Meeting with our members to discuss LOTI’s Year 3 Strategy

Last week we held our latest All-Member meeting. Following a brief update of the events, news and actions, we shared the latest on LOTI’s two Covid Innovation Fund Projects to map digital exclusion with data and prevent vulnerable residents from reaching crisis. We’ll be holding an hour-long show & tell for the latter next week, so if you too would like to find out the latest on that project, please do register to attend here.

We also gave a brief update on the outcome of our second Digital Inclusion Innovation Programme workshop with Digital Inclusion leads in London boroughs – the summary is available to read here. We explained the process by which we developed our first wave of projects and how boroughs can engage going forward.

The bulk of the meeting was reserved for discussing LOTI’s Year 3 Strategy (our thinking to date can be accessed here). We explained which areas would be an extension of the work done in year 2, and which would be brand new areas of focus. We also split areas up by whether they were resident-facing, or more concerned with improving the internal workings of London local government and invited CDIOs to openly share their feedback. We were pleased to hear that much of the work we’d be doing resonated with boroughs’ priorities, and there was an appetite from at least one borough to lead on each of the nine areas of focus we presented. More on that to come in a stand-alone blog on our Year 3 strategy next month.

The slides for this All-Member meeting can be accessed here.

Developing a Pan-London Electronic Vehicle Charge Points Dashboard

LOTI has been working closely with colleagues from the Greater London Authority (GLA), London Councils, Transport for London (TfL) and other partners to develop a dynamic dashboard showing the location and patterns of usage for electric vehicle (EV) charge points in London. The latest on this project is available here.

The dashboard is currently only accessible by London borough officers, but for the first time, we shared a live demonstration of it with the public. For the full recording of the project summary, a live demo of the dashboard, and an overview on what comes next, please see here.

The slides presented can be accessed here.

Resuming LOTI’s Data Managers’ Network Meet-Ups

Following a successful run in response to the Covid-pandemic, the London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI) resumed its online meet-ups for Data Analysts / leads from London public sector to share the tools and approaches they’re taking or intend to take, using data to respond to London’s common challenges.

Last week, we held the first of the new bi-monthly sessions. We started off by exploring boroughs’ Covid-19 responses in light of any new requirements that have been put in place over the preceding months (e.g. vaccination data, self-isolation support etc.).

The session was then Chaired by Mark Brennan (Lead Data Engineer, Camden) who shared details about Camden’s Insights work and led a discussion around sharing data with the public and external partners. Mark also shared a short introduction to Camden’s Data Quality Programme and hosted an exploratory conversation about data quality in local government.

The slides for this meet-up are available here. If you’re a Data Analyst or Manager in a London public sector organisation and would like to attend any of our future sessions, please register here. For ease, here’s a breakdown of the upcoming sessions:

• Tuesday 7 September – Graeme Hutchinson (Data warehouse Consultant for London Borough of Newham)Following an internal re-organisation, Graeme will lead this session to explore what boroughs have achieved or are in the process of/ hoping to achieve within the realms of “Data Management”.
• Tuesday 26 October – Lisa Stidle (Data Science Lead for London Borough of Hackney)This session will focus on data platforming. Lisa will lead this session, sharing the progress made on the in-house development of Hackney’s data platform, and inviting members of the network to share feedback.
• Tuesday 7 December – Thorsten Dreyer (Head of Intelligence & Performance for London Borough of Tower Hamlets)In this session, we’ll explore data literacy across the wider organisation at all levels rather than siloed within data teams.

Coming up this week

1. LOTI’s Central Team will be meeting again in-person to discuss the breakdown of the Year 3 budget, potential engagement opportunities, and next steps for recruitment to build the capabilities of the team.
2. As we near the end of the project timeline for the LOTI Covid Innovation Fund projects, we’ll be meeting with project teams to conclude the projects and set out next steps for the publication of agreed outputs.
3. Informing the successful applicants of LOTI and ONS’s Data Science Skills Development Programme, and agreeing on next steps.

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