As we arrived at #SolaceSummit there was clearly a widespread acknowledgement in the room re the gravity of the current local government situation. A situational awareness (essential foundation to any subsequent change or transformation plan) but also acknowledgement that those in the room were the people to energise and lead the handling of the challenge. A good combination.
As a ‘call to action’ to delegates, we had gone armed with our messaging, from the Financial Times earlier in the year, around the reality (from the citizen’s perspective) about the state of public services.
As it happened so had LGC highlighting the latest figures from LGSCO re the increase in complaints for social care.
The MJ had also come armed with data – a survey of CEOs and senior managers prior to the event showed a drop in confidence to meet residents' expectations - from 76% to 58% in one year!
As expected, key issues repeatedly cited were:
Housing.
Homelessness and temporary accommodation.
Adult social care.
Children’s services.
Unsurprisingly AI featured strongly on the agenda.
There was universal recognition that it is part of the answer but also a caution and hesitation about how to embrace and adopt. I joined 2 sessions which were very well attended.
With a session entitled “Artificial Intelligence - A Truly Transformational Shift in Local Government”, Martin Neale and Dwayne Johnson did indeed deliver in engaging the audience and sharing the journey taken by Derby City Council. A strong quantitative focus on the demand numbers and the resulting efficiencies gained was compelling. Clearly much work has been done over a long period of time to deliver on this project.
The other session “How AI is Shaping the Future of SEND Services and the EHCP Process” was delivered by an expert panel from Outcomes Matter Consulting and Agilisys Transform. Demand for EHCPs is growing at an alarming rate. Resources to deliver are stressed to bursting, and in many areas reducing as it is difficult to bring skilled and experienced resources up to speed. Some great case studies showed how a ‘Human in the Loop’, AI enabled solution could make real impact.
We were energised by both these sessions but left with a couple of nagging concerns. In a world where citizen facing services become increasingly automated, how will we retain an understanding of the experience of citizens using these services. And the ‘Human in the Loop’ staff delivering them. We must not lose sight of how people ‘feel’ when they access these services. Cue GovMetric CX.
The other concern from working in this sector for over 20 years is how to avoid the inevitable grenade thrown in from the sidelines. With an emotive service like EHCPs how do we avoid the “Freddie Starr AI ate my hamster child’s future” headline? AI enabled services are going to make a massive difference and will indeed be a vital element of how local government will cope in the future. But you only need one front page headline to undo a lot of good work.
Councils must start measuring the citizen experience of accessing AI enabled services – and publish and communicate these evolving results and experiences to gain trust and develop proportionate understanding of the success of these projects.
Any one of these programmes is only a local newspaper headline away from derailment and that would be a huge shame. Measure the citizen’s experiences, share continually, and when something does go wrong the community will be far more understanding and supportive.
A couple of other observations to share; Data quality is essential.
Especially when operating at the scale that our ambitions for AI require. To that end we are currently working on developing and sharing draft Citizen Experience Data Standards – watch this space for more information!
And finally, chatting at the end of the event with partner and experienced industry veteran, Suraj Kika from Jadu, we agreed how important it is to get strong foundations in integrating AI – to build them into our production systems in a secure, robust and sustainable way. There will be a lot of bright ‘shiny things’ out there over the next few years. We can’t jeopardise public services by taking short cuts in this area.
Thanks again to Solace for an engaging and thought-provoking event – a great mix of plenary and breakout sessions – very practical sessions with valuable takeaways. We’ll be back next year!
If you would like to discover some of our Customer Stories, highlighting real-world customer experience transformations within the public sector, click below.
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