Tag Archives: Newham Council

Local government and artificial intelligence: the benefits and the challenges

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Photo by Jackson So on Unsplash

By James Carson

Artificial intelligence (AI) has come a long way since computer pioneer Alan Turing first considered the notion of ‘thinking machines’ in the 1950s. More than half a century later, advances such as natural language processing and translation, and facial recognition have taken AI out of the computer lab and onto our smartphones. Meanwhile, faster computers and large datasets have enabled machine learning, where a computer imitates the way that humans learn.

AI has already had important impacts on how we live and work: in healthcare, it’s helping to enhance diagnosis of disease; in financial services AI is being deployed to spot trends that can’t be easily picked up by conventional reporting methods; and in education, AI can provide learning, testing and feedback, with benefits both to students and teachers. And now, intelligent automation is being adopted by local government.

AI goes local

A decade of austerity has left local councils struggling to ‘do more with less’. The Covid-19 pandemic has presented additional challenges, but has also accelerated efforts by local government to find digital solutions.

AI offers local authorities the benefits of streamlining routine tasks and processes, freeing up staff to focus on higher value activities which deliver better services and outcomes to citizens. Intelligent automation could also have important economic impacts. IPPR has estimated that AI could save councils up to £6bn in social care costs.

When it comes to system and data updating, intelligent automation really comes into its own. From managing council tax payments to issuing parking permits, there are now digital solutions to the many task-driven processes that are such a major part of local government’s work.

Many local councils are also exploring the application of chatbots or virtual assistants. These technologies enable customer services to provide automated, human-like answers to frequently asked questions on subjects as varied as waste management, street lighting and anti-social behaviour. The time and cost savings from this kind of digital solution can be substantial. Newham Council in London deployed a multilingual chatbot to answer residents’ questions. Within six months, the technology had answered 10,000 questions, saved 84 hours of call time and generated cost savings of £40,000.

The challenges of AI in local government: getting it right

Earlier this year, a report from the Oxford Commission on AI and Good Governance identified the major challenges facing local authorities when considering AI.

Inaccurate or incomplete data can delay or derail an AI project, so it’s vital that data quality issues are addressed early on. The report highlighted a project where one local authority explored how predictive analytics might be used to help prioritize inspections of houses in multiple occupation (HMOs). Predictive analytics involves the use of historic data to predict new instances. But in this case the challenges of cleaning, processing and merging the data proved too intractable to produce successful predictions.

Another important step for local authorities is to clearly define the objectives of an AI project, providing a clear vision of the outcomes, while managing expectations among all affected stakeholders – especially senior managers. The report points to a successful project implemented by Manchester City Council which developed an integrated database that allowed them to automate record searches and build predictive tools. The project had a clearly stated aim of identifying troubled families to participate in the government’s payment-by-results programme. This approach gave the project a specific focus and an easily measurable assessment of success.

It’s also important for local councils and technology suppliers to work together, ensuring that suppliers are aware of local contexts, existing data and processes. At the same time, making full use of in-house expertise can help AI technologies work better in a local government setting. The Oxford Commission report explains that after the disappointing results from the previously mentioned HMOs project, in-house data scientists working in one of the participating local authorities developed their own solution.

Sometimes, councils will discover that AI is a good fit in some parts of their work, but doesn’t work in others. In 2019, Oxford City Council explored whether chatbots could help solve design problems in some of their services. The council found that, while waste and recycling enquiries could be easily handled by a chatbot, the complex nature of the planning service would have made it difficult to remove humans from the conversations taking place in this setting. That said, another council has found it possible to develop a chatbot for its planning applications.

At the same time, digitalisation is compelling councils to adjust to new ways of working, something discussed in a Local Government Association presentation by Aylesbury Vale District Council.

The future of AI in local government

Since we last looked at this subject, local government involvement in AI has increased. But there are still important governance and ethical arrangements to consider so that AI technologies in public services can achieve benefits that citizens can trust.

