Protection of people at risk within our society is some of the most important work public sector agencies carry out. It requires a strong multi-agency approach, sharing the right information at the right time in order to deliver coherent strategies with early tactical interventions.
Minttulip & Microsoft hosted a public sector-wide event on 11 July in London and focused on protection of our at-risk people and how the public sector can work more effectively and efficiently across multiple agencies. This was a new style interactive session with lively discussion bringing adult social care, councils, healthcare, police, fire, central government, and charities together to drive conversations on and how new technology and practical cultural change can empower better ways of working. Here’s a snapshot of what was shared by multi-agencies.
Matt Telling, Director, Public Safety & National Security, Microsoft. Matt opened the event by launching a new Microsoft UK White Paper: “Smart & Connected: Safeguarding our children”. If interested in this paper email: smrtc@microsoft.com
John Sutherland, retired Chief Superintendent, Met Police, author of “Blue”, and our keynote speaker.
John described how we are living in the most challenging times since WW2. With rising crime, mental health burden, the Dark Web using advanced technology to conduct large-scale crime. There is high risk of police assaults, domestic assault and violence begets violence. The Police are terrorists’ targets. Resources are in decline and we are living in austerity with fewer police and constrained resources – it really is the “thin blue line”.
Right across public sector – all is not well. There is a profound trust deficit by public with police and social services, with a deep fear of potential hostile system processes, and the perpetrators. We have a moral duty to safeguard the public – across multi agencies working in this together. John said this event is a timely shift to a Modern Workplace that builds inter-agency and public trust, allays fear and gives hope to People-in-Crisis. Critical to this is ensuring that the wellbeing of all involved in moments of crisis is properly considered and catered for – something sadly under-acknowledged in Policing today.
Simon Parr, Deputy Director, UK Police, National Enablers Programme (NEP).
Simon shared the NEP Vision: “For all UK police forces will have a secure platform and national standards that enable new ways of working and collaborating; whilst maintaining the autonomy for local decision-making and the control of their digital assets.” NEP is introducing commercial cloud computing into policing.
Simon hit the nail on the head by saying, all that people in crisis need is for the people whose job it is to care for them to be trusted with all the information available. The irony is we trust our personal data when shopping – but not with serious crime and national security.
This needs to be urgently addressed by shifting to modern ways of working today, not tomorrow. This is not just a tech refresh. This is a radical, empathetic culture change with a vastly different attitude to “Risk” when sharing data with multi-agencies, and within the Police itself dealing with anything from; air crashes to floods, fire, homicide, hostage, industrial or terrorist Incident, public enquiry to a health epidemic.
It cannot be that people who are trusted with literal life and death responsibility, have to traverse arcane layers of process when ordering a new pair of boots – a rational re-assessment needs to occur, and then have wasteful activity expedited through new digital capabilities.
Richard Holland & John Hubbard, Technology Innovation, LB Waltham Forest.
Gave an honest and refreshing session on Safeguarding using their “Prevention through Invention” strategy. They shared how Innovation is not just about success and recommended relatively cheap IT experiments where you fail fast, but also can succeed quickly. They have used this approach with success in Microsoft cloud-based capabilities for housing inspections, fly tipping, CCTV, facial recognition and a web–based hub for child adolescent risks.
Lunch & Learn demos were run by:
- Microsoft Partners: Susie Bentley – Intelligent-I, Richard Helson – Chorus Intel-Data Analytics, Dan Coupland – Tisski
- Microsoft: Casandra Marrero and Angela Bos – Accessible Technologies, Alex Robinson – Multi-Agency Collaboration with MS Teams, Olufemi George – AI & Cognitive Services
Sharon Doughty, Creator, Dot Com Digital, Dot Com Children’s Foundation.
In the afternoon, Sharon gave an inspiring talk on how her book helps children learn how to value themselves and others and make safer choices in their lives. Delivered by the teacher supported by the emergency services and local community role models. Gives children the tools to prevent them being groomed or drawn into violence and crime.
The mood lightened when 7 children in the pilot programme, from Holy Cross Catholic Primary School in Essex received a standing ovation after each student told us how important they felt this was to them. Sharon expressed gratitude to Essex Police, Microsoft, DataArt and 2Simple for helping to make “Dot Com Digital”. Watch Holy Cross Catholic Primary School Got Talent session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njC58feotbU&feature=share
Rob Mossop & Lesley Crook, Minttulip.
Change can be a challenge in individual organisations, when considered in a multiagency, multi-organisation context, the challenges and complexity are multiplied. Our session articulated some of the elements that must be considered when working with multiple organisational cultures and showed how an inclusive approach to culture change strategy can drive huge benefits for all, particularly when delivering Digital Transformation.
By bringing a diversity of viewpoints together around a common language and articulation of problems and issues shared, you can ensure that the change is linked to local organisational objectives and top-level performance indicators, so that each organisation is clear of the benefits to them, as well as to the multi-agency context.
This built into a brief discussion of the value of inclusive design principles when changing a working culture and associated behaviours, linking the engagement of people in shared conversations, to the delivery of faster and deeper benefit, leveraging already-inclusive capabilities such as those offered through Microsoft 365.
Our session brought to life modern ways of working. We introduced what culture change can really feel like using Social Worker, Police Office and NHS GP personas in three interlinking storyboards. We told “art of the possible” modern workplace stories on digital notetaking, flexible working and virtual meetings by collaborating securely in the cloud. Anytime, anywhere on any device, on a single version of the truth. All possible today.
Sara Sutton, Executive Director City Management & Communities, Westminster City Council.
Sarah gave a heart-felt talk on community resilience after 2017 was the toughest of years with 55 serious incidents including Grenfell Tower fire and 3 terrorist attacks. Sara explained how social media is important in providing a temp check on the sentiment of the support agencies are providing. And, how the council are instilling the importance of safety, connectedness, efficacy and above all a sense of hope after a crisis, by inspirational and above all honest leaders.
The Speaker Panel closed the event and we heard:
- Feels like I am part of something bigger
- Inclusion means to me overcoming the barriers that exclude
- My wish list support for mental health wellness is early intervention to stop escalation!
- Not waiting for the crisis, we could predict was going to happen
- Overcoming barriers that exclude
- Leveraging our siloed information to identify inform and initiate the need for a response
- Urgently need public health-based approaches to knife and violent crime
- It’s been awesome to hear about news way to innovate quickly
- We can do things differently
Author: MVP, Lesley Crook, Digital Transformation Consultant
Top Tweets:
- Sharon Doughty, Dot.Com Children’s Foundation
- PTSD UK Emergency Services
- Angela Bos, Technology Specialist, Microsoft
- Parm Singh, National Security, Microsoft