Interesting links

Interesting links I’ve found

For my reference really but you’re welcome to share

• Developing community power standards with Manchester City Council - Interesting and probably standards are helpful but I’d like to see more on the impact

• Talking of outcomes TPXImpact re-upped this post from GDS about service outcomes always worth refering to

• Talking of outcomes (again) they feature large in Nesta’s test and learn playbook disappointingly this is addressed to UK gov so it may not be too much use in the foothills of localgov

• Talking of Test and Learn, nod along to James Plunkett’s Neighbourhoods as engines of change

• Principles for services organisations (sort of a maturity assessment) is worth a bookmark

• Country-centred map projections is fun

• A gonorrhoea vaccine will soon be available in the UK - vaccines are cool

Gen Z employees need the opportunities we had and organisations need to provide them

Not quite this old. But getting there.

Nearly 30 years ago

My first proper job was in 1996 (after a protracted period as a student) and as with a small local authority. I went into the office every day. I had a phone on my desk (very important as I was a press officer) and a computer of my own.

This was long enough ago that we did not have a council website though we did have email to individuals (really challenging for managers who no longer controlled the flow of conversations around the council).

We had a tea-trolley (which meant you got coffee made as you did not like it served at a time you did not want it, though you did also get gossip about other teams in the council).

Merely 17 years ago

Then since 2008 I have worked in either hybrid or fully remote roles. Since then I've seen a shift in where the median expectation is for organisations. Working mostly in consultancy I would be on the road at least a couple of days a week. Potential clients would suggest I pop in "next time you're in London", current clients would expect workshops, presentations and pitches to be undertaken in person. My Brompton got an awful lot of use.

That shifted with COVID. Suddenly no-one wants a consultant in the office. Initial conversations are Teams calls, workshops are Teams calls, final presentations are Teams calls.

From my point of view this is broadly fantastic. A well designed online workshop can deliver at least as good quality outcomes as a well designed in-person workshop. My addressable market has opened up and my productivity has gone through the roof (I mean I actually enjoy train travel but it's hard to do good quality work on even a long, comfortable train journey).

But I am a middle-aged man in the prime (he says hopefully) of his career. I have a comfortable home office where the only disturbance is from two dogs who do occasionally insist on being walked or fed. I have mature professional networks developed over 30 years of work.

Freezing shared houses

Back in 1996 things were very different. I shared a freezing house with a bunch of artists who kept, let's say, very different hours to me. I had a tiny (though reasonably priced) bedroom and the only potential working surface was the kitchen table. Which was used for other purposes. Only some of them related to the preparation or consumption of food and some of them were inimicable to both.

I was at the start of my career. I knew hardly anyone and I didn't know that much about how to be effective in my profession. I did want to make an impact on my organisation and improve lives for local people.

But I was required to go into an office every day where I had access to a lot of more experienced people who could help me channel my enthusiasm and develop my skills.

So I often wonder what life is like for early career professionals who are, largely, compelled by our crazy housing policies to live in shared accomodation. It was not surprising to read (behind a paywall) that Gen Z is leading the charge back to the office. It's not simply that the office is a better physical place to work than a bedroom or a kitchen table. Early career workers are more likely to want to build new connections, make friends, learn from the middle-aged duffers like myself.

In the world of 1996 a junior employee could reasonably expect to bump into more senior managers in the corridor, before or after a meeting, over a lunch break. You could ask them questions, make naive but enthusiastic suggestions, and become more visible to people who really could affect your career.

Gen Z

How do Gen Z employees manage all this now?

From the FT article above (written by Emma Jacobs and Sapphire Hope) reports:

"One 23-year-old finance worker, who asked to be anonymous says the absence of older managers makes going into the office feel pointless. 'Why would I, as a young person with student debt, say goodbye to around a quarter of my salary just on trains and the occasional coffee?'"

It's a good question and especially relevant to data roles. Based on Hannah Khwaja's analysis of my nonprofit data job newsletter, 71% of advertised roles are hybrid or fully remote.

There are solutions

Organisations need to recognise that all working patterns have trade offs and that these trade offs are different for different people. As well as understanding the recruitment market. A minority of job vacancies are office based but that is potentially to the advantage of an employer if you know you are looking for someone who wants to be based in the office (and therefore will reject the majority of adverts out of hand).

Fully remote organisations have often recognised these challenges and have been intentional about addressing them. MySociety: the civic tech charity holds regular but infrequent physical get togethers in different parts of the UK (I was invited to attend one in Cardiff along with my Mapio Cymru colleagues). Many organisations support remote social activities: online book clubs, fun Slack channels which can help to build networks. All the more so if managers and leaders actively participate.

Even then employers should recognise that not everyone can work from home and should consider funding coworking spaces for employees that would benefit. A harder sell if your organisation is remote to save on office costs.

Be intentional in hybrid working

It is in hybrid working where the risks seem greatest. It is easy to imagine managers filling up their in-office days with meetings with each other and shutting out more junior staff. It is easy to imagine rotas being created to provide "coverage" of the office which spreads team members out over the week and makes it even harder to build relationships.

