Бесплатный фрагмент - Technologies. Local Government. Perfect match

This book is dedicated to friend, colleague and family who have given support through my journey in local government and technology sectors. Its has been a long journey.

My greatest thanks to my colleagues from the Local Government Association and the BT PLC, whose expertise and support made this book possible.

And last but not least my wife, Janina, who made this all happen.

Introduction

‘I cannot believe in it!’ – I saw a genuine disbelief in my lovely wife’s beautiful eyes.

I just returned from a trip to a distant council where I learnt from the leader that the council in his leadership has just become a victim of a cyber-attack. The hacker have demanded a handsome pay out. The council would pay much less if they have bought a reliable virus protection system and invested in good quality specialists.

‘Are they going to pay?’ – my wife was still in disbelief.

‘Yes,’ – I explained. – ‘The virus affected core data files and if the hacker damages them, he council will lose all crucial data on their residents. And the council has the obligation to keep the data safe.

‘So the council will pay the ransom not only because they have to keep the data, but because they cannot afford to compromise it?’ – asked my clever half.

Indeed.

One of the things I always challenge the local government about in my capacity of a Partnership director of the largest telecommunication company in Britain, is our failure to learn from each other. This is particularly true when it comes to the threat posed to councils from cyber-attacks. The threat to cyber security is constant and constantly evolving, hence local authorities must remain vigilant and protect not only their data but also the public they serve.

Cyber-attacks either cause systems to fail or lead to a financial loss or have needed to deal with ransomware attacks. Such cases are not highlighted as the councils prefer to pay the hackers quietly and keep such events from the public domain, which may be a correct behaviour as it does not encourage other perpetrators, but nonetheless, such attacks happen much fat too often and nobody knows how many billions of pounds our councils have spent on bailing out previous databases with our details.

Rather than sharing their experience with the rest of the local government, councils prefer to keep what happened “in house”.

Cyber-attacks are everywhere. But all we here that they happen far from us. They happen so often that we notice their occurrence only if our smartphone refuses to work and our computer crashes.

Every time we hear the fresh assault paralyzed some hospitals, government offices and major multinational corporations in a dramatic demonstration of how easily malicious programs can bring daily life to a halt, we check our devices and if they work, we carry on, whilst others think about how to prevent from such things to happen again.

These days we face an incredible development of technologies.

Usually the origins of the malware remain unclear.

Official position of victims usually is that the motives of those behind the malware remain unknown.

So the question for councils is, “does not sharing their experiences in relation to cyber security help the local government or those, who perpetrates such crimes”?

The risk to our councils and our data is clear, and only by sharing our experiences, the level of risk, and our success in detecting and fixing the threat from cyber-attacks, we can protect our data from this threat.

Such extreme examples grab our attention and boost our imagination. But apart from a direct attack on our public money we also have internal dangers – budget cuts, increased spending on social care and other tasks performed by the local governments.

I have spent over 25 years of my life working in and with local government in which 10 years in a capacity of a Leader of third largest London Borough – Havering, before I continued my career in a technology sector. Hence I understand the challenges and opportunities present in both sectors. And this book is about how they can help each other to make our life easier and happier.

Our life.

The residents’.

When technology meets the ends

The mData is a great product, which provides insights and analysis from anonymised and aggregated network data. Businesses have already understood the connection between insight, efficiency and subsequent cost-cutting outcomes, and are leveraging this data to improve performance and increase profits.

Therefore there is a constant demand for “big data” applications especially in infrastructure planning and delivery, to get a better understanding how well the existing network is operating and where significant improvements can be achieved.

Local authorities in the UK have reached that point of austerity, as they face the ongoing challenge of redefining their role and overhauling operations, and therefore to be able accurately allocate spending and prioritise services, they need a clearer view of the actions of both residents and visitors in relation to planned investments and other resources allocations. Costly and inaccurate generic surveys and statistics may provide a basic or partial indication but in order to make better informed decisions, councils need a more complete picture of how and where services are required.

Mdata master planning could be used to inform relevant authorities on how people use a particular areas including:

General:

— Age and demographics

— How often do they frequent the area

— How long to people dwell

— Why are people and what kind of people (workers, commuters, shoppers, occasional Visitors, international visitors) in the area? – International visitors

Development:

— Best times for construction work to take place which minimises disruption

— Informing workplace travel plans

— Inform logistical planning based on our data to understand which times are typically quietest to bring materials in

— Objectively measure the disruption cases based on drops in footfall in an area for construction

Impact Analysis

— What changes in behaviour have we seen as a result of the development / change in service delivery?

— Do new people visit the area?

— Do they come in from further?

— Do they dwell for longer?

— Do we see more residents, or workers in the area?

These are just some ideas on how Mdata can be used.

When it comes to leveraging the power of data insights, at present the public sector is merely scratching the surface of what is possible. Through their mData scheme, EE aim to provide such organisations with the necessary tools to enhance their understanding of their target audience/ As the case studies shows these applications lead to significant improvement of service standards and better management of resources.

It is worth mentioning that mobile data is more effective and significantly cheaper than other systems as it doesn’t require other infrastructure to be installed. Therefore it quickly gains traction with a number of councils as support decisions on planning, transportation, economic development.

The is being achieved through better understanding behaviours of service users through analysing information including time, location, demographics and web and app interests, so local authorities are able to tailor their communications and alter their approaches to maximise engagement and efficiencies.

