Read below for all the latest news and progress updates from the LOTI Community.

What we’ve been doing

Data Ethics Discovery

LOTI has started work on designing a data ethics governance approach for London. We want to ensure that both individually and collectively, London boroughs have in place the right tools, processes, engagement approaches and governance structures to ensure that data projects are conducted to the highest ethical standards.

The project builds on research we recently conducted into the data ethics approaches being used by Brent Council, the Essex Centre for Data Analytics and Transport for London, as well as LOTI’s work supporting Camden on their deliberative engagement process to design a data charter with residents.

We’ll be conducting interviews across the public sector in the UK and beyond and using these insights to develop a reference data ethics process for London that can be tested with boroughs. Interviews are scheduled to take place over the coming weeks with the aim of producing a draft of the reference process before Christmas.

Supporting Dementia Care 

Following conversations with colleagues at Westminster, Lewisham and Hammersmith and Fulham, we’ve been able to narrow the focus of the Supporting Dementia Care project to two areas: Tailored Technologies and Hybrid Communities. We’ll be devising prototypes to be developed and tested in these areas with dementia support organisations. You can find out more about the prototypes and how to get involved by reading our recent blog or by attending our Show and Tell session this Wednesday, 10 November, at 10:30am.

Digital Inclusion in Temporary Accommodation Hostels

Last week we held a Show and Tell to present the early findings of our discovery with FutureGov into digital exclusion in temporary accommodation (TA) hostels. We were joined by borough colleagues working in TA and housing who provided feedback on the insights we’ve collected to date and suggested other issues we should consider. The slides and a recording of the Show and Tell will be available on the project page this week.

Future workplace

Our interviews with boroughs and external stakeholders on how they are adapting their workplaces in the wake of the Covid pandemic have continued apace as we start to put together a draft of our first report for this workstream. On top of the boroughs mentioned in the previous update, we have since spoken to colleagues at the GLA, Havering, Newham, Hackney, Enfield and Ealing.

This week, LOTI Researcher Sam Nutt will be visiting Barnet’s Colindale site to experience in person their collaboration workspace reconfiguration plans. We look forward to sharing early insights from the research with our community this week, and publishing the full report in early December.

Things we’ve published

Data Leadership

As part of LOTI’s Leadership Series, Eddie posted this video, outlining eight things that senior leaders can do to help their organisations use data effectively. All comments and feedback would be welcome!

Digital Exclusion Mapping Toolkit

An updated version of the Digital Exclusion Mapping Toolkit has been added to the LOTI resources page. This new version makes the toolkit easier to navigate and consume for those who want to learn how to use the London Digital Exclusion Map and Persona Bank to understand digital exclusion in their locality.

Coming up this week

This week we’ll be:

• Finalising two new LOTI guides: one on how organisations can upcycle retired devices, the other on how to recruit for hard-to-fill roles.
• Meeting with the main representatives of each LOTI borough to discuss how we plan to engage with senior leaders across London local government.
• Holding our latest Show & Tell to report progress on our dementia care project. Register to attend that session here.

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