Atika’s update #1

Hi, I’m Atika and I have just started at Luton Council as the Director of Digital, Data and Technology. Being local to Luton, it’s a role I am passionately ambitious about.

As it’s my first week I wanted to start as I mean to go on, by working in the open as much as possible, sharing what I am learning and doing about the challenges and opportunities we face as we try to meet the needs of our community in the digital age.

So what did I do to prepare for stepping into my new role?

• Read “Aspirationally Idle” by Martin Sadler – recommended to me by the lovely Annie Heath. It’s a great easy-read on leading IT services, with challenge to the traditional thrown in. Highly recommend it to new and seasoned IT leaders alike. 
• Reached out to my network – and got my arm twisted into writing this blog post by Dave Briggs! 

Swatting up on all things Luton, and especially Luton 2040 – this absolutely drives everyone in Luton, every day.

How did my first week go?

I’ve been made to feel right at home by all the amazing staff. What has shone through is the hard work and commitment of the team to drive forward an innovative and high performing DDaT service.

Most of this week has been meeting my team and colleagues across the Council, starting to build those relationships and getting a feel for what is going on, what the priorities and challenges are, and where the opportunities lie. There’s certainly lots to be impressed with and I’m sure much more to come over the next few weeks, but as a flavour:

• Luton insourced its IT and digital service just two months ago, and has managed to not only maintain services, but made huge improvements already with great feedback from staff, the implementation and continual improvement of an online portal and customer satisfaction scores well above target. 
• There’s a lot of ambition. A LOT! But also a real sense of knowing it will take work to get there. It’s not always a smooth road, and I’ve been party to a few of those bumps this week, but the resilience and genuine collaborative working across the organisation to solve problems give me hope.

One of my team joined colleagues from across Luton to take part in the Tri-Sector challenge – a day long immersive learning experience as a fictional Leadership Team – dealing with issues and challenges, making strategic decisions alongside other teams from councils – and won! A true testament to Luton’s values and grit I think!

What are we grappling with?

One week in, so whilst I’m still getting to grips with things, a few priorities for us will be:

• Establishing the new DDaT service so we can enable the organisation to meet its ambitions.
• Really upping our digital transformation – there’s recognition that our web and online services need some work so we are providing the best experience possible for residents, so moving our we to LocalGov Drupal as well as things like implementing the D360 CRM.
• Getting to grips with data – there are some great pockets of data work happening, we now need to look at how we up the anti on this strategically and explore a data platform approach.
• Building the network – Luton can’t eradicate poverty by 2040 on its own. I need you – local gov digital & data colleagues, wider network, partners and digital experts in Luton to work with us to achieve this. Building that network, particularly across the region will be one of my priorities. 

Next week will primarily be focused on meeting more of the team and colleagues, and starting to consolidate everything I’ve learnt into a plan for the way forward. Hopefully I’ll keep up with my blogging and update again in a fortnight!