MD2921 Challenge LDN

1.1. The GLA manages Challenge LDN, an open innovation programme (MD2286 established the initial pilot), which brings innovators together with London’s public, private and third sectors to co-design solutions to the city’s complex challenges. Over 20 challenges have been delivered to date, across priorities such as climate change, community resilience, crime, planning, affordable housing and regeneration. This has leveraged £2m to support delivery, including over 1,000 hours of expert support through working with partners such as the Design Council, Social Tech Trust, Microsoft, National Grid, the NHS and London’s universities. Further details can be found in the case studies below and here: /programmes-strategies/funding-and-innovation/challenge-ldn

1.2. To date the programme has:

• shaped the direction of innovation to better meet the needs of the city and Londoners

• leveraged expertise and resources from a diverse range of sectors – from global corporates and philanthropy to higher education institutions and community organisations

• supported new forms of collaboration across sectors and systems, including between community groups, boroughs, innovators and private-sector partners

• enabled the innovation process to be more inclusive, bringing communities directly into the innovation process, ensuring collaborators are diverse and representative of relevant lived experiences.

1.3. The GLA’s ambition is to scale up the approach to drive innovation across London’s public and third sector to help make our city fairer, cleaner, healthier and easier to get around. Having this in-house expertise enables:

• resources and expertise to be pooled across boroughs and third-sector partners, leveraging economies of scale, supporting risk taking and enabling successful innovation to scale – for example, through aggregating demand across multiple boroughs and addressing coordination failure

• capacity to be boosted across London’s public and third sectors – supporting boroughs and communities to embark on a deeper dive into the challenges they face, providing a learning environment to embed best practice approaches in design-thinking, rapid prototyping and innovation beyond the current capabilities of the public sector

• new ways of collaborating to be explored across traditionally siloed spaces (boroughs, cities, communities and sectors) – this delivery model puts the structures and incentives in place to enable effective collaboration to take place.

1.4. The 2022-24 programme will build on the GLA’s success to date by:

• embedding a design-led approach to grappling with city challenges, supporting learning and capacity building across the public and third sector

• pioneering a best-practice approach to inclusion, through supporting co-design and delivery with the people, communities and organisations affected by the problem from the outset

• providing more targeted support to scale innovation, through providing enhanced access to markets and investment.

2.1. Approval for expenditure of £510,000 is sought to continue delivery of Challenge LDN during 2022 24 as the GLA’s innovation service for London’s public and third sector. The objectives are to:

• bridge the ‘risk gap’ between London’s public sector and innovators – supporting experimentation, prototyping and an iterative process of development, using a human-centred design approach

• deliver high-quality, impactful solutions that meet the real needs of London and Londoners

• promote jobs and growth through scaling successful innovation, establishing London as a global testbed for solutions to city challenges

• link together London’s innovation ecosystem to provide access to knowledge, skills and opportunities for larger scale change.

2.2. The 2022-24 programme will focus attention and resources on three pressing challenges facing the city: tackling the climate emergency, helping the city to provide the underpinning infrastructure to support inclusive growth, and addressing inequality. This will be delivered in five stages:

• a discovery phase to map London’s landscape of innovators, including a high-profile campaign to source partners and collaborators

• a series of open calls to invite innovators to bring forward their best ideas and collaborate with the city and Londoners

• a match-making and co-design process to create cross-sectoral, diverse innovation teams to co-create solutions

• a delivery phase for innovators to engage in rapid prototyping, testing and iteration of their solutions

• a growth phase where successful innovation is supported to scale through access to markets, wider strategic partners and investors.

2.3. The programme will be project managed by officers in the GLA’s Innovation team. An advisory panel of external experts will be created to provide support on a pro bono basis.

2.4. The programme will benefit:

• London’s innovation community through a better understanding of the city’s needs, access to expert support, funding and testbeds to develop and implement their ideas

• London’s public and third sectors through adopting a design-led approach to local challenges, with the learnings diffused more widely across the system

• Londoners, through their active involvement in co-design, providing access to new skills and enabling innovations to better meet need.

2.5. The 2022-2024 Challenge LDN programme will deliver the following outputs:

2.6. The longer-term outcomes of the programme will include:

• at least 12 innovations that will drive a fairer and more inclusive recovery – through the programme’s work in shaping the direction of innovation, providing access to funding and expert co-design support, leading to improved public services, with increased participation of Londoners

• investment in innovation, establishing London as a global testbed for solutions to city challenges, directly engaging at least 100 investors and market partners, working with London & Partners

• Employment growth through the programme’s promotion of London innovation and practical support to scale successful ideas.

2.7. An evaluation is currently being conducted to capture the above longer-term outcomes and assess the programme’s value for money. Findings so far have been positive and show that the cross sectoral collaboration brought about through the programme boosts capability across London’s public and third sectors and may help achieve more with less, including the delivery of more responsive public services (the case studies below illustrate examples). The results of the evaluation will inform the development of this next iteration of the programme.

2.8. In order to deliver the above benefits, the following expenditure is proposed:

3.1. Under Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, as a public authority, the Mayor of London must have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation; and to advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations, between people who have a protected characteristic and those who do not.

