. Thanks, Lisa. So when I joined the LGA last year, we had very recently partnered with LocalGov Digital and West Berkshire Council to explore the use of the Service Standard in local government. We wanted to ask essentially, how much is the service standard being used? Is it helpful? If yes, how can we amplify its use? And if no, what more support would be helpful for councils when designing services?
In practice, the standard is not widely adopted by the sector, and that's due to a variety of factors. Firstly, resource and capability are much more scaled back in councils compared to central government. Wider budget constraints put leaders in tricky positions where they're forced to make short-term funding decisions, and it's not always easy to initially quantify the return on investment for user-centred design methods. This makes it even trickier to get that buy-in at a leadership level. And then finally, there's external factors like working with off-the-shelf solutions and legacy technologies.
But building on from these challenges, we really wanna take the findings from our research to be able to support councils take practical steps to overcome them. The principles in the service standard are solid. We don't want to change them, but instead, it's around being able to adapt them and provide practical guidance and case studies.
Lisa Trickey:That's lovely. Thanks so much, Sarah. Just to finish off, is there any sort of last words you would like to leave for councils following the service standard work?
Sarah Slate: Yes. Our role at the LGA is to support councils design and deliver inclusive and accessible local public services. We wanna hear what that looks like and what that feels like for you. So for officers listening, we really want to hear from you and your council about what you think of our research, how you've navigated these challenges, lessons you've learned, or if you've led a team doing this really well. Please do get in touch with us via our email address, which is [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you. Our report will be published over the next few weeks, so do keep an eye out for that.
Phil Rumens:The only thing I might add is, you know, the standard is out there already. And some of this stuff, if you work for a council, you will be doing some of this. This isn't about coming up with 14 brand new things that councils need to do. It's looking at what you're doing now and maybe doing a little bit more and incorporating service design into your core principles.
Lisa Trickey: That's lovely. Thank you. A bit of a call out there. If you've got anybody that is working in user-centred design in local government, do get in touch. We will publish the email with the podcast link. And if you're interested in being part of a community, that sounds really exciting. I don't think we've had a specific service design community in local government, so fantastic to see that appearing. That just leads me to say thank you so much to all our guests today. Thank you for your time and for sharing your experience and knowledge. It's been a really interesting conversation.
Annie Heath: If you've made it this far into listening, then you're clearly a local gov UCD nerd. And if you are in a council that is smaller and doesn't have a dedicated team, just give it a go. Just ask some users some questions, store their information securely and you know, you'll find out that there's at least one really useful thing that you discover about the thing that you're trying to improve. And if you want some pointers on how to get started, you don't need to have 'user-centred' in your job title. Feel free to reach out and we'll happily give you a hand.
Lisa Trickey: Amazing. And that's a fantastic offer. That's a great way to end. Thank you so much. Thank you everybody. That brings us to the end of this episode of Digital Directions. What next for councils? Our sincere thanks to Annie Heath and Phil Rumens for joining us on this episode. We hope this discussion on user-centred design sparks some ideas and we would love to hear your thoughts and continue the conversation.
Lisa Trickey 0:18
Thank you.
So welcome everyone to our local government podcast, digital directions. What next for councils? And this episode is focused all on technology, and today I've got three fantastic guests. We have Matthew Wallbridge, chief operating officer at Hillingdon Council, Opama Khan, director of technology and workplace at Hackney Council, and Maddie Hoskin, assistant director for technology at North Yorkshire Council. Thank you, all of you, for joining us today.
Madeline Hoskin 0:48
Hi everybody.
Matthew Wallbridge 0:48
Hi, Lisa. Hi everybody.
Opama Khan 0:48
Hello.
Lisa Trickey 0:49
In this episode, we are going to be exploring the future of technology and councils and how different councils are laying the foundations for long term cyber resilience, agility and innovation. I'm really interested because we've got 3 councils that are each navigating sort of quite a unique context.
One you know had to deal with a major cyber incident, another one who's under local government reorganisation. I think you're two years after vesting day at two years old and then one proactively transforming to meet sort of future demands.
Madeline Hoskin 1:19
Two years in.
