Author: Nicholas McCarthy

As Head of Digital Services I am responsible for ensuring we can support Councillors and staff to make best use of all the great services are putting in place to support our residents. Hounslow is a great place to work and the facilities and support for staff are the best I have found in my career. There are lots of opportunities for staff development and all new members of staff get to introduce themselves at the Digital team show and tells - this ensures people feel a member of the team as soon as they join. My twitter feed is https://twitter.com/NickMcC63703911 does include alot of info on tech as well as @BarnetFC!

Digital inclusion in Hounslow during 2022 

Posted on by in General

I wrote this blog back in November 2021 Digital Inclusion in Hounslow – Hounslow.Digital and given the cost of living pressures we are all under wanted to go back and see what we have achieved and what more we need to do. 

With Digital Inclusion we need to deliver the hat trick of connectivity/devices/learning so have been reviewing progress with this in mind. We now have increased resources in this area to drive the work forward and the Digital Inclusion Commitment was approved in October 2022 Year Two update of Hounslow.Digital Digital Strategy – 2020-25 – Appendix 1 – Digital Inclusion Comm.pdf . We have KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) we report back to Directors on quarterly basis. All the work across Council is coordinated through the Digital Inclusion Group which includes colleagues and partners alike. 

More detailed information on digital inclusion in Hounslow here Digital Exclusion | Hounslow | Report Builder for ArcGIS. 

We will continue to work with Loti colleagues on Digital Inclusion Innovation Programme – LOTI /Get Online London – LOTI to ensure consistency continues to be built across London. 

Connectivity 

We are rolling out better connections to our Council sites with new fibre connections – some as part of a grant from TFL (Transport for London) for the sites harder to reach alongside making it easier for all to get online and provide better facilities as part of the Council’s warm spaces work Warm Spaces | London Borough of Hounslow. 

This time last year we had signed wayleave agreements with Community Fibre and Hyperopic. Since then, we have signed with OpenReach, and Community Fibre have finished their rollout to Council flats (Community Fibre’s £6 million broadband investment ensures Hounslow’s communities are connected | London Borough of Hounslow).  

The annual Ofcom report on connectivity has come out this week based on info from Sept 22 (Interactive report – Ofcom). Whilst it is not as current as the information from sites such as thinkbroadband which are updated regularly it provides a great snapshot and reporting to reflect on progress over the last year. 

The report shows the good trend in Hounslow continues – in Sept 21 were 1716 premises with poor broadband based on Ofcom definition as at Sept 22 were down to 799. 

Premises with Fibre broadband in Hounslow were 11519 in Sept 21 in Sept 22 up to 33478. 

So, some substantial progress here but lots more than needs to be done in 2023 and plans are in place for this including promotion of social tariffs and the social value offerings from suppliers as take up continues to be slow across all operators. 

Devices

Our aim last year was to recycle 700 devices per year, we have completed 1300 since 2020. 

For 2023 we are aiming for 1000 devices to be recycled working with in partnership with Our Barn Community – Home alongside our Community Solutions colleagues and have the plan and resources in place to do so. 

Learning  

Adult Education continue to have great courses for digital skills – more information here Hounslow Adult and Community Education – Adult Courses (hace.ac.uk). 

We are working to recruit Digital Champions with our partners – if you are interested in this please send an email to getonline@hounslow.gov.uk. 

We also had our Digital Festival during November with lots of opportunities for all to get training along with the continued free access to sites such as this: Make It Click (learnmyway.com) 

So, overall, a lot done with lots of fantastic partners over the last year with lots more planned to continue in 2023 to ensure we maintain the great progress made over the last 2 years. 

Getting back to the office 

Posted on by in General, Staff and Workforce

At Hounslow we are starting to get back to to more regular ways of working as part of the hybrid approach. For me 2 days a week in the office is great so hasn’t changed for me too much as I was in at least 2 days throughout the various lockdowns. Some weeks will see more in Hounslow in line with what is needed by the business.  

We have the colleague conference at Hounslow 2nd to 4th November and our Digital Festival starting from 1st November, which for the first time will be a mixture of in person and virtual. This gives us an opportunity to rebuild connections and continue to meet colleagues and partners who we have only met virtually to date.  

Tidy Fridays 

I didn’t come into the office for one of the Tidy Fridays we are having to declutter offices to make the environment tidier for all as we start to reimagine the space we use. As a result Brucie and the Chuckle Brothers have left the building, we got them during lockdown as a light reminder of a serious message. Colleagues used to say find Brucie and you find Digital so we are thinking how best to signpost our area as we don’t put up posters etc in Hounslow House. 