The Oxford Commission report set out a number of recommendations, including:

  • minimum mandatory data standards and dedicated resources for the maintenance of data quality;
  • minimum mandatory guidance for problem definition and project progress monitoring;
  • dedicated resources to ensure that local authorities can be intelligent consumers and capable developers of AI;
  • a platform to compile all relevant information about information technology projects in local authorities.

Final thoughts

Three years ago, MJ magazine described AI as a ‘game-changer’ for local government. The potential benefits are clear. AI can generate labour and cost savings, but also offers the promise of reducing carbon footprints and optimizing energy usage. But while residents may welcome greater efficiency in their local councils, many will have concerns about data privacy, digital inclusion and trust in the use of public data.

At its best, artificial intelligence will complement the services provided by local authorities, while ensuring that the all-important element of human intelligence remains at the heart of local government.

Further reading: more on digital from The Knowledge Exchange blog

Digital Housing Week: How coronavirus is affecting housing

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Throughout this week, Inside Housing magazine has been providing a series of webinars offering debate, learning and innovative thinking on how housing providers are responding to present-day challenges and preparing for future demands.

One of the webinars focused on the ways in which Covid-19 has accelerated the move to agile working for housing associations (HAs) and council staff, and how housing providers can tackle the  mental health and wellbeing issues experienced by staff and residents.

Responding to the new normal

Anita Khan, from Settle Housing Association in Hertfordshire explained how her HA responded to lockdown by mobilising its continuity plan. Settle’s first responsibility is to engage with and support its customers, and once the plan was enacted, agile behaviour took root.

Anita described how automated contacts with HA customers enabled it to identify which people were in isolation or shielding. At the same time, methods of enforcement had to change, as the UK government banned evictions. Anita explained that once the HA stopped sending messages warning customers of enforcement of the rules on rent payments, the residents started to engage more positively with it.

Working practices at Settle also changed substantially, with a move away from a face-to-face culture towards remote working. Anita described the process of change HA staff experienced, from relief at not having to make long commutes, followed by fatigue from too many video conferences, and more recently recalibrating to a situation that works.

Agile working in the age of coronavirus

Tony Morrison, an agile working consultant, described the measures taken by Newham Council  to modernise the way the local authority worked. He explained that in 2019, Newham got a new leadership team, and deployed a plan to make the first investment in IT for eight years. The aim was to make sure everyone was mobile by default, and to pivot a local authority with 14.5 million pieces of paper towards a paperless organisation. The plan was already under way when the lockdown was imposed.

Immediately, the council had to adapt to the new situation. Around three thousand members of staff didn’t have effective ways of working from home, and so the council identified who most needed assistance, and delivered laptops and mobile devices to these 500 individuals.

At same time, the council deployed Office 365 and migrated Skype for Business, and enabled staff to communicate with customers using Zoom.

Newham has now rolled out a further 2000 devices to staff, and it’s clear that the lockdown experience has demonstrated the possibilities of remote working.

The council is already looking to the post-pandemic period when it might not require so much expensive office space. Tony explained that now would not be the right time to consider disposal of offices because so many other organisations are in the same position. Instead, Newham is looking at alternative uses for its property estate, including cohabiting with other organisations, pop-up spaces and conversion to affordable housing.

Housing on the frontline of a mental health crisis

There’s now little doubt that the coronavirus pandemic is having a significant effect on mental health. With the loss of lives and livelihoods, and the growing demands for support from already overburdened health services, the fallout from the pandemic is likely to be on an unprecedented scale.

During the Inside Housing webinar, consultant psychiatrist Raj Persaud talked about the unique role housing can play in tackling mental health issues among staff and residents.

He noted that housing staff may be among the first to identify signs of mental illness among residents, because fewer people have been attending GP surgeries during the pandemic.

He suggested that housing staff in this position should raise such issues with community mental health teams. He also highlighted the importance of contacting NHS services by letter. Because letters are legal documents, health professionals are more likely to pay attention to issues raised in this way.

