A leader is someone who is fed up with the status quo and has the energy to do something about it.

This was the quote that Eddie Copeland, of the London Office of Technology and Innovation told a packed-out Kelvin Lecture Theatre was his inspiration, as he delivered the September IET Central London Network lecture. 

LOTI is London’s local government’s innovation team, established to help borough councils and the GLA use innovation, data and technology to be high-performing organisations, improve services and tackle London’s biggest challenges together.  Eddie heads the LOTI central support team and he explained that, despite having a figurehead Mayor, public services in London are fragmented, governed by 33 different councils with differing party allegiances and priorities.  This, coupled with underfunding, means that local public services are underimagined.  Eddie outlined a number of key themes to re-imagine public services with Data, Technology, and Innovation.

Data – The London Datastore opened 10 years ago providing open data anyone can use.  TfL choose to release open data, and apps were subsequently developed that TfL could only dream of.  But Eddie thought something was missing and he started to investigate examples of cities around the world using open data.  He used New York as the basis of a paper to argue that data can be used to spot unlicensed homes of multiple occupancy; these locations share certain characteristics such as the location, but the biggest human pointer is previous convictions for the landlord.  Data has shortened the time taken to detect these houses from 2 years to 2 weeks.

Technology – Unfortunately, LOTI was established after each borough adopted individual pay to park Apps, but there appears to be movement on this issue.  On the other hand, LOTI has enabled Digital Twins to be used to spot unlicensed advertising hoardings.  The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has been using AI to analyse reports of graffiti submitted by residents to prioritise the removal of scribblings of an offensive nature.

Innovation – On innovation Eddie was keen to emphasise that there has to be trust from the service users.  Technology will not save us and it is key to get the relationship with the service users right.  There are 180000 Londoners who cannot get online and Eddie informed us that LOTI has distributed 60000 SIM cards pre-loaded with data plans to address this issue.

As I write this blog the skies have opened, creating problems which the Southeast of England and London (in particular) are not prepared for.  Eddie highlighted an interesting example of the use of Technology, where a partnership of South London councils have got together to use Internet of Things (IOT) sensors in kerbside drains to detect blockages and mobilise gulley cleaners to address the problem before flooding occurs.  This is an innovative use of technology to mitigate against budget cuts (which lead to the curtailment of regular drain cleaning) whilst maintaining a pleasant environment for residents.

Watch the Lecture on IET TV here:

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