Have You Raised A Ticket?

Is AI going to end civilisation as we know it, or just help councils answer the phone faster? Jo and Darren are joined by Melanie Rose, Director at the London Borough of Islington, and Mark Lumley, Director of Digital and Resident Experience at Southwark Council, to get past the headlines and talk about what AI is actually doing in local government.Mel explains how Islington's AI agent, Matty, handles housing repair calls in 33 languages and cut urgent wait times from over an hour to around two minutes. Mark makes the case for strong digital foundations, and "sexy governance." We also cover jobs, trust, bot-generated FOI requests, the "qualified no," and why services should bring problems, not solutions.Plus, in IT People Are People Too: guilty-pleasure films (Darren was shocked!), the perfect pastry, and the best career advice our guests ever received.

Two leaders, two very different routes into public sector — one idea in common: stop reinventing the wheel. In Episode 6, Joanne and Darren are joined by Sarah Williams (Director of Customer Experience, Notting Hill Genesis; formerly Westminster's award-winning customer service lead) and David Catling (ex-Parachute Regiment and 30-year entrepreneur, now leading innovation at Merton). We talk careers in and out of the public sector, running the same adult social care challenge across two councils to move 32x faster, whether AI replaces people or frees them to care, and what it really takes to be a braver leader in local government.

Recorded off the back of Socitm's 40th President's Conference, Darren and Joanne are joined by newly-installed president Yogita Popat and immediate past president Kurt Frary to reflect on four decades of the society — from legacy to leadership. The conversation moves from the real power of the conference (the sidebar conversations, not the agenda) to the challenges of Local Government Reorganisation, why collaboration beats competition in a sector that isn't really competing, and how councils can adopt AI safely as augmentation rather than replacement — freeing people up to do the human things only humans can do. Add in the next generation of sector leaders, a spirited defence of tea over coffee, and the return of "IT people are people too," and you've got a genuinely warm listen about what's kept Socitm relevant for 40 years — and what'll keep it relevant for 40 more.

Episode 4 of Have You Raised a Ticket? Is here, and it’s the one we’d point anyone to if they wanted to understand why collaboration in local government isn’t just nice to have — it’s a financial and strategic necessity.

Jo and Darren are joined by the current president of Society, Kurt Frary, who is also the CTO and head of IT for Norfolk County Council, and the incoming president, Yogita Popat, who is also the Programme Director, Strategy, Culture and Sustainability for Barnet Council to discuss the drives and needs of DDaT and the benefits of collaboration. We discuss the passing of the chain, the impact of local government even before the cradle and how essential spreadsheets are to time travellers.

Also, the biscuit discourse is NOT resolved.

We’ll be at the Socitm Presidents’ Conference on the 9th and 10th — if you’re going to be there, come and find us.

Joanne and Darren are joined by Nadira Hussain, Chief Executive of Socitm, and Sam Collins, Assistant Director Digital and Information at City of London Corporation, for a properly honest conversation about Local Government Transformation — digital or otherwise. 

We get into the question that nobody in our world quite wants to answer out loud: does "transformation" even exist, or have we just been rebranding "change" for the last twenty years? And if it does, how can we affect it, support it, secure it, lead it?

Joining Darren and Jo this week for the conversations that DD&T should be having in local government are Nicola Egan, Head of Innovation, Delivery and Data at Luton Borough Council, and Jens Gemmel, published author and advocate for local government digital reform.  We talk about confidence in our careers, practical approaches to encouraging different thinking within organisations and what the correct biscuit choice is for your digital twin!

We said it was coming. It's here.

Have You Raised A Ticket? is officially live — and we meant every word of the build-up.

Episode 1 features the brilliant Rehana Ramesh, Director of ICT, Digital and Customer Services at the London Borough of Hackney, and Atika Mohammed, Director of Digital, Data and Technology at Luton Borough Council, and they delivered everything we promised and more. Honest, energising, and full of the kind of insight that only comes from people who genuinely care about this sector.

If you work in local government DDAT — or you're thinking about it, navigating it, or trying to change it — this podcast is for you. And this episode is the perfect place to start.

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