Reflecting on challenges ahead  

I have some time off now – there is so much to do but so important to take a break from work and focus on family and friends and recharge the batteries. So much great work we will be doing before Christmas so need the rest to be able to move stuff on at pace such as contiinuing our device refresh at 800-900 per year, updating our sites away from Hounslow House to bring them up to date and all the work on connectivity. In the day job the team deals with an average 2600 calls per month for both faults and requests.

We have the updated Digital Strategy and Digital Inclusion Commitment going to Cabinet 18th October for approval – more to follow then as well as some exciting news around our broadband rollout with partners but I cant spoil the surprise yet!

It’s Christmas time  

Did the weekly video update in Director’s absence – got the Christmas jumper out and pleased to say the lights still worked though couldn’t capture it in a video still! 

Building the foundations for Digital Transformation

Posted on by in General, Place and Community

At Hounslow we are well on the way with all kinds of exciting work as part of the Digital Strategy. To deliver all these great services there is a lot of work that goes on often 7 days a week by the teams that report to me, and they are the unsung heroes of the work we are doing as the work done provides the foundation for all such work. 

The numbers in terms of transactions on the systems we look after on are huge for example our new online phone system has processed over 160,000 calls since it went live December and with the last phase planned today 13th May this figure will considerably increase after this. Other highlights that show the scale we work on over the last half year: 

  • 12.2 million emails  
  • 2.2 million activities in teams – up by 27% 
  • 5.2 million files in one drive – up by 6.5% 
  • Over 500,000 files on SharePoint – up by 12% 

This is in addition to the 200 plus virtual servers the teams support both on premise and in the cloud and all the work that is needed to allow our 2400 plus colleagues to operate 24/7 including our website. 

Elections 

Since January the team have been preparing for the Elections – this has involved all the planning for the polling day, the postal vote verification at Hounslow House and then the count itself. Then this week we have been ensuring the 22 new Councillors are up and running to make what is a busy time for time as smooth as possible for their Digital access. 

Team work  

There have been a lot of changes over the last 2 years with the Digital Strategy and for me, personally, doing a Digital wide show and tell every 2 weeks with the odd quiz thrown in has pushed me out of my comfort zone but I like to think I am a total natural now! 

In the final changeover today for our phone system, we moved to a new platform to ensure the resident experience can continue to improve and we have transferred over 2500 numbers – we have had 144 queries with no major issues to report. This work has involved teams across the Council collaborating virtually for most of the time but for go live day most of us have been in the building. It has been a reminder of how much (even though the tech works really well) we can get out of doing stuff with a purpose face to face.  And of course we could not have done all this without Brucie.

Time to Talk day 2022

Posted on by in Staff and Workforce

I did an article in August 2020 around mental health in Digital teams – Cognitive shade – Hounslow.Digital – at the time we were at the height of demand on our services, and we are now into 2022 with demand continuing to be high. We started this week with a major incident that affected all services and whilst we resolved very quickly, we had over 1000 phone calls in a couple of hours – on a Monday we would expect around 200 normally. 

Time to talk day on 3rd February is so important and is an area wanted to highlight. It is great that Digital transformation has moved on immensely in the public sector during this time, but it has put an enormous strain on resources alongside the need to ensure we all balance work with our personal lives as the two have increasingly blurred with the move to hybrid working. 

2021 was a difficult year for me personally. My Mum passed away during the year and we had another 3 deaths in the family plus my father had a stroke and needed to go into a nursing home. I know a lot of colleagues in the Council have related stories. The support I had from the organisation and colleagues has been fantastic – it has allowed me to talk when needed and I have always known that colleagues are there for me. It has encouraged me to address my mental health in the same way was I do my physical health which isn’t always an easy thing to do. 

For time to talk day we have lots of opportunities for all colleagues to take the time out to do this across the Council both on the day and moving forward. Within the team as Director of Digital has had coffee mornings every Friday for the last year. We are now changing it up a bit using something called icebreakerbot on teams to randomly introduce 2 colleagues to each other to encourage that informal networking. We will continue to introduce other initiatives to give all that opportunity to talk informally and recreate those water cooler moments. 

More information on time to talk day here – Time To Talk Day – Time To Talk Day. 

If you need support with your mental health, please ask – people will help. A good starting point for support is https://www.mind.org.uk/ , https://youngminds.org.uk/ or  https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/ 

Digital Inclusion in Hounslow

Posted on by in Place and Community

During the last 18 months Digital inclusion challenges have been magnified which has given the team a renewed drive and focus to continue work in this area.