Lisa Trickey 1:29
And I'm not a technologist. I've always sat in that role between. People that can make the tech happen and the business, so I appreciate the opportunities or challenges, but not necessarily the how. So it'd be really good to explore how each council is approaching the systems and data and preparing to adopt emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and how we really establish those good Secure foundations, and actually if the you know the challenges and approaches are the same despite the very different contexts that people are working in. So I thought it might be useful to start with just exploring what we mean by legacy technology and technical
Debt within local government and within councils. So Maddie, did you want to kick us off with what you think?
Madeline Hoskin 2:13
So yeah, what does technical debt mean to me? So working in local government, we have a lot of different IT systems that serve individual services and work in different ways. And some of those we have had for decades.
And we don't always have a great deal of choice about which one, which one we want to go for. There are only so many social care systems out there and planning systems out there. So what technical debt means to me is how do we
Navigate the implementation of new technology having systems and data that's ready for AI. Whilst we are a little bit tied to some of those legacy systems.
That might be on premise. They might be a bit more locked down, a bit less configurable, or they might have a delivery model that ties you to that product and you can feel a bit restricted by it.
So that's what kind of technical debt means to me.
Lisa Trickey 3:29
Matthew, did you have any kind of views on that?
Matthew Wallbridge 3:33
Yeah. So technical debt's a really interesting subject because you know, I think sometimes we feel like the poor relation in local government that we've got these really 10 or 20 year old systems, you know some are on Prem, hopefully not as many nowadays. But actually I look positively towards the future thinking actually.
Systems are important, but I would say is not the most important thing because data is the new gold data is the most important thing as long as you can take the data out of the system then it's great. We've got the ability to use things like power platform, other mechanisms to do the service design around the systems are available is, you, the ability to understand the whole journey that that data takes right the way through from a resident right the way through to use it as an officer and then sometimes playing it back to the resident so we're not constrained as much around the debt we have in our systems than we were 5-10 years ago. So I look positively about where we're going, but recognising actually a lot of it is about investment because the technical debt is housed in lots of.
Systems which usually used to cost lots of capital budgets and actually now you're moving to a space where a lot of it is moving to software as a service which is more of a revenue base. So actually I would say it's less about the technical debt, it's more about how you use the data and more about how you use think about your funding, which is obviously always constrained in local government at the moment to think about what systems and approaches you need in the future and how you can afford them given there's a shift from capital to revenue. So we're changing the goal posts as we go, but actually is most of the stuff is off Prem at the moment. So actually.
Most things are software as a as a service at the moment, and actually I'm starting to see some really great ideas and some really great work. And Opama will go into that about, you know, organisations that are more designing things for themselves.
Opama Khan 5:29
Thank you, Matthew. Yeah, I'll come in on that at Hackney. We do have a slightly unusual technology stack where in addition to some of those more traditional legacy enterprise systems such as the HR and finance systems of the world that have been in place for many, many years, we have also.
Developed a number of systems in House, so the technical depth that Pops into my head immediately is the work that we have to do consistently that piles up very, very quickly around all the upgrades and the patching and all of the work to maintain those systems.
Which is quite a lot of work. Often we will create things or we have created things as a proof of concept that then end up being used as the norm. So we have now accumulated quite a lot of tech debt that we're trying to work through. And I think the biggest.
Reason and the impetus for doing that and prioritising that is around risks. Managing risks, as we will have known from kind of Hackney's past. That is a really, really important part for us and having that sort of fragmented technology landscape.
Has made it even more challenging, sort of the things that we have bought in, the things we've built and making sure that we're keeping all of those things operating and sort of trying to prepare forward-looking forward and preparing for the future, looking at how we can create a little bit more of a enhanced operating Model and see how things can can move in the right direction and getting on top of that technology debt, creating those systems and processes that mean that we're looking at these things a lot more as a matter of course, not just being reactive.
Lisa Trickey 7:21
It's really interesting. I remember a lot of conversations around do we build or do we buy and getting that balance right and low code helping but also low code creating you know problems as well as you you know again you invest a lot in a low code product and then again if you need to move because of support and things become obsolete so.
Yeah, absolutely.
