Changing Beds: How one IT leader left London for the country life

Ed Garcez, Director of Transformation of Central Bedfordshire Council discusses how both the capital and rural communities have responded to the pandemic

With a core workforce of 2,500 users but 3,200 licensed users of Microsoft Office, Central Bedfordshire Council (CBC) reveals the discrepancy between "the HR view of the world" and how many people are actively supported by the IT team, says Ed Garcez, its Director of Transformation. That includes agency workers and others who provide services to local taxpayers.

Garcez took up his position in June, having been Chief Digital & Information Officer at Camden Council. This puts him in the unusual position of having seen how the capital responded when the pandemic hit earlier this year, and how a more rural authority has been coping in the months since.

At CBC, he was virtually inducted into an IT and communications function in which there was 98 percent satisfaction among Council employees, according to a sentiment survey carried out just prior to his arrival.

Was that satisfaction entirely due to an excellent internal service? Or might it partly have been a reaction to the new work/life balance that workers were experiencing during lockdown - ably supported by Garcez's department?

"From the survey results, it's a bit of both," he admits. "This applies as much to my experience in Camden as it does in Bedfordshire: there is definitely a majority of staff who are finding that they are able to work efficiently and effectively - remotely - in a way that they never thought they would be able to before.

"Myths have been busted in terms of people's perception of what's possible. Elements of technology that had been planned for a more traditional project launch were rolled out almost overnight in response to the pandemic. Microsoft Teams is one of those, and telephony stuff that routes landline calls through to people's mobiles."

In this sense, the department became a change manager as much as an IT enabler, rolling out functionality at a time when the virus has perhaps made some employees more receptive to new ways of working. Meanwhile internally, the strategy is to move to Microsoft Intune, part of Office 365, to manage the device estate.

That said, remote and flexible working had long been part of Bedfordshire's culture, partly because it is a more rural and dispersed authority than, say, a central London borough.

"People have tended to work this way in frontline services, repair, social care, and so on, simply because it's a more rural environment. It's more difficult for social workers to return to the office at the end of the day to upload their case files, for example, so they have tended to work from home.

"In that sense, elements of daily working practice are different to my experience in Camden. It can be a long schlep from one end of the county to the other, whereas in London someone would have simply jumped on the Tube back to the office. So some of that remote working culture was embedded.

"It's been interesting how that cultural challenge has been overcome [so quickly as a result of the pandemic]. Some of the original ambition was around working differently, finding ways of being more efficient as an organisation, and in terms of people not driving a million miles.

"Now we are emerging, hopefully, from the pandemic, it's interesting how we could repurpose our buildings.

"Many residents previously commuted into London every day, but now they're all working at home in their towns and villages, which presents a different kind of opportunity for us. It reflects a need among some sectors of the community, so perhaps we can use some of the accommodation that we hold to address that."

Citizens' use of the Council's online services and self-service digital channels has increased by about 30 percent during the pandemic, which has had other impacts too, says Garcez.

"The relationship between the council and the voluntary and community sectors has always been strong in CBC. And so initiatives like the good neighbourhood scheme, which operates in towns and villages, have been really strong and gaining insight from communities and residents, cascading and sharing information out.

"There are a multitude of different channels that have kept the dialogue open, and nothing suggests that [face-to-face services aside] things are operating worse than before. There are some positive experiences, things that might actually have improved.

"Anecdotally, we think that engagement with the formal machinery of democracy may have increased. People are watching the streams of council meetings - that kind of thing."

Should the coronavirus disappear tomorrow, to what extent would CBC hang onto the benefits of this more remote and dispersed way of working - and of dealing with its citizens?

After all, there is another dimension to this. While lockdown may have caused little disruption to self-reliant people, the crisis has been disastrous for more extrovert individuals who need the energy of others around them. Others may have home environments that are ill-suited to remote working.

Garcez acknowledges the challenges. "I'm very conscious that a number of our workforce need an office, whether that's because of the logistics of their accommodation at home, or it's a mental health-related issue - they need to come into an office to do solo work.

"We resource and support that; our research suggests it appears to be eight to ten percent of the workforce.

"But the lion's share of people are very happy with a hybrid working model, where they may do solo working remotely and co-working and collaborative working in an office. We need to transform our office spaces to address these different work styles."

So, two months into his new role, is Garcez able to take a view of the inherent differences between supporting employees and citizens in the capital - where Camden also had a culture of supported home working - and in a more rural, commuter-centric environment?

"In Camden, some of the interesting challenges are around meeting the community needs, when the infrastructure that supported people getting into the office simply vanished.

"In Central Bedfordshire people drive to work, so there is self-sufficiency, but in Camden most people get the train or tube. Unless you're a critical worker, you've been actively discouraged from using those modes of transport.

"I feel fine driving into work now in my current role. There are very few people here, I walk into an office and I close the door. I'm socially distancing and all the good stuff. I'm not going on public transport. But in Camden, doing the same thing would be almost impossible."

There is also a slightly different mindset, born of the contrasting landscapes of rural and city life - in every sense - he says.

"There are strong communities in London boroughs, and strong communities in more rural places. They feel different, but I'm not sure I can put into words how. I think there may just be more of an independence among people but a dependence on services that always exists rurally.

"For example, the voluntary and community services in Camden represented a response to the pandemic, whereas the VCS response in Central Beds scaled in response to the pandemic."