Beating the pandemic through collaboration: An interview with Sudip Trivedi, head of data and analytics at the London Borough of Camden

Trivedi discusses partnering with external organisations to develop speedy front-line solutions to serve Camden Council's citizens, and talks about the importance of data behind every initiative

Local councils have had a tough pandemic. With some funding sources reduced, and with increased strain on their essential services, some have felt the squeeze. But collaboration and data-driven insights are two tools that can help to navigate a pathway through these tricky times, according to Sudip Trivedi, head of data and analytics at the London Borough of Camden.

Trivedi explains that his organisation has been looking at trends around how the pandemic has disproportionately impacted its citizens.

"We've been looking at what that means in terms of welfare needs for instance, how do we provision that? What can we do above what central government offers?" Says Trivedi

He continues: "It's been a real effort. In the first phase of lockdown there was a lot of prominence in provisioning welfare. We had Arsenal Football club involved in logistics, delivering food, we had a senior council leader packing food parcels working on the front line. We also had people working in mortuary services dealing directly with families of the deceased."

Trivedi's point is that some people have had to stretch themselves beyond their traditional roles in order to fulfil the varying requirements suddenly brought about by COVID-19. Collaboration between organisations has been a big part of the response.

"We've been working on provisioning food aid in Camden, working with over twenty voluntary organisations, creating a joint effort service called Finding Food. This maps needs to where capacity might be. We have a multi-disciplinary team supporting it. You can go online to use it and register for support. Users don't have to worry about all the different organisations, it finds the right support and maps them to those in their vicinity."

The app was built in an eight week sprint, leaning heavily on the council's data to make it work.

Another priority for the council has been the ‘digital divide'; the people without access to or experience in using online systems, who are especially cut off during a pandemic.

"We've also been looking at how to tackle the digital divide, and getting funds to provision devices in schools. We've provisioned more than 6,000 devices for school children in Camden.

"We're also aware of the adult population that's affected by this divide, for example people seeking jobs without access to devices."

For Trivedi, these are all issues which hinge on having the right data in order to solve them.

"We've also been involved in the testing and vaccinations within the borough, and there has been lots of work happening around what we understand about the uptake and the testing picture. We had to carry out testing regimes and set up centres overnight. All the teams have really pulled together to use data and digital as part of this.

"Pre-pandemic we all talked a good game around database insight and data-driven decisions, but the pandemic has really brought that to life.

"Everything has had to be based around data. Starting from what the Prime Minister talks about in every press briefing, through to here in Camden looking at what our communities are feeling - it's all based on qualitative and quantitative insights and lived experiences.

"Typically people probably don't think about lived experiences when they think of data. But my colleagues in service design team have been supporting a design-led approach to how to understand user needs. Everything we do is based on those needs, that drives those decisions."

Whilst the council is managing to navigate the pandemic's choppy waters at the moment, has its come up against any serious budgetary pressures?

Trivedi admits that the impact has been felt, but that savings have been found to compensate.

"In Camden we have been affected by the increase in spend due to Covid and decreased income. A lot of the money we receive is either from grant funding from central government, or things like council tax, parking charges and fines. All of that money is ring-fenced back to how we provision services like social care, bin collections and libraries. We have seen an impact in our finances, and we expect to have to find more savings in the coming years.

"We've delivered savings today by being more outcome-focused. We've looked at what we can stop, what we pause, what work we can do in collaboration with other sectors. Like communities-led libraries, there are a few in Camden now.

"We're probably one of the few councils in the country to be on track with children's social care - which is an area heavily-affected by changes in recent years. So we're on point with our finances despite all the challenges. The way we're approaching budgeting has worked."

He puts this success down to this willingness to look outside the council's walls to collaborate with external organisations.

"It's the power of the collective. A lot of time we may be the initiators of something like Food Aid, but we don't always have all the answers. We're not the community groups growing food in Camden. So how do we work as a collective to get that need catered for in most efficient way? We work with those communities."

This collaboration itself has also been disrupted.

"We're running projects where we're trying to recruit community participants or incentivise citizens to participate in our initiatives. For that engagement there's a real challenge in conducting it remotely. We run citizen assemblies with 100 participants. That's a massive challenge to ensure that everyone's setup and those devices work."

This desire to collaborate and understand needs also exists in the council's desire to gather data on how its own workforce wants work post-pandemic.

"We're also looking at what the future of work will look like, we know the concept of office space is changing. We're looking at what our workforce would like to do.

"We have a lot of front-line services, some have been office-based even during the pandemic, so there's a balance to be struck there. Sometimes you come together for that human connection, how do we define what that looks like? Our colleagues are working hard to collate views, we've been doing employee surveys with thousands of responses around their preferences.

"And more broadly within the public sector there are lots of collective conversations between councils about what everyone's thinking. Everyone's wrestling with similar challenges; physical presence versus what's worked well during the pandemic."

Watch Sudip Trivdei live during Computing's upcoming IT Leaders Festival on Wednesday 24th March.