Matthew Wallbridge 7:44
On on technical debt, that's a really interesting point because I think I think I'm going to do goalpost shifting as well because I would actually say technical debt at the moment is sometimes buying proprietary AI products, because if we think about the future and you know vendors like to lock us into longish contracts, actually the new technical debt is Is buying an AI product that you sign a two year contract that actually isn't going to change. So actually, given how AI and digital are shifting so substantially so quickly is we need to make sure that we are thinking about the contracts thinking about the vendors we're working with because if we're locking ourselves Into proprietary AI products that essentially by the time you've built them, they've been overtaken by something else. Then we need to think about the debt in that space because it's really easy as a leader to go. I can see that nice product that's going to do the thing that I need it to do at the moment, it might deliver some savings. But actually when you think about it over the next.
Next 2-3 years, actually, do you go back to that? Do you build it yourself? Do you create those service patterns? Do you build that AI approach within your own organisation or do you buy that product out there? I get hassled literally 3-4 times a day about the new shiny AI product that Matthew should definitely buy because it will achieve saving and it's the right thing.
But you know, looking at the company looking at, are they going to follow a dev cycle, are they going to improve what they're doing is is the new thing we all face in terms of technical debt rather than the the legacy systems which are less important.
Madeline Hoskin 9:16
Can I just loop in again?
What we're talking about there isn't it, is we're building more technical debt, whether we buy it or build it. And that temptation isn't it for the point fixed solution right now that are popping up everywhere is so compelling.
It's so compelling. And what Opama said there about building technical debt when you build things as a proof of concept, but the proof of concept that lasts for three years, we've all got them, haven't we? Those pilot projects that we just keep piloting on that we haven't turned into a product, we're building our own technical debt with that. So I'm with the Opama having a look at simplification now is a priority for us looking at what we're calling a composable kind of set of systems. So the capabilities might be reusable. How can we do some point fix stuff to test a concept with our people?
But then look at what's our overall architecture look like and simplification. And that's really hard because this AI stuff's exciting, isn't it? And the sales pitch is around that, this individual thing that we're going to plug in into this tiny space is going to transform the world and save you millions, so compelling that it's not surprising that we're facing organisations with a wave of demand around this. So yeah, we're potentially building new technical debt. I hadn't really thought about it before like.
Opama Khan 10:53
Yeah.
Madeline Hoskin 11:07
That's really interesting.
Opama Khan 11:10
That's really, really great insight, Maddie. I wanted to add that one of the things that we are doing then taking your point to prepare for the future, looking at our technical debt, looking at our legacy systems is really.
I'm doing a lot of work right now to look at our technology operating model and it take looking at everything from that life cycle management perspective because I think that's the bit that we forget to do when we're designing a thing or implementing a new thing or creating a new thing, is that we forget And Matthew you picked up on it. That what happens at the end, how do we make sure that that vendor is giving us our data? How do we ensure that they are giving us the right upgrades, the right features throughout the life? And then what happens at the end? How do we make sure that we can still get best value for money?
And this is also then touches on the data protection side, the data governance side, making sure that our residents data is protected and we're doing all the right thing by that. So life cycle management is a really, really important part of that sort of planning for the future, getting our operating model right. So that's something I'm.
Doing a lot of thinking about right now.
Matthew Wallbridge 12:25
And I think life cycle management is absolutely critical and if I was to be in the oh dear, it's very hard in local government moment is you know thinking about your enterprise, your technical and your data architecture in terms of what you're doing. If I'm honest that you know such is the push to drive savings do projects.
Often we try and cut corners in those areas and actually forget to go back to the basics because we're under so much pressure to deliver so much change concurrently across the organisation across so many services. Actually that life cycle management actually thinking about your architecture is the thing that sometimes falls behind. So actually it's going back to some of those good principles and sometimes it feels Like knitting spaghetti at the at the moment with looking at looking at our architecture given you know it's a very unusual pace. Local government running such a you know a huge amount of different businesses with such a huge amount of different systems and data requirements, actually taking a pause, getting things right and not being distracted by the thing that mattered most.
That day, or the new shiny thing that matters that most is, I think, one of the hardest things to do as a digital and technical leader in the organisation because you feel the pressure from the business that wants to move their services forward. They've got a savings target to achieve. They've seen that product they've been to that conference or they've talked to that vendor. That is the thing that they absolutely need, but actually Standing firm on your life cycle management, Where are your standards? Where are your technical standards that you need to stick to? Is a tough job actually because it's always a bit of give and take about what we do in an organisation. So you're always going to carry some sort of debt.