Raj highlighted a key issue housing staff can focus on when dealing with people who have mental health problems:

“Too often, the aim has been to concentrate on the causes of mental illness, but that misses out on the coping skills people have used in the past. The right skills can make a person super resilient, and so it’s always useful to engage in conversation about coping skills people have used for previous life events.”

All of the speakers in the webinar stressed the importance of the human factor in tackling the challenges raised by the coronavirus pandemic. Raj Persaud noted that, in the absence of the water cooler, the pub or the staff room, physical locations have to be recreated virtually. Doing this may feel clunky at first, but even if things don’t feel right, housing staff and others should persist until they find a method that suits them, and enables people to feel they are less isolated.

Final thoughts

One thing is certain: post-Covid will be very different from pre-Covid. But this webinar demonstrated that housing providers are embracing the fluidity of this situation. In an age of thinking differently, those who consider alternative solutions to the problems of the present may be better equipped for the challenges of the future.

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Local authority housing companies: getting back into building

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Last December, research by Inside Housing magazine found that more than a third of English local authorities have already – or are planning to – set up their own housing companies.

The research showed that 98 out of 252 councils were considering the establishment of a private housing development company, or had already established one.  That’s a significant increase on the seven housing companies that existed in 2014.

The factors driving council housing companies

The 2011 Localism Act gave local councils the powers to establish their own private companies, enabling them to borrow money more cheaply and avoid government-imposed restrictions. A mixture of motives is now prompting local authorities to enter the housebuilding business. Some see the new companies as sources of additional revenue. In addition, homes built by these private companies are not liable to right-to-buy. The Inside Housing research also found that a number of councils want to target income generated on tackling homelessness in their area.

At the same time, councils are facing funding pressures. “Local authority budgets are biting more and more,” Croydon Council’s director of development Colm Lacey explained to The Architects’ Journal in February.

“For example, in Croydon we’ve lost more than half of our central government budget since 2010. That’s a slow drip-drip of a loss of resource. Quite quickly, you come to realise that you need to throw something else in to meet the gap.”

Most companies are being established as wholly owned subsidiaries of councils, while some are solely management companies, letting stock built by their parent local authority. Many are funded by councils borrowing money from the Public Works Loan Board at low rates and then lending it to the company at a market rate.

Early adopters

The types of councils establishing housing companies are very varied, from rural to urban, and across the political spectrum. There is also a wide geographical spread, with a growing number located in London.

Among the councils pioneering their own housing companies is Newham Council in east London, which established its Red Door Ventures company in 2014 to provide homes at market rents, with a third of profits to be invested in social or affordable housing. The company’s properties are built on land bought from the council by the company using a local authority loan. Already, three developments have been built, and planning permission has been given for two more.

Another council-established private development company is Brick by Brick, set up by the London Borough of Croydon Council in 2016. The borough owns a significant amount of land, but has found that procuring agreements with developers has rarely generated benefits to the council in terms of increased land values or development returns. In an interview with Local Government Chronicle, Croydon’s Colm Lacey explained the reasoning behind Brick by Brick:

“The model allows the council as land-owner, sometime finance provider and sole shareholder to extract value from the core components of development activity – funding, building and selling. It maximises both affordable housing supply and return from development activity to Croydon residents, and allows the council to reinvest in core services.”

 Learning from the pioneers: the upside and the downside

As more local authorities move towards establishing their own housing companies, they can learn from the experiences of early adopters, who can advise them on what to watch out for. This includes analysing council powers in relation to the establishment of a company, provision of funding, transfer of land, decision-making arrangements and potential conflicts of interest (for example in relation to planning).

At a time of acute housing shortages, the creation of house building companies takes on increased significance. Chartered Institute of Housing deputy chief executive Gavin Smart agrees that housing companies can help council deliver more homes, but warns:

“The downside is that the need to cross-subsidise might mean that their ability to produce new homes at genuinely affordable, social rents can be limited. It’s vital that they continue to prioritise building new homes at social rents.”

A rising tide or a drop in the ocean?

The trend towards council housing companies shows no sign of waning.

