Two years ago, civic leaders in Glasgow set out a plan to solve some of the “grand challenges” facing the city. Spanning four overarching themes, and 230 commitments, the strategic plan, which runs from 2022 to 2027, aimed to tackle poverty and inequality, raise prosperity, fight the climate emergency and deliver services more innovatively and efficiently.
This summer, a new plan emerged that added to these touchstone ambitions, but this time focused on technology’s role in achieving them.
It was an important step change for Glasgow City Council, which until then had treated digital almost as a separate dominion, with its own programmes and actions. Instead, the new digital strategy – running for the next six years – would put the “digital rights” of citizens right at its core.
Colin Birchenall, chief digital officer for the city council, explains: “We had digital rights in the previous strategy, but they were separate actions: there was a separate action on privacy, on ethics and how we design services.
“And what we learned from the city’s coalition on digital rights was what we should be doing was bringing that under a common umbrella, so that the term digital rights means inclusion, equalities, privacy, trust, empowerment.”
The document took its inspiration the United Nations’ Habitat programme, which envisions well-planned, well-governed, and efficient cities with adequate housing, infrastructure, and universal access to employment and basic services such as water, energy and sanitation.
Digital may not currently be thought of as a human right, but it increasingly crosses over into our everyday lives: the recent Online Safety Bill at UK Government level is one example where policymakers have intervened to boost people’s protections online.
But it goes much deeper than that. Digital rights are not just about protections, but about ensuring that no one gets left behind, that the power of tools such as artificial intelligence (AI) do not unfairly discriminate, that services are designed not just with the “average user” in mind, even if there is such a thing.
In that regard, Glasgow City Council’s attempts to grapple with these problems – which ultimately are about the effects of power – are laudable.
“Even though with the strategy we have three missions – digital society, digital economy and digital public services – the reason for having such a holistic strategy is not to have three component parts, but to look at the how they relate to each other,” says Birchenall.
“So, although we’ve got a section on a fair and empowered digital society that drives requirements for how we design public services as well, being transparent about how we use technology.”
That’s not to say that the city council is not proud of its past digital achievements, or that they were somehow misconceived. The Connected Learning programme delivered 85,000 iPads into schools at the time of greatest need – during Covid – is one standout success, in terms of digital policy in recent years.
For Birchenall, it’s about digital being more “foundational” to the delivery of policy aims. “It’s not just putting PCs on desks and connecting buildings and software in the traditional sense, it’s much more pervasive now,” he adds.
“Probably the most exciting part is how you use data and design technology to improve outcomes, and that requires a lot more attention at the foundations, in terms of how we build those services.”
That necessitates more engagement with the people who use them. Councillor Paul Leinster, chair of Glasgow’s Digital Board, which oversees the development and implementation of the Digital Glasgow Strategy, says there is already legislation which gives citizens a much greater say in how services are delivered.
“The Community Empowerment Act, passed in 2016, puts much greater emphasis on citizen involvement in decision-making,” he says.
“And there’s elements of that act which have never really been explored in a huge amount of detail, like organisations having a right to take on the running of certain services.
“And I think that as we have better tools available to engage citizens at a far greater level, then we can end up with better decisions. And using digital means is one of the best ways of doing that.”
Getting people engaged online therefore is key. But it also means opening the council’s information to ever more scrutiny. And Glasgow has been leading on that front, too, with its membership of the Open Government Partnership.
“For me, there’s involvement and engagement in decisions that are not just policy decisions, either,” says Birchenall. “On the one hand, the emphasis is on how we use digital tools to support engagement and consultation around policies, but it’s also how we use digital to enable community empowerment and open government.
“The digital rights agenda is about ensuring we’re involving and consulting with people in decisions about digital, and the design of services.”
Since Covid, there has been a proliferation of online services. Many councils now transact routinely with citizens.
Glasgow residents are encouraged to “save time, go online” through the MyGlasgow App – where they can do everything from paying council tax to reporting littering, pupil absence and even dreaded potholes.
But for every citizen comfortable with moving their complaints online, there are others who risk being excluded from the ease and convenience of digital.
“We hope that we reach a stage where everyone has the skills and equipment necessary to be able to do that,” says Leinster. “We’re obviously not at that stage yet, but we still want to make better use of what’s available to deliver efficient, innovative public services.”
As AI becomes more mainstream, the ability to really transform services, and improve outcomes, will also be a focus for the council.
“AI provides opportunities to drive operational effectiveness, by automating administrative tasks, and provides opportunities to improve customer experience, and outcomes,” adds Birchenall.
“There’s a whole load of data analytics we do already in the council, where we’ve been applying AI to create predictive models to drive better outcomes. It provides opportunities right across that, but it is going to be a huge journey for us.”
Part of that is to create a “to be” state, which looks at the ideal future model for services for a fully digitally-enabled council.
It’s not just about the technology, although the strategy also paves the way for the modernisation of its own IT back office functions. But more widely it is about empowering staff to innovate, improving their own digital skills and confidence to use new and emerging technologies, including AI.
Microsoft Copilot, the AI and automation platform based on Chat GPT-4, is one tool that may end up doing just that. The council has initiated a trial of the service, to see what benefits it might bring.
Birchenall and Leinster both insist that any use of generative AI tools will be fully transparent, and that they would adhere to the Scottish Government’s requirement of publishing any use of AI via the Scottish AI Register.
It all points to a very tech-driven future, not only for the council, but also the wider economy. There has been encouraging recent growth of the local tech ecosystem, with national schemes like Techscaler helping to support a new generation of start-up founders to build digital companies.
Recent analysis by Dealroom, the data analytics platform which tracks start-up development, rated Glasgow as a tech destination on the up, with digital companies worth a collective £4.1 billion.
That has been backed up by a rich tapestry of three innovation districts, set up across the city to foster knowledge exchange and stimulate business creation.
“That’s where the three missions come together, really,” says Birchenall. “You’ve got the economic opportunity for the tech sector, the employment opportunity for society and then from a public sector perspective, it’s all about how the city benefits from that – how do we embrace that innovation to improve public services and drive better outcomes.”
And it’s not just theory. Already the city council has a digital twin, which allows planners and analysts to map certain scenarios on the city, whether it’s traffic, daylight or flood risk.
The portal provides a 3D urban model of the city – which is available through the city’s open data service, so that companies can use these data sources to develop their own products or services.
For Birchenall, with the increasing number of sensors and consumable space and satellite data sources, providing real-time information about the city, the possibilities are endless.
“The more data that comes into that, the more benefits come into the tech ecosystem and wider society,” he adds.
All of those digitally-oriented aims play into a bigger vision for the city, too. The city centre is to undergo a much needed revitalisation: work will commence on a makeover in the new year for George Square, along with major thoroughfares including Argyle Street, the Broomielaw and Clyde Street.
It all points to a city hopefully on the up: if the digital and innovation plans coalesce with a rejuvenated centre, then those strategic ambitions might just be realised.