It's eliminating the ones that are the most risky and the ones that will most hurt you over the medium term.
Madeline Hoskin 14:05
On and Matthew, those foundational practises I've had a physical reaction to what you said it was so powerful that that, that push to cut corners across all of those different businesses Not thinking about the whole, aren't they? And how do we balance that out? And as two years in from 8 organisations into one, I hope you can feel my pain on just how complex that plate of spaghetti was that we're trying to trying to unknit.
Yeah, foundational principles I think are going to be super important for everybody looking forward, aren't they? And us having the courage of our profession to lean into that.
Matthew Wallbridge 14:55
You've got eight plates of spaghetti, so that that's quite a meal for anyone to digest, so that feels like indigestion because that's a tough job, but also a massive opportunity, you know, I know this podcast isn't about LGR, but actually resetting the ways of working such an opportunity to rethink what we're doing as an organisation and resetting those practises.
Lisa Trickey 15:17
I'm interested in actually what governance that you've put in place to kind of help manage some of these tensions, perhaps between business areas and doing things differently. I'm just sort of quickly interested in how you manage that in each of the organisations and whether there's any commonality.
Opama Khan 15:36
I can come in there quickly because this is something that we've had a bit of a turning point at the moment. Reset point, should I say, looking at all of those governance and an operational models to see firstly what are we set up to do, what, what are we going to do in the future.
And how will we work with our services across the organisation and how do we make decisions together? How do we implement those decisions and how do we enforce some and that's a strong word, but that is what it is. Some of the technical Policies that we put into place that are for the safeguarding of our residents, our staff and also managing the risks for the organisation, so this is something that I'm spending a lot of time on again at the moment because we've done that review.
We know we are lacking in some of those areas around having established technology standards, enterprise architecture standards and practises, but then actually operationalising it. How do we make it in you know?
Put it into practise because it's about people. It's about processes and it's about the technology and we've got to have those standards and those procedures in place. So that is something I'm working actively on. It's really, really important, but it needs that push from the top down. So we're sort of doing the work to inform our corporate leadership Team and then hopefully be able to establish those practises and making sure that again talking about the fragmented sort of technology landscape we have here, but it's been quite a decentralised IT function at Hackney. What we're trying to do now is bring it all together.
So that we can sensibly make decisions so that we don't end up with, we have nearly 300 applications and systems and software like it's mad. And the reason that's happened because people have gone off and done what they've needed to do, we need to bring that together. Now. It's part of that future proofing the organisation.
We can't be scalable, we can't be optimised, we can't be efficient if we have all of this duplication and we have all of this fragmentation and it comes back to, then the governance of it, how do we make decisions? How do we implement those decisions? How do we support our people?
With the new workflows and the new ways of working.
Matthew Wallbridge 18:02
Absolutely. I think you raised a really important point around leadership around this. So I mean, I've certainly seen a shift across local government, but also the wider public sector about people that do our professions are becoming more and more senior within the organisation and more of the influences. So I think in the 90s and noughties, it was always, you know, your finance lead that would become a chief executive or would always be your social care lead. And you know if Brit Pop was the 90s. Now I feel like people in the digital profession are the new Brit pop going into this decade because you know you're definitely seeing a shift I mean you know I'm lucky I sit at the top table of our organisation and I think that gives us real strength in the organisation to have that future focus, understand the models, understand the governance, so by having really strong technical and business design authorities within the organisation that has the, you know, influence right at the top as fundamentally I make the decisions around The technology, the digital, the data of the organisation and you're seeing a shift to some really good chief executives that absolutely understand digital data and technology. People sitting at the top table that have got the autonomy to do that. So we've seen a real shift in organisations and that's quickening up quite a lot at the moment. And that makes it, I think it's really exciting for the public Sector because actually our profession and the skills that we have are the ones that are really valuable and sometimes most valued in organisations at the moment because, you know, we're the keys to unlocking change, transformation savings within an organisation and having the strength of leading the governance right the way through. Both from political members to, you know, senior leadership teams is absolutely critical in our journey. So it's about organisations investing in people, investing in those skills and it doesn't also necessarily mean the governance and the leadership, you know it also comes from, you know, right from top to bottom of people having those skills that sit across the organisation that can speak the same language, because that quickens the pace for change. So I I love the shift I'm seeing at the moment across the public sector.
