Introduction

LOTI wants to see a future where London’s public sector organisations can thrive in the digital era, achieving their best for their residents. The COVID experience has highlighted that organisations need to be ready and able to adapt at great speed to unpredictable events and crises. Council leaders have seen first hand the pivotal role that digital and data play in making that possible. It’s also placed a new urgency on the need to find more effective and financially sustainable ways of working. To not just survive but thrive in this environment and meet the expectations of their residents, boroughs need to be able to innovate – both individually and collectively – and make the smartest use of all the best tools and methods at their disposal.

Supported by Bloomberg Associates, this project therefore aims to help boroughs understand what capabilities they need to develop in the fields of digital, data and innovation. It sets out to answer questions such as: What does good look like? What do these capabilities consist of? What does investing in these capabilities enable boroughs to do? How do we articulate the rationale for developing them to CEOs and CFOs, as well as CIOs?