3.2. Evidence has shown that Black, Asian and minority ethnic Londoners have been disproportionately impacted by the current crisis, in terms of both the health impact and often facing barriers to accessing support available from the government. Additionally, the economic impact on Black, Asian and minority ethnic Londoners is expected to be higher.

3.3. The priorities to enable London’s recovery as outlined in the London Recovery Programme and the Economic Recovery Framework aim to address issues that disproportionately impact Black, Asian and minority ethnic Londoners and will be the focus of the innovation projects.

3.4. Challenge LDN will ensure that the opportunity to participate in the programme reaches diverse innovators, including those who do not typically participate in this type of activity. The programme will use marketing and communication campaigns that reflect the diversity of London, including through outreach to peer-to-peer networks, and through London’s Business Improvement Districts, through local authority and third sector networks. The expert panel will also be representative of diverse viewpoints.

3.5. Challenge LDN will work with delivery partners to reach diverse community groups and access harder-to-reach communities, including those with lived experience of the challenges being addressed. This will enable both the innovation process to be inclusive and the end product to better meet diverse needs.

4.1. Key risks and issues:

4.2. Links to Mayoral strategies and priorities:

• Economic Development Strategy: the programme meets the Mayor’s Economic Development Strategy objectives to stimulate innovation in response to London’s challenges, to support the adoption of innovation across the economy and society, and to enable the benefits of innovation to be more widely shared.

• The London Recovery Programme/Economic Recovery Framework (ERF) for London: the London Recovery Programme has identified a grand challenge to restore confidence in the city, minimise the impact on communities, and build back better the city’s economy and society. The London Recovery Board has agreed nine missions to help meet that grand challenge. The programme will work with boroughs, affected communities and wider stakeholders to identify challenge statements aligned to the priorities set out by the Board and in the broader Economic Recovery Framework.

• Smarter London Roadmap: the Smarter London Roadmap has identified six priorities for the second Mayoral term, based on the Recovery programme and Mayor’s 2021 Manifesto. One of the six priorities is Grand Open Calls. Expertise in open calls enables challenges to be set by City Hall to the tech sector and anchor institutions; this allows for design-thinking, rapid prototyping and innovation in delivery beyond the current capabilities of the public sector.

4.3. There are no conflicts of interest to note from any of the officers involved in the drafting or clearance of this decision form.

5.1. Approval is sought for expenditure of up to £510,000 to continue delivery of Challenge LDN during 2022-24. An estimated project budget, including the proposed funding sources for the programme, is summarised below.

5.2. The funding for this programme will be sourced from the Economic Development Unit Technology & Innovation Programme budget for 2022-23 and 2023-24 (£260,000); and LEAP funding allocated for the Challenge LDN programme (£250,000). LEAP funding has been sourced by swapping Growing Places Fund loan returns that are capital in nature with revenue resources available to the GLA, endorsed by the LEAP Board on 9 December 2021. The GLA programme budget, and the LEAP funding, have been included in the GLA’s indicative budget plans for 2022-23 and 2023-24, and will be subject to approval of the GLA’s budget for 2022-23 and 2023-24 respectively. In addition, the appropriate break clauses will be included in all contracts / grant agreements associated with the programme to facilitate the early termination of the agreement(s) should the GLA’s funding not be available in futures years and to create flexibility in withholding funding where project outputs are deemed to be unsatisfactory (at the discretion of the GLA).

5.3. The GLA will seek match funding, including in-kind support from strategic partners, to support the programmes. However, the match funding will be administered directly by the GLA’s project partners and will not go through the GLA’s accounts.

6.1. The foregoing sections of this report indicate that:

• the decisions requested of the Mayor concern the exercise of the GLA’s general powers, falling within the GLA’s statutory powers to do such things considered to further or that are facilitative of, conducive or incidental to the promotion of economic development and wealth creation in Greater London

• in formulating the proposals in respect of which a decision is sought, officers have complied with the Authority’s related statutory duties to:

o pay due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people

o consider how the proposals will promote the improvement of health of persons, health inequalities between persons and to contribute towards the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom

o consult with appropriate bodies.

6.2. In taking the decisions requested, the Mayor must have due regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty – namely the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010; and to advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations, between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic (race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion) and persons who do not (section 149 of the Equality Act 2010). To this end, the Mayor should have particular regard to section 3 (above) of this report.

6.3. If the Mayor is minded to make the decisions sought, officers must ensure that, to the extent that expenditure concerns the:

• award of grant funding, that it is distributed fairly, transparently, in manner which affords value for money, and in accordance with the requirements of the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code; and that grant funding agreements are put in place between and executed by the GLA and recipients before any commitment to fund is made

• payment for services, those services are procured in liaison with TfL Procurement and in accordance with the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code; and that contracts are put in place between and executed by the GLA and contractors before commencement of such services

• payment for staffing resourcing at the GLA, if such staffing is to be covered by establishing any new roles, they comply fully with the GLA’s “establishment control” procedures.

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