Madeline Hoskin 20:10
Super empowering Matthew. I am inspired and personally slightly nervous at the same time because with responsibility you know that accountability you need to be responsible for making those decisions.
What I'm doing right now is my reset is around optimisation, so our new Technology Strategy which I'm drafting now is all focused on taking that whole organisational view that enterprise view.
With the backing of my director, he is an accountant, but he does get it, so we're able to look at bringing that earlier on in the decision making. So when the projects and the initiatives Come up from the business. The earlier in the decision making we're able to take an architecture view. What's the right thing? What do we already have? What's reusable, what's best value and balancing that with the organisational benefit because.
Sometimes we might want to have two of something because for the organisation it's the best value and sometimes we might just need one and so taking that kind of intelligent view of the architecture as a whole. But I'm building that into our strategy so that it's there as a Concrete principle in the organisation decision making.
Matthew Wallbridge 21:43
And it's great having a strategy and I think often it can feel a bit overwhelming when you've got the responsibility. But I think inevitably we've got to realise that we'll make mistakes as leaders of digital leaders of AI and be risk confident in those because the I think the ability to, you know as you go.
Through the year, you know, Discovery, Alpha, Beta, live. You're going to make mistakes along the way. And actually, you know, I think our learning and our training adapts us to that. But it's very counter intuitive in a local government environment to think that way. So actually that risk, confidence, understanding where you can course correct when you can change direction, sometimes you'll have to kill a product.
Sometimes you'll have to twin track them absolutely, and I think it's actually getting leaders to understand that's a normal and that's an accepted way of doing. And you know, if you were working in the private sector and you were, you know, delivering lots of different products, well, you would perhaps develop five of them and only one of them would be productionised to go out to market. And actually it's Very different in local government, where you've got to do lengthy business cases to deliver that thing. And actually you can often spend too much time I think writing a strategy and actually doing a business case when you're not actually going to know the answers because that's actually not how the GDS principles work in the 1st place because you're not actually, you don't actually know where the answer until you go through the process and that is very different thinking for local authorities. Very different thinking for public sector and I don't always think we talk about governance. I don't think we're always set up in a way to make digital and AI Business case successful because they don't always work the same way as delivering a change in a service or doing a restructure because they're more linear. They're more tangible, whereas ours are a little bit less tangible from the very outset.
Madeline Hoskin 23:31
It's that experimental mindset that actually is in our DNA, isn't it? I I think, yeah, I think that's really inspiring. And I'm curious to see how a Opama's put that in into her build strategy.
Opama Khan 23:38
Yeah, absolutely. So again, it's absolutely looking at things from you know, what's the problem we're trying to solve like that's always the question in my mind that what is it? Where are the challenges? Where are we spending a measure of time that is over and above what should be allocated to that thing, and that's where you can create some of those efficiencies. You can optimise things and ultimately you will. You know, we are in an environment where all local authorities are under enormous financial pressure.
So the number one objective has to be how can we be more cost effective and how can we innovate to do a thing in a more cost effective and optimal and optimised and effective way. So those are some of The things that I'm prioritising when I'm looking at all of the things that we've been asked to do all at the same time, the prioritisation bit that happens in my head is OK, where are we spending the most amount of time? That could be like on manual processes. We were looking at things around our SARS (subject access request) process at the moment. We've had a huge increase in SARS. We've got a huge backlog and my team again for historic reasons that I won't go into at the moment, we are spending a huge amount of time looking for a needle in a haystack when we're looking for documents. So again, we've tried to innovate in that space. To look at right? Why? Why can't we pull in some data, data cleansing, some categorization, indexation, whatever it is, to help the team that's taking them, goodness knows how many hours and rationalising that down to we've done that in. You know, half the time 1/4 of the time, these are the things. These are the problems. These are the real gnarly problems that I'm trying to see. Actually, how can we simplify that problem? And how can technology solve it? It's not just about bringing in the shiny new thing. It's about taking that problem solving approach. So that's. Too much been my very boring way of trying to understand well which areas do we want to innovate in and what does innovation actually mean? It just means doing something in a better way. It's not just about bringing in the shiny new bit of tech, although we all do love a bit of shiny new piece of tech.