  • Cambridge City Council set up its housing company in January 2016, and the following May the company handed over its first rental property to new tenants.
  • The first of 128 new homes built by Gloriana – Thurrock Council’s housing company – will be completed this year in Tilbury. The development has been created to keep up with demand for homes from increasing numbers of people coming to work in the area, mainly in freight and retail.
  • Meridian Homestart is a company set up by the Royal Borough of Greenwich to offer high-quality homes for local working families to rent. These homes are let at 20% below local market rent levels in order to help working families who would otherwise find it hard to buy or rent on the open market.
  • A shortage of private accommodation has prompted Bracknell Forest Council to use its housing company to provide better and cheaper housing for homeless people.

At the moment, the contribution of council housing companies towards tackling the housing crisis is relatively small. Barking and Dagenham’s housing company, Reside, has so far delivered around 600 homes; while Blueprint, a joint venture between Nottingham Council and Igloo Regeneration, has completed 245 homes. That’s a drop in the ocean when compared to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Select Committee recommendation of 300,000 new-build homes each year.

Even so, housing companies have come a long way in a short time, and their rapid growth signals a much bigger long-term vision. As Sir Robin Wales, Mayor of Newham explains:

“We’re trying to correct 30 to 40 years of failure in the housing market, but it will take time.”

If you enjoyed this post, take a look at some of our other housing blog posts:

How can the government unlock the potential of big data?

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By Steven McGinty

Last May, the Open Rights Group announced that they were in discussions with the UK Government over their proposals to remove the barriers to data sharing and link up government databases. This would mean that thousands of government databases, containing information such as criminal records and even energy use, could be accessed by local councils, schools, the civil service and the police. It’s hoped that the sharing of data will allow the government to capitalise on big data techniques and provide better and more tailored public services.

However, several issues have been identified that may make widespread government data sharing challenging. These include:

  • a lack of prioritisation by local council and government leaders;
  • concerns over protecting the privacy of citizens;
  • a mistrust of government data handling;
  • the use of different systems and different standards by government bodies.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) reports that from April 2013 to March 2014 there were just over 1500 breaches of the Data Protection Act. Local authorities accounted for 234 of these breaches, coming second only to health organisations, who committed 551 breaches. In the last quarter of the year, the most common offences were disclosing personal information in error (175 incidents) and lost or stolen paperwork (74 incidents).

The ICO has also handed out several high profile fines to organisations in the public sector. For example, North East Lincolnshire Council was fined £80,000 for losing an unencrypted USB stick which held the personal and sensitive data of children. Similarly, Aberdeen City Council were fined £100,000 after a member of their staff accidently uploaded documents onto the internet, including personal information about social care cases.

The Improvement and Development Agency (I&DeA) released a report in 2010 on the role of data sharing in tackling worklessness. The report findings, still relevant today, highlighted the importance of developing data sharing systems that:

  • build in the need for data sharing into the design;
  • adopt clear and consistent definitions;
  • respect the privacy of individuals;
  • ensure data integrity.

Further, the report explained how anonymised personal data can be used to share data legally. For example, anonymised data (data which has had its identifiable information removed), has been used increasingly to provide local analysis across a number of areas, including health, crime and employment. Some examples include Eastleigh Ambition, which uses data to target and support vulnerable families, and Newham Council, who use a range of data, including Disability Living Allowance information to improve their understanding of changing populations and needs.

Working in partnership and using technological innovations has also provided solutions for data sharing issues. For instance, the Tyne and Wear City Strategy Partnership was established to purchase a shared customer tracking system to facilitate data sharing. The system has been rolled out in a variety of ways across the North East of England, with partners helping to make the system more user friendly. The system has been designed to ensure that consent is built in whenever data is shared. Users also have different levels of access depending on their organisation and on what they ‘need to know’, to ensure compliance with the Data Protection Act.

Although there have been some high profile cases of government data mishandling, it’s clear that data sharing will continue to increase, particularly as all levels of government look for more targeted services. Government and society will have to come to an agreement on how this should be done.

 

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