Sean Pedrick-Case shares what it is like to work as a Data Scientist at the London Borough of Lambeth. 

What is your role, and in one sentence, what’s the single biggest project you’ve worked on for Londoners?

I’ve been working here in this role for almost six years now as a Data Scientist, one of the projects with the biggest impact was working on the address and person matching to identify households that were eligible for free school meals that hadn’t yet enrolled. This project resulted in over 1,000 additional students receiving free school meals, and millions of pounds of extra funding for local schools. 

Describe a moment this year when you truly felt the impact of your work on the community.

We have recently been piloting a data analytics project within Adult Social Care (ASC) working directly with social workers to help prioritise their work that has gone very well. It is very fulfilling to see how our work can change practice within ASC to improve the service that social workers can give to our residents, while also making social workers happier.

What is the most complex or ambitious technical problem you are currently trying to solve for your borough?

I think we have a problem shared with a number of boroughs – how can AI and predictive modelling be used to benefit our residents and our services while still remaining reliable, unbiased, and cost-effective. Like many councils, we have proof of concepts but getting these into production is quite a big hurdle.

Describe your average day. What time are you up, what time do you finish and what does your day look like?

I have two young children so my day may not reflect that of many people! I’ll be up at 7, getting them ready for school and taking them in if it’s my turn. After coming back home, our daily stand up is at 9:30 where the team checks in. The rest of the day is a mix of meetings and focus time to concentrate on coding or analysis on one of several projects. I’ll generally finish soon after five, and sometimes I’ll continue some light work in the evening after the kids go to bed if it’s a day where we need to pick them up earlier for an activity or meeting friends.

What is the biggest deliverable you’re currently focused on?

One of the biggest deliverables I’m currently working on is a redaction app that will enable officers to redact documents quickly by suggesting redactions for personal data on a PDF document. This is deployed in our secure cloud environment. It has been a long road to develop a tool that meets the requirements of different teams while adhering to all the necessary software and security requirements essential for such a project.

What’s the soundtrack to your commute, or your go-to podcast for the journey?

Generally, I will cycle into the office, and I tend not to listen to music on the way. But if I’m taking the bus I’ll tend to listen to podcasts either history related (I would recommend the British History podcast by Jamie Jeffers, or the Revolutions podcast by Mike Duncan), or AI-related to keep up with the latest developments in the field (Hard Fork, the TWIML AI Podcast, Machine Learning Street Talk, or Vanishing Gradients are all very good). If I’m in the mood for music, as I play guitar myself, I like to listen to classic rock anywhere from the 1960s to the 2000s.

Which non-technical teams do you work most closely with (e.g., social workers, housing officers), and what is the most surprising thing you’ve learned from them?

Each project we work on can focus on a different service area, so currently we have some Data Analytics & Insight team members working with housing officers, and others with social workers, although sometimes we will work with planning or other areas as needed. Currently I am doing a large project with ASC, so I have quite frequent meetings with social workers who are using our data analysis in practice.

Explain a complicated aspect of your job—like ‘digital twin strategy’ or ‘predictive maintenance’—to a layperson in a simple, exciting way.

Predictive modelling – use data to see into the future. Make decisions on important issues ahead of time so you can help people who need it sooner.

How would you describe the culture of your team and the wider council? How is it different from the private sector tech scene.

I think that in a Council, people are much more aware in general of how new technologies or processes could impact vulnerable people. Whereas in the private sector, new tools are generally seen as an opportunity for innovation and profit, in local government we need to be a lot more careful to weigh the pros and cons of any new technology, and also to check with much more care whether new tools could be inaccurate or increase bias if implemented. The potential for negative consequences for vulnerable people is much higher in our context, and I think this is one of the main reasons why new innovations are not quickly adopted by local government.

Where do you usually grab lunch in the borough?

The office is next door to a supermarket, and so most often I’ll grab a quick sandwich from there. If I’m feeling like something fancier, then I’m a big fan of Ethiopian food, and Brixton has a few good options for this. 

Aside from the pension and flexible hours, what’s the most unexpected or best perk of working in local government?

Maybe it’s more our team and it’s supportive environment rather than due to local government as a whole, but I find it very valuable to have the time to explore new technologies and ideas (particularly within AI), which I’m not sure would be the case within more ‘high pressure’ environments.

Do you mentor or coach junior staff? What is the one piece of advice you always give to someone starting out in local gov?

As data scientists we are expected to line manage and mentor more junior staff. We also help out with students who are doing data-related apprenticeships or master’s courses.

I would say to someone starting in local government that there is a surprising amount of opportunity for enthusiastic, knowledgeable new colleagues to move up or between roles in Councils. If you can stand out, you can have an interesting and varied career in local government. 

If a highly skilled professional from a major tech company asked you why they should leave the private sector to join local government tech, what would you tell them?

I don’t know for sure, but I think in general in private tech, people are working on highly specialised solutions where there is not a lot of variety. For example, if you are working on maintaining one big predictive model, then that will be the main part of your job. In local government I think the work is a lot more varied. There are so many different service areas in local government to work on, including housing, planning, social care, parking and transport, democratic services etc. You could be working on projects in any one of these areas at any time. And there are always new requests coming in for analytical services. The variety makes the work interesting.

I also think that local government, unlike a lot of work in private organisations, gives the opportunity to work on problems that can actually make a difference in people’s lives. The Council works with vulnerable people every day to try and provide services that they value. There aren’t many jobs in the world where you can play a part in shaping them. And as a technical person in the world of local government, you can have influence on how these services are provided locally.

Complete the sentence: “My job is challenging, but every day I am reminded that I am…”

…working in an organisation that is imperfect, and sometimes frustrating, but it is still filled with people who have good intentions and have chosen to work to help improve people’s lives. With this in mind, I find that it is worth persisting with the job, even on the more difficult days!