Yeah.
Matthew Wallbridge 26:14
And actually your problems statements and your pain points, they're going to be pretty similar across all of local government. I would hasten to add to what I'm doing at the moment and actually I think you know things like this podcast work with the LGA, the work with MHCLG is going to become increasingly important in my view because actually we're doing this.
We've got the same point and we're trying to solve the same problems in a very similar way, just across every organisation, so we're actually wasting quite a lot of time and effort because actually it's about those reusable service patterns. It's.
Madeline Hoskin 26:46
I'm already thinking, Matthew, what can I pinch off a Opama now and lift and shift because I have exactly the same pain point? I think there's a real call to arms from all of us here, isn't there, that if we're all struggling with the same thing and it will be because.
Opama Khan 27:00
Absolutely.
Madeline Hoskin 27:03
We do have different demographics, different geographies, but broadly doing the same services with the same kind of people who are going to feel the same pain points.
Opama Khan 27:14
Absolutely.
Matthew Wallbridge 27:15
Yeah. And I think there's the, you know, I was talking to the MHCLG this week in fact. And in terms of, you know, I was discussing the pain points that sit across local government and the sector and definitely they're those, you know, what are reasonable service patterns that we can share between us.
Data sharing across the sector, particularly data sharing from NHS central government into local government, because actually when you're doing things like assessments or, you know, all those kind of things is the ability to share data and use agentic AI is only as good as the data sharing agreements that sit across the sector and also the ethical and responsible use of data and AI, because again we're all creating our own policies. We're all creating the ways of doing things, but actually it's all fairly similar and I don't know if either of you've got any good experiences of, you know, how you're doing those things.
Opama Khan 28:10
I mean, I I'll jump in there. So I mean, this is exactly why I do things like this. I love collaborating. I love talking to people about, oh, this is the problem. It's not just having a moan. It's literally looking for a way forward because I know that other people will have the same problem.
So collaborating, talking to others, LOTI is always a great way to come together. The London Office of Technology and Innovation, I think really useful and LGA time and time again there's been opportunities to come together with colleagues to look at those problems and Maddie, as you said, we're all tackling the same thing. So, so absolutely.
I think the collaboration space is really important and it's worth the investment of our time to talk about the things that we're doing and to go out and seek advice from colleagues in terms of what they're experiencing in their organisations, because often there's a lot to learn.
Even if it's lessons learned that don't do that, that didn't work or do that, that's a really quick way to get around this problem. And as we know, in local authorities, nothing's ever quick procurement, all of the things that we need to do for, for good reason, take time. We've got to make decisions together. But at the same time.
Sharing those thoughts are really, really important.
Madeline Hoskin 29:27
One more thing for me, we we've always been good at talking about things.
I think now is the time where we need to do things together, not just talk about things together. So there are very few times and this is probably the only time in my 20 year career where we're all actually standing on the same Cliff at the same time.
You know this, these new technologies have levelled so much for all of us. It just makes no sense for us to do things 300 times when we could do things once if we do it together. So some of the things that I'm committing to, so I'm working with the i.Ai the team at GDS on their minute transcription tool, we're looking to help them take the open source version to create a local productionised version so that we can create for us, but for everyone else, a packaged-up product that they can adopt. we're working with another software company around a policy tool that goes into the data and pulls out. And we're not just doing one that works for us. We're doing one that will work for everybody.
So we'll build once and share if we're going to invest in something, it takes such a tiny amount of additional effort to make it universal. And the more we do that and the more open we are about doing that.
The less cumulative effort we're all going to have to put in.
Matthew Wallbridge 31:07
Yeah, that's brilliant. And you know, the more that we can collaborate, the more we can look at the things that are common to us as a sector is going to be incredibly important. And again, I feel encouraged about the work that you know across central government and LGA are doing in, in supporting that because you know central government is starting to look at, you know, I proffer the view that actually The public sector is all fairly similar, actually. Mostly what we do is case management and case management. Sometimes is an assessment and actually if you look at where the big financial pressures are in any local authority, temporary accommodation, social care, you know it's all the same for most local authorities and actually central government. Starting to focus on temporary accommodation, adult social care, thinking about the case management and the assessments around those. If we can boiler plate, the service patterns that sit around the big case management areas and the big assessments and help on the data standards, the data collection, the data use from an ethical way.