For some people it is issue with devices, for some it is connectivity and for some it is the confidence and training needed to use digital services. Only by being able to address all 3 can this be truly addressed .

Internally within the Council we have challenges with ensuring all colleagues have access to the right tools as all internal systems moving online.

We have a new Digital Inclusion Commitment with a new action plan to drive addressing issues internally and externally working with partners such London Office of Technology Innovation (Loti) and our Local Voluntary Services.

So what is Hounslow doing?

Hounslow now has a Digital Inclusion Group which has met regularly over the last 12 months and there continue to be deliverables across all these areas. This work has been alongside national government initiatives.

Earlier this year the Council supplied 750 devices and 150 dongles to school children – information here: Hundreds of extra laptops for Hounslow pupils | London Borough of Hounslow

Connectivity

The council has signed master wayleave agreements with 2 suppliers and this work includes social value elements and contributions towards connectivity challenges including free connections to community spaces. Further information here: Hounslow signs first full-fibre agreement | London Borough of Hounslow.

Based on current rollout schedule the council through this will be able to provide 300 residents broadband connections for a year and half price connections for another 200& – this is alongside free community wifi connections as part of this work.

Devices and training

The council is recycling laptops to residents – the aim is to complete 700 per year and we have completed the initial pilot. We are also continuing to tie this in with skills and training with the local voluntary services training people to perform this work alongside joint work with our Adult Education teams to provide digital skills.

Resident journeys

This is the feedback from two resident journeys which shows the difference this support has made:

  • Resident 1
    • This resident is a member of a support group who provide activities and support to young people with disabilities.
    • He lives independently in sheltered accommodation in the borough.
    • He was using a very old desktop computer and was pleased to receive a refurbished laptop which has allowed him to download and play games online.
    • This has meant that he can still socialise while in lockdown and can access the zoom activities arranged through the club.
    • He has learned how to create youtube videos and uploads regular content for the club.
  • Resident 2
    • A 65 year old resident, described as not being very computer savvy was referred to our Work Hounslow team for help finding work. Previously, having lost his job, he became homeless and was a year before he found accommodation. He wants to learn to use a computer.
    • Work Hounslow arranged to meet with him. Work Hounslow then asked if Learn Hounslow had a laptop he could use as she was aware we do loan them to learners.
    • We enrolled him on a short beginner’s digital skills course, and he borrowed a Chromebook. After this he returned the Chromebook, and the voluntary services were able to gift him a reconditioned laptop to use. He initially had difficulty using this as he didn’t realise where he might be able to access free wifi but the team informed him he can access free wifi in some coffee shops and public spaces such as libraries so he is now able to make full use of his new device.

Fibre broadband in Hounslow

Posted on by in Collaboration and Data, Place and Community

Current sites completed by Community Fibre as at June 2022

Community Fibre are now mostly complete and are due finish Council owned flats by end of July 2022 and have also commenced a wider rollout in the Borough to non Hounslow owned properties

Sites underway by Hyperoptic

Derwent Lodge

Brent Lea

Belvedere House

Spooner House

What is fibre broadband to premises?

This is the where the fibre cable is delivered direct into premises and not via the green boxes you may see which then need a copper cable into each individual property.

A fibre optic cable is able to handle a much larger volume of data than a copper cable without degrading. Fibre optic is therefore quicker than standard broadband, as the signal strength is less likely to fail with distance from the exchange, and speeds are maintained over greater distance. Maintenance is also better with fibre broadband and better guarantees of speed can be offered by suppliers.

The work also helps as part of move to fibre from copper by BT Openreach over the coming years with the current final date for disconnection set at 31 December 2025 for equipment connected from exchanges via copper to local “green” boxes.

Fibre broadband in Hounslow

The principles for guiding the roll out of fibre broadband:

  • To maximise the extent and coverage of fibre broadband availability for residents and businesses in the borough.
  • To deliver the rollout of improved fibre infrastructure in a way that minimises the disturbance to residents and businesses in the borough.
  • To ensure delivery of fibre broadband networks at pace.
  • To leverage social, environmental and economic value and secure investment in digital investment that everyone in the borough can benefit from.

The Council has been working in partnership with Harrow and Barnet Councils, so far Community Fibre and Hyperoptic have signed agreements with more expected, with the rollout programmes being developed currently for the Council’s social housing stock. This will help to unlock the investment needed to get fibre broadband into all premises in Hounslow,

Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) digital workstream exciting developments… view from a Business Relationship Manager

Posted on by in Place and Community

by Hirva Shah hirva.shah@hounslow.gov.uk

I work in the Digital and IT (D&IT) service as Business Relationship Manager and social care service is one of the key accounts that I work very closely within my current role. I work with them to understand their digital requirements and the support needed for delivering services to the residents. During the Covid times, the digital tools and virtual platform available through D&IT has helped them to work in partnership with Health, however, they did not have access to the NHS’s clinical systems which was essential to them to acquire a broader knowledge on the patients and get a holistic view of patient needs for delivering the best care. 