This is an area that organisations should not leave to chance. Managers and leaders should be understanding what they gain and lose by their working pattern and what the impact is on individuals right now and their career development as well as the opportunities for innovation and resilience for the organisation.

But I do not recommend a return to the tea-trolley.

Tony Blair and the local authorities

They’ve noticed us

The Tony Blair Institute has added to its recent series of reports extolling the opportunities of AI in government with a report looking at local government. Governing in the Age of AI: Reimagining Local Government promises that there are huge savings waiting to be realised by councils that embrace AI. It also provides some specific advice for councillors. Which is exciting. Because I actually am a councillor.

AI eh?

The report is frustratingly vague about what it means by AI. Based on some of the case studies it references the report is taking a very expansive definition. It includes machine learning, predictive modelling, remote sensors even data analytics and digital service design.

Is it helpful to badge these things as AI? I guess it’s sexier than digital, data and technology. At its heart that’s really what this report seems to be calling for. Fixing the plumbing, improving case management systems, better data standards. I’m all for this. We’re all all for this I think. Some of us have been all for this for ten or twenty years.

So allow me a moment to be a little frustrated that the bigwigs in the TBI seem to have turned up, looked into a local authority and said “gosh there are some issues here, had you ever thought about using technology to transform your services and maybe getting IT suppliers to provide you with modern tools?”.

They have fed some data about an unnamed local authority into a model which claims AI (or, more prosaically, better tools) could save us 25% of staff costs. Which sounds pretty exciting. If a bit difficult to believe. They don’t talk about the cost of the tools but we are allowed to understand that these will be much less than the cost of the staff.

The future

Let’s look at the solutions the TBI folks are proposing.

A Devolved AI Service (DAIS) funded by central government but owned by local government. Anything we don’t have to pay for is superficially attractive but if you don’t pay the piper you don’t, in reality, get to call the tune. Still taht’s just details. DAIS would do a number of interesting things including encouraging the development of shared data standards, prising open monopolistic markets and bolstering technical procurement capacity.

These are actually good ideas which people in the sector have been talking about for quite a while (Local GDS anyone?). I’m inclined to think that there may be some benefits in this cross-sector approach. Some.

The local government sector is large and complex though which multiple stakeholders locally and across the UK Government. A single technical consultancy for local government (stick AI in the name if you feel you must) is going to struggle to have the sort of impact we need at scale. Ultimately we are talking about changing in a complex system and this Local GDS, sorry: DAIS, is a solution for a complicated frame.

Carry on governing

There are some sections which I think could be charitably classified as “those things you’re already doing… do more of those”.

Transcription technologies have the potential to save social workers time in writing up notes the report tells us. If we had better case management systems and shared data standards they could potentially save even more time. And, an under-appreciated potential strength of the technology it seems to me, they could make it easier for social workers (or other professionals) to focus on the relationship with their clients without being distracted by forms or notes. This is no doubt why local authorities are already experimenting with these tools.

In a section about helping citizens get the support they need (local navigation assistant) the report highlights issues with data linking, data sharing and content and service design. All of which are, in my experience, fair. None of which I would particularly badge as AI. Still if we have to call it AI to get people to look at it. So be it.

I didn’t get the section on planning at all. Does the TBI think AI can write our local plans? Will we also have AI planning inspectors? Will AI barristers provide LLM generated evidence at planning inquiries? Once again they list some case studies of interesting things that councils are doing in this space “do more of the good things”.

Call to councillors

Then we get to the bit just for me. Five things they say councillors should be doing

1. Champion AI innovation
    If I don’t have to call it AI I shall be very happy to continue to champion innovation around the use of data and technology.

2. Adopt tools that have been proven to work
    Yes. I mean I feel like that is what local government does. But I’m very much for this and against, for example, adopting tools that have been proven not to work.

3. Use convening power to de-risk adoption
    This seems to be a fancy way of saying “work with others” which I’m also in favour of.

4. Adopt existing standards and platforms
    Yes. And I would like to see more councillors talking about this.

5. Adapt the workforce and attract the right talent
    I mean, again, sort of the day job. It is not unhelpful to have a reminder to make sure that data and technology is factored into workforce planning.

This is fine

Overall this is fine. It’s OK. I recognise many of the problems that the report identifies. I think some sort of sector-wide consultancy might be helpful. I think the sector has been working on these issues and innovating in this area but we can always do more.

This is not reimagining local government. Which is not a problem other than that’s the title of the report. It’s imagining local government making better use of technology. Which is, frankly, fine.

I just don’t think this is really about AI unless you define AI so broadly that it becomes indistinguishable from computers.

Maybe it has to be packaged this way to get government to take it seriously. I don’t know.

Back to the coal face where we’re wrestling with ever increasing demand and diminishing funding and providing services which are, in a very large part, fundamentally about effective relationships between human beings not technology.