You know, across different areas of the sector, so we can do those assessments more quickly. It just boils down to better services for residents. It boils down for more efficient services and actually I think often the talk is about AI, the technology and we forget that it's all about the resident. It's all about the customer. It's all about how it can support them.
For me, it's not always about cost cutting of which absolutely is the driver in local authorities. It's about how we're reusing the money that we can save by being more productive to better support our vulnerable residents. And I think we absolutely frame it in the wrong way is AI is the quick cut to make sure we've got all balanced budgets moving forward short.
It's a part of it, but it actually really, really helps vulnerable residents in the way that people don't often express.
Opama Khan 32:54
Absolutely. I agree with everything you've said there and I think there is something there's that not only can we learn from each other across the industry, but I think internally as well.
there is that I think, Maddie, you were talking about this earlier in terms of that siloed approach, every service, every department, every function kind of thinks they're special and they need their own specialist tool. But when we look at AI and its features and its functionalities, they can be universal. So the buy once used many times, we have to learn from each other, but we also have to have that thinking within the organisation as well. That's the only way that people like us are going to be able to really make those investments and get those return on investments is true. It's not just all about cost savings. It is about investment, but it's about how do you get that return on your investment and it is that Buying something once and using that functionality over and over again, booking systems, payment systems, these sorts of things. They are not special dependent on what you are. We can and that's where a little bit of the magic from ICT comes in where maybe then we can do some customisation etc.
But that's got to be the approach. So I completely agree there's a lot to learn from each other, but I think inside our organisations we've got to be a bit more open minded about how we can adopt technology that can be used many times repeatable. So it's that sort of platform approach hopefully I believe that is the way for the future, and I'm gonna keep banging that drum hopefully.
Madeline Hoskin 34:31
Me too.
Matthew Wallbridge 34:33
Yeah, I’ll third, that definitely.
Lisa Trickey 34:36
do you know what I've so enjoyed listening to this, to this episode, and I think we could do a Part 2. I think we could continue this conversation. It's been absolutely brilliant. So thank you so much.
Opama Khan 34:47
Excellent.
Lisa Trickey 34:49
We normally end the podcast with a bit of a call for action. You know, some practical advice for people that are maybe just starting on this journey and thinking about it on what advice would you give to others on what to prioritise, where to be, where to begin? So who would like to go first?
Opama Khan 35:05
I'm happy to jump in first. I think a bit of a theme so far has been about our people. I think our people are without sounding cheesy apologies. Our people are our most important resource and I think we've got to invest.
In our colleagues to make sure that they understand and this is very kind of important, that cybersecurity is everybody's responsibility, data protection and protecting the privacy of our residents.
Is everybody's responsibility using AI safely? Ethically is everybody's responsibility. We've adopted tools internally to reduce some of the risk. We've done that Sort of assessment of all, please don't use these things, Use this thing, but just giving our colleagues a tool isn't good enough. I think we need to make sure we're investing in those skills in investing in that change management, giving all of our colleagues the support that they need to really.
To understand the new ways of working. Hopefully that will mean that they don't just carry on doing what they're usually doing, but just with a new tool. So I think that's my main call to action is let's support our people, let's invest in their digital skills, but really enforcing their ways of working on a day-to-day basis. As I said to support our cyber security to support our data protection and to make sure that we're using our AI tools and functionalities as ethically as possible because it starts with them, we can't police things, we can't be everywhere All the time. But we can train our people how to do things properly.
Matthew Wallbridge 36:55
Brilliant. And I love a call to action and I've got three, 3 is always a magic number, I think the call to action is much like what Opama said is I think, go slow to go fast is, you know, really understand the commonality of the things you're doing in an organisation. And don't rush in going to buy those proprietary products, booking systems is a really good example of try and build something that is reusable across multiple bookings rather than buy in as we have six different booking systems that actually you know that is never going to be future proofed in terms of what we do.
