Connecting with new members

Last week, we welcomed Barnet, our newest member. We also met with Aruj Haider, the newly appointed Chief Digital and Innovation Officer, Westminster. Aruj outlined areas of interest for Westminster, which included the role of technology as an enabler, exploring how London boroughs can use tech and digital approaches to amplify their work and take their services to next level? Like other boroughs, Westminster is also interested in getting a better view of the data and technology used to deliver their services and improve their strategic partnerships with suppliers, and we’re keen to work closely with boroughs to realise these goals through our Innovation in Procurement and City Tools projects going forward.

Really pleased to welcome @BarnetCouncil to #LOTI!

Looking forward to working closely with @yogitapopat (Head of Organisational Insight & Intelligence), Barry May (Head of Digital & Customer Strategy) and the rest of the amazing team there#LondonTogether #DigitalGovernment pic.twitter.com/bdeMnpa1O3

— London Office of Technology and Innovation (@LOTI_LDN) August 18, 2020

Innovation in Procurement

As LOTI starts Year 2, we’re pleased to be working on two major initiatives related to helping boroughs improve their procurements and relationships with tech suppliers. The first piece of work is looking at creating innovation in procurement guidance for London borough officers, and have successfully appointed GovTech (government technology) experts PUBLIC to deliver three pieces of work with LOTI boroughs:

1. Creating clear and practical Innovation In Procurement guidance – outlining how boroughs can improve their procurements, individually and collectively.
2. Applying that Innovation in Procurement Guidance to a specific tender opportunity.
3. Reviewing and making recommendations on how we can improve the data collected in our City Tools database of boroughs’ existing technologies.

PUBLIC will be starting off with a series of interviews with Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Procurement Leads and Service Managers from our member boroughs over the next few weeks to inform their research.

Join #LOTI and @LDN_gov for the launch of #Thirty3 (the latest iteration of #CityTools) at ‘London Borough Tech Spotlight’ event as part of @LDNTechWeek, on Thurs 10 Sep.
Register for a free ticket here: https://t.co/twjZPYZEiA #LTW #LondonTechWeek pic.twitter.com/a3kZmG9Msr

— London Office of Technology and Innovation (@LOTI_LDN) August 20, 2020

The second project is the launch of Thirty3 – the next iteration of our City Tools PowerBI dashboard. Thirty3 is a new platform developed by Nitrous and supported by data partners Proactis and Jaeggar, that aims to help boroughs search and view the different technologies that power boroughs’ functions and services and make borough tender opportunities more accessible to SMEs. The new platform will be launched at the ‘London Borough Tech Spotlight’ event during London Tech Week on 10 September. To join us on the day, please register for your ticket here.

Digital Apprenticeships

We did it! With a month to go, we announced that we not only met, but successfully exceeded the project goal set by our member boroughs to recruit a total of 100 digital apprentices by September 2020.

Pleased to announce that we've exceeded our goal & have 101 #DigitalApprentices recruited into #LOTI member boroughs!

Join us to celebrate this amazing achievement @LDNTechWeek on 8 September 2020 from 4:30 – 5:30 pm#DigitalLeadership #DigitalSkills #LocalGov #DigitalGovernment pic.twitter.com/L5NkXWFelx

— London Office of Technology and Innovation (@LOTI_LDN) August 17, 2020

On 8 September 2020, LOTI will be hosting a virtual celebration to conclude the Digital Apprenticeships project during London Tech Week. We will be raising our glasses to borough officers, private sector partners and the Digital Apprentices themselves, who have made this all possible. To join us in celebrating, register for free here.

Supporting Data Scientists in London boroughs

To support boroughs’ efforts using data in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, LOTI set up the network space for Data Analysts. We convened fortnightly virtual meet-ups for them to share the approaches they’re taking, using data to respond to Covid-19 challenges. We learned about what data analysts in local authorities were doing to identify vulnerable residents impacted by COVID-19 in their localities and what approaches they were developing, or tools they were adapting to respond to those needs. The full playlist is available here.

To complement this network and LOTI’s work in year two, we are setting up a similar network for Data Scientists in LOTI member boroughs. This builds on the successful experience of an internal group started at the Greater London Authority (GLA) 3 years ago. The intention is to provide a community of support for Data Science officers in boroughs and create a safe space where they can share resources, code and training/development opportunities with one another. If you’re interested in joining this space, please contact Jay Saggar (Data Projects Manager, LOTI).

This Week

This week, the LOTI Central Team is a little lighter on the ground, and will be focusing efforts on data collaboration project delivery, and the onboarding of member boroughs to the Thirty3 platform.

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