The integrated care partnership  (ICP) initiative is lead by the NHS to bring together the providers and commissioners of NHS services to work with the local authorities and other local partners collectively to plan health and care services to meet the needs of the residents has been very advantageous to the council. This collaborative partnership initiative has led into the Digital ICP workstream which facilitates knowledge and information sharing and partnership working between the council and Health partners such as NWCCGs, Trust, Primary care and GPs on the digital elements linked to high-level ICP strategic objectives. These objectives are in place to promote and encourage healthy choices to reduce health inequality, improve resilience, age well and improved social connection in the community.

This joined-up approach has facilitated discussion and agreements on digital elements such as: having a single and secure WiFi infrastructure; data-sharing and access agreement; digital technologies used between the partners for social prescribing; assistive living independently and remote monitoring. Information gathered through these discussions has helped to draft the guidelines and principles which will be used to develop an operating model against each of these workstreams to deliver coordinated services tailored around the needs of the community. Activities such as service design and mapping out clinical pathway may be carried out to understand the technical requirements, impact and affordability for care technology procurement. 

Through digital collaboration work alongside our health partners, we have succeeded in clarifying the technical and legal requirements needed for the data information-sharing agreement on NHS clinical systems. We have increased our understanding of the different portals being used by Health and Social Care partners within the North West London region to access patient information for delivering care. Information gathered through this collaborative approach has helped us to provide the relevant systems and access details to West London Mental Health Trust and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. This agreement has now been approved and is in place between the Trust and the Council for the NHS clinical systems, RIO and Cerner. 

The Hospital Discharge Team co-ordinate with various care professionals and support agencies involved in decision making for residents who are admitted to the hospital and agree on the most beneficial way to continue their care following discharge from the hospital. Through the Cerner system, they are now able to see when the residents have been admitted to the hospital and when they are due to be discharged so that a subsequent care support plan can be put in place. The Approved Mental Health Practitioner Team, which is part of the Adult Social care service area, deal with mental health needs by applying various sections of the Mental Health Act. Working in partnership with West London Health Trust, access to the RIO system allows them to screen the referrals and gather assessment information. 

The aim is to enable our residents to have healthier lives and get the care and treatment they need at the right time and in the right location. Providing integrated care through digital technology will deliver better services that can be made available and easily accessible and cost-effectively from home (e.g. via video call/call conferencing for carrying out remote assessments and triage services appropriately). The ongoing collaboration work between the Healthcare partners and the Council has helped develop an in-depth understanding of the needs, challenges and barriers to delivering integrated care service to the wider population. Sharing ideas and experience between the partners will help to build a road map and a plan to deliver the outcomes required for the integrated care service to provide better health outcomes for residents. 

We are planning on more joined-up working through the ICP and our One Hounslow programme of work – with Digital systems being the levers for change to ensure that we transform the services that we can provide. 

I am excited to be continuing to be a part of the joined-up organisations and improving services for the residents. After all, I am also a part of the community who would be benefiting from receiving the highest care through this joined-up partnership.   

Watch this space! 

Green and Digital

Posted on by in General

At Hounslow there is a strong focus on the green recovery – this across all areas of the Council as part of One Hounslow and the ambition of this can be seen through the roles recently advertised at greenrecoveryjobs.co.uk and the declared climate emergency for Hounslow – Hounslow’s Climate Emergency Action Plan | Climate emergency | London Borough of Hounslow. 

Within Digital we are always asking what we can do to support this in addition to the traditional ways through enabling remote and flexible working and moving further workload into the cloud to reduce our local datacentre use. 

Inclusion

The work has spanned many areas and links into the work being done around Digital inclusion and the green angle is one that is a key part of the work we do – as IT kit gets increasingly powerful recycling of kit become a more of a reality and not a 2nd class choice and when we needed to supply 750 devices to schools as part of work to address Digital exclusion recently recycled kit was the best choice economically. According to the 2020 Global E-waste Monitor, humans worldwide produced 53.6 million metric tonnes of e-waste in 2019 and only recycled 17.4% of that waste.  

By extending the lifetime of a single laptop from four to seven years, 180 kgCO2e of carbon emissions are avoided. Therefore, this avoided 130,000 kgCO2e equivalent to keeping more than 50 cars off the road. Even considering the energy efficiency of new computers the current benefits of recycling computers and making best use of the carbon invested in their creation far exceeds the benefit from any potential energy efficiency gain from new devices. 