I think my second call to action is I think a lot of what would be Saying is collaborate, you know I will freely say to anyone that I meet come and contact me. I will give you all my business cases. Don't spend ages right in a strategy. Go steal other people's work is 80% of what's already out there is fit for your organisation. Go ask. Don't be shy. Go steal it. Go change it to your own.
Own organisation and you know, I'm trying to get central government LGA to help have a facility that we can publish all of our stuff and I've already said I'll publish everything that I've ever done in this organisation because I want it open to everybody so it can increase people's pace across the sector because we've got to recognise that we're not all on the Same page.
Every local authority is very, very different and on very different journeys around this and the more that we can help the better.
and last thing is my call to action is understand the cost models I've touched on a little bit at the start and is I think the most difficult thing to do. Anything we're talking about is funding it in the right way and the shift from the sort of capital model to the revenue model. So understanding we're all at the you know all at the cycle it's you know September at the moment is we're all entering that budget setting cycle for you know 26/27 onwards is putting together your growth items, putting together your savings, understanding what they might be is a really tricky bit when you have to understand consumption models across the medium term and you know what? You know, what do you need in terms of a PTU? What in terms of are you going to need in terms of general consumption? And so we're a Microsoft house, so fabric licences, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So it's quite difficult and I think actually we will make a mistake as a sector if we all try and do it.
Really hard work and in fact most of the vendors don't even know the answer, so there's absolutely the way that we should be collaborating as a sector to understand what consumption models might look like over a three-year period. That's good enough that we can put into our budgets for next year.
Madeline Hoskin 39:32
OK so I need 3 as well. Now don't I just to keep up. So the first thing for me is remembering this is people, process and technology. You can't invest enough in the people side of things. I often say me and my job, I can buy the tech, plug it in and switch it on. Is my job done?
Not really. So we need to be thinking about having the right thing with the right people, with the right digital and data and AI literacy to be able to use the things that we buy and build, plug in and switch on really well, that's where we get the.
Productivity and the efficiency and the optimisation in our organisations.
And there's lots of new shiny bits of tech now, isn't there? Emerging tech, and all the different variants of AI we need to be thinking about how to effectively break out of the pilot and proof of concept, loop into scale and production.
And it's not as easy as just opening the licences, giving more people access. It rolls right back again to that people and process and scale. Managing a pilot is different than product management, and keeping that ongoing support in place.
And we need to remember, we need those foundations in place to keep these products running well up to date and not ending up with 100 of the same thing, you know, because we're doing that. So it allows us to take a real kind of product and approach if we do that bit well.
And then I think the last thing for me would be think about simplifying wherever you can, so simplify your architecture, simplify your process.
Simplify the governance. Simplify the training. If we try and do that, then everything that we share, everything that, that everything that we do out in the open, like Matthew said there, we'll share all of us want to share everything because we're all on the same journey. We'll be able to help each other.
And hopefully all lift each other up.
Lisa Trickey 42:07
That's fantastic. Thank you so much. And I think as what I've heard throughout, you know, the episode today and I'll try and continue with the three themes now as we've set that as a precedent, but.
Madeline Hoskin 42:18
I don't know if I actually did three there, did I? I sort of smooshed, smashed a whole lot of verbal.
Lisa Trickey 42:20
But I think you know, there was definitely commonality and approach and there was something about how do we get smarter as a sector working collectively collaboratively and how do we support that nationally.
And I think you know there's a there's a big piece around leadership and governance and getting that right in organisations to really support the approaches that we need to take across a council.
and then the last one would be around investing in people and people always have to be the priority really In this, and I will just plug as well. Whilst we're here, we've our responsible AI procurement guide that we've recently published as well to help people involved in procurements understand like the types of questions that they need to ask suppliers and try and help them have some confidence around that, so that.
Resource is available, but I can't thank you enough for your time today and for sharing your experiences and your great practical takeaways. So thank you so so much.
So that brings us to the end of this episode of Digital Directions. What next for councils? Our sincere thanks to Matthew, Opama and Maddie for joining us on this episode. We hope this discussion has sparked some ideas and we would love to hear your thoughts and continue the conversation you can get in touch via the LGACDT account on LinkedIn.
Episode 5: coming soon
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