20 Feb 2026 · 3 min read
#weeknotes#local-government#ai#service-design
This week felt like a compressed version of my first six months. Equal parts trying to deal with unpredictable things and making space for shaping the work that needs to happen. Highlights this week were:
- connecting with a previous colleague who’s leading work to change our social care case management system to meet the demands of client-level data reporting and the families first reforms
- checking in with the team who are replatforming Sutton’s website to LocalGov Drupal
- in person morning with my Sutton peers to talk about budgets and transformation
- a couple of impromptu chats about intranets and why they’re so often failing to meet user or organisational needs
That AI article from last week
Matt Shumer wrote an article that got a pretty significant cut-through. The internet did its thing and divided opinions into:
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06 Feb 2026 · 2 min read
#weeknotes#ai#service-design
Things I emailed myself
The launch of the AI Skills Hub caused a decent amount of snark on social media. I tend towards fairly mild takes online, conscious that there are people behind the work and often a context I am missing. I do think it’s fair to say that this isn’t digital government at its finest - from the use of an org.uk domain to the hostile user experience and accessibility issues. Others with an eye for detail have done more detailed post mortem.
A nice reminder of why, on the whole, the UK is pretty good at this digital government thing in a Tom Loosemore article for the Economics Observatory.
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16 Jan 2026 · 3 min read
#weeknotes#local-government#ai#service-design#technology
Bit late, but happy new year.
Enjoyed a couple of weeks off over the Christmas and New Year. First real block of time off since joining the shared service. I was more tired than I thought and my brain appreciated the reset.
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19 Dec 2025 · 3 min read
#weeknotes#local-government#ai#technology
A bit of a wrap-up week before the holidays, the highlights were:
- Go no/go decision point for a housing management system
- Housing management system go live
- Conversation about potential application of AI in waste services
- Directorate and Senior Leadership Team meetings (x3)
- Workshopping a cyber resilience exercise
- Xmas meal with my Sutton directorate leadership team
- Catch up with Lambeth colleagues
- Briefing with my Kingston portfolio holder
- Workshop on debt prevention and debt recovery
- Digital and Tech portfolio board
- Chat about digital transformation in parking
We’ll have a bigger team than normal working over the holiday period. Two things responsible for this - going live with a new housing management system and moving 1500ish users to a new virtual desktop solution.
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12 Dec 2025 · 2 min read
#weeknotes#local-government#service-design#technology
Last week
I missed last week, because I was in the pub on Friday 5th and then the weekend happened.
The highlight of the week was the Sutton Staff Conference, which happened three times because it’s not possible to get everyone in the same room at the same time. The Chief Exec was kind enough to let me speak for 15mins at each one - so a great opportunity to tell stories about our residents raised expectations for digital services and how we might meet them.
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