Moving forward as part of the general recovery programme for the Council the continued greening of Digital makes both economic and technical sense – work being done includes: 

  • Widening and improvement of 5G – this fit into the work around Internet of Things in areas such as smart cities and social care needs. 
  • Linking Digital and infrastructure work needed into areas such as electrical vehicle charging to reduce the need for street works and disruption of traffic in the Borough as traffic levels start to go back to levels last seen in February 2020. 
  • Ensuring that green options are at the forefront of all work done within Digital to ensure we continue as a Borough to reduce our carbon emissions where at all possible. 

Customer satisfaction

Posted on by in Services and Customers

As part of our dedication to customer excellence, we recently ran our second Socitm user satisfaction survey. Here is an animated version of the results from the survey:

We first ran this survey in December 2019 when the workload and the needs of our colleagues and residents were very different. However, the council now has a new set of values, which we are keen to embrace.

Whilst this year we have had slightly fewer responses, overall, 30% of of our colleagues responded, which gives us some great feedback, and insight into the services we provide.

We believe it is essential to continue to drive the service forwards and regularly listening to our customers is an important part of this. Generally scores across the board have improved, which is great to hear, but there is always room for more improvement.

Customer satisfaction

We have improved the overall user satisfaction in LBH and are now performing in the top number of comparable local authorities. The figures show an improvement in performance of over 10% from a high score in 2019, despite the challenging times faced providing a continued service to all customers and supporting the council’s Covid response.

There are many comments suggesting changes to improve services:

  • As part of the response, we have set up a new portal to get IT problems seen and dealt with more efficiently. This portal will continue to be updated and improved, based on the changing needs of the customer.
  • All our team members (from front-line to back-line) are completing compulsory customer service training to ensure we can focus on the needs of our customers as a single unit, and to ensure a consistent service, across the board.

Staff able to work flexibly

When staff were forced to work from home in March 2020, the council had just moved into a new building, so all staff were used to working away from the office.

Nevertheless, this number went up overnight from 500 regularly doing this, to over 1600.

As the survey shows, Hounslow now ranks as the number one local authority for this area.

Comments were made around the use of remote working. In response, further improvements are planned to increase capacity.

We are also rolling out better devices (via our Device Refresh programme) to ensure all council devices are under 4 years old.

Cyber security

With so many changes / improvements to our IT systems, we still need to make sure that they are as secure as can be. We must also keep in mind that the external threat is constantly evolving and needs continuous improvement.

The council ranks very highly for taking security seriously, with 75% of staff scoring this highly.

In response to the comments, we have rolled out a new GDPR and Cyber Security training course for all staff, to ensure staff continue to be Cyber-Safety aware and figures for completion are nearing 100%.

Customer service in Digital

Posted on by in Services and Customers, Staff and Workforce

Listening to our customer views is so important – the teams have done a fantastic job during the crisis and informal feedback has been great, but it is so valuable to get feedback from all areas of the council so that we can showcase all the work done and continue to improve Digital in all teams. 

We used the Socitm user satisfaction survey as we did last year – this allows us the opportunity to compare where we were in 2019, and with other organisations. It is key given the Digital Strategy for Hounslow was approved in March 2020 so we can show the outcomes for the organisation from this investment. 

We have just started to work on a service improvement plan to follow up on all feedback received – some headline figures so far: 

  • Customer satisfaction has increased by 10% and we compare very well to other similar organisations. 
  • The view of whether Digital provides innovative solutions for the Council has increased by 14%. 
  • Our score on whether we allow staff to work flexibly is in the top 25% now –this is great to see, given the pandemic and there is so much more we can do. 

Next steps

There are many improvements we can make based on feedback and below is our initial list some of which build on existing programmes: 

  • Further accelerate our device refresh programme so more of our colleagues continue to have the best devices to deliver front line services in their role. 
  • Customer service training for all Digital staff to ensure we all continue to improve our skills in this area. 
  • Continued improvement in communications   – we have launched a new self-service portal which we can continue to adapt and improve in response to the organisation needs including more automation of routine work to allow teams to focus on value added work. 

We will publish more information on the work we do in response to the survey as part of our relentless focus on improving services for our residents as we deliver more excellent services as part of the Digital Strategy and our One Hounslow programme approach continues to improve services across the Council. 

Throughout the pandemic we have had help at our main building to ensure we keep our customers safe and bring something different to our customer service “Nice 2 metre, 2 metre nice”