Case study: Hyde Park visitors been covertly tracked via mobile phone data

Due to drastic funding cuts, a trial has been undertaken by Royal Parks to covertly track visitors to Hyde Park, one of London’s most famous tourist spots, via their mobile phone signals.

The trial followed a decade of severe cuts to the Royal Parks’ government funding and a period of rapid diversification of its offering to visitors, including the launch of events such as Winter Wonderland, the annual festival and theme park, which attracted 4.5 million visitors to Hyde Park last year.

The collected data showed the percentage of people to have visited from different boroughs, towns and cities.

It was one of a number of ways to help the parks plan ways of raising revenue to assist with their £35m annual operating costs, which have not increased over the past 10 years despite inflation. New cafes, shops and galleries also compensate for the funding shortfall.

As the UK’s biggest and fastest mobile network provider, EE have over 24 million mobile connections. In data terms, that equates to billions of rows being generated on a daily basis. By anonymising and aggregating this data, EE turn it into focused insights. It is a concept called “mData”, which has the capacity to transform the way public organisations manage and deploy their resources. From people movement, website behaviour and demographic breakdowns, this data is comprehensive and of a large-scale, offering councils insights that are largely unparalleled.

These solutions are potentially applicable in all possible sectors but particularly into the areas of transport and regeneration, both of which are critical to the social and economic success of a local area. With demand and expectations higher than ever, councils need to invest in developments whilst safeguarding their return on investment.

Consider, for example, how much more efficient local transport and road infrastructure could become if councils could better understand how many people are travelling in the area and their current patterns. Utilising mData would allow transport providers to gain visibility of multiple aspects of transport use, from traveller demographics to mode of transport and even purpose of journey. This would allow them to meet demand in the most efficient way possible, by enhancing popular routes and distributing investment where it is most needed.

EE have already worked with local councils, transport providers and urban developers within the UK on multiple projects using mData, and each project undertaken has successfully highlighted new insights and in some cases uncovered learnings that have surpassed initial expectations.

Vocabulary

What is mData?

This is data collected from mobile devices and activities is known as mData. The number of people using smartphones and tablets and with 4G coverage is constantly increasing as they regularly shop and go online. Hence this data can come in handy in a number of ways. The most obvious is for advertising. By using mData a company can find out when and where their current and potential customers most often search for their products.

Derivative from such approach is mData use within the same logic to make an informed decision on where to open new stores.

mData can also be beneficial for market research as well as infrastructure analysis, as it can track movement. For example seeing where and when specific areas of a store get overly busy, or when checkout lines tend to be lengthy, enabling businesses to adjust layouts and the number of staff working a checkout at any given time.

On a large scale, mData is a perfect tool to monitor traffic congestion, for road planning or plotting movements on public transport, to ensure there are enough trains and buses for a given place at a given time.

Time for reflection

Notes:

Questions:

How to deliver genuine change

Although every year’s budget may have spared councils from immediate spending reductions, the reprieve will only be a temporary one with the Spending Review likely to set out further funding cuts.

This financial year alone councils have had to find an average of £2.5bn in savings, following a 40% reduction in budgets since 2010.

Whatever cuts are confirmed in the next autumn, there is no doubt that local government faces a challenging time ahead.

The MJ, in partnership with BT, held in 2016 a round table event to explore how the new Government’s fiscal plans will impact on local public services.

Delegates gathered to discuss if more efficiencies and transformation can fill the budget gap, in what areas there is scope for further savings, and how technology can help deliver transformation.

Overall, delegates agreed that most local authorities have ‘reached the limits’ of straightforward efficiency savings and most are now looking at more radical transformation programmes.

‘Local government is getting to the end of in-house transformation programmes and the amount that can be taken from services review has reached its limits,’ said one delegate.

They added that even shared service arrangements are now more about maintaining expertise and capacity rather than actually achieving financial savings.

Another delegate agreed, saying: ‘There are not many efficiencies left to be made in local government so rather than doing things differently, we need to do different things.’

This sentiment was echoed across the discussion, with many saying councils must make a fundamental shift to outcomes rather than service reductions.

A shared cause for concern was the small number of high-cost people that councils work with and many warned they can become a drain on resources without much to show for it.

‘The real issue is that we spend most of our money on a very small number of people.

‘Therefore, if we are to make a radical difference we have to reduce the number of very expensive people in our areas,’ said one delegate.

The delegate added that the councils must focus more on the outcome when helping these people, as it would make ‘financial sense’ to invest money in helping people get back into work.

Another delegate agreed, saying in their local authority they can often spend £200,000 on a high-needs person in a few years, but their life is no better for at in the end.

The delegate added: ‘When looking at outcomes, it’s not just about ticking the boxes to secure extra funding, it is about achieving genuine outcomes that really help people.’

Another delegate said: ‘Local government has been good at becoming an efficient organisation but it needs to take a shift towards outcomes.

‘Councils should ask themselves, do you understand who your most expensive citizens are and why?’

To achieve the desired outcomes, many of the delegates felt local authorities needed to change the way they deliver efficiency and transformation programmes.

As one delegate put it: ‘On one level saving money is easy – many councils have been tempted to just cut staff – but the real challenge is how you do it in a way that still delivers services.’