ADD2454 Sharing Cities (H2020) – Programme marketing material

In September 2015, the European Commission (EC) awarded the GLA and a consortium of 34 European partners a grant award to deliver the Horizon 2020 (H2020) Smart Cities and Communities "Lighthouse Project" programme. This five-year programme supports the implementation and integration of very near-to-market smart city technologies and systems, to maximise their benefit in demonstrator areas and prove their replicability across wider city environments.

The project aims to develop, deploy and integrate replicable solutions in the energy, transport, data and ICT sectors in each of the three lead cities of London, Milan, and Lisbon. A further three ‘follower’ cities - Burgas, Bordeaux and Warsaw - are actively involved with the three lead cities to validate city service designs and implement a number of specific solutions.

A total of €24,988,759 (approx. £21.7m) has been awarded by the European Commission to the consortium with €2.4m (£2.08m) of funding awarded for specific GLA activities, €2.7m (£2.3m) to the Royal Borough of Greenwich (RBG) and €1.3m (£1.1m) to other London partners.

The programme aims to implement a number of measures in each of the ‘lighthouse’ cities. These include:

• Smart Lampposts – integrated smart lighting with other smart service infrastructures (eV charge; smart parking; traffic sensing; flow data; WiFi etc).
• Shared eMobility – a portfolio of inter-connected initiatives supporting the shift to low carbon shared mobility solutions, specifically: eV Car-Sharing; e-Bikes; eV Charging; Smart Parking; eLogistics.
• Integrated Energy Management System – system to integrate and optimise energy from all sources in districts (and interface with city-wide system), including demand response measures.
• Urban Sharing Platform (USP) – a data platform to manage data from a wide range of sources including sensors as well as traditional statistics, built using common principles, open technologies and standards.

Alongside implementation in the programme’s demonstration areas, the programme is aiming to scale up and replicate such measures to other boroughs and cities. The dissemination and promotion of the programme’s findings will be key to achieve this programme objective.

One of the biggest issues in testing innovation is scaling up from the pilot level to city wide adoption. The Sharing Cities programme has developed an approach called ‘packaging’ which can be replicated in London and elsewhere. The programme has followed a user-centred-design approach to develop ‘resources’ (Playbooks) for each of the Sharing Cities measures. These Playbooks will provide all the information that a city officer needs to replicate the technology Sharing Cities has implemented, covering technical specifications, business modelling, procurement, market engagement, monitoring etc. These Playbooks are being designed with the end user in mind and, if successful, can be used to scale up other non-Sharing Cities pilots in London.

Two Playbooks have been developed following a competitive tendering process which invited three written quotes for the scheme of works. Feedback from city and borough officials has been positive and has aided the programme’s scale up and replication ambitions. To disseminate information on the programme other measures, up to four further Playbooks will be developed which will provide an overview of how the Sharing Cities programme has implemented its other measures in its three lead cities to address challenges relevant to their city context and distil the experience so that others can replicate similar solutions.

The programme has seen interest in the learnings of the Sharing Cities programme grow sharply in recent months. Interest is mainly from cities and boroughs who have asked for access to the existing playbooks, among other Sharing Cities resources. City officers in London, and in the national and international scale up cities identified, are seeing the value of the lessons that the programme has learnt in sustainability and data generation and the critical role that smart cities, data and technology has in responding to COVID-19 and the role it will have to play in recovery phases.

The Playbooks have helped to address the challenges faced by cities and will provide decision makers a suite of tools to help inform their smart strategy. The Playbooks will:

• help cities/boroughs to understand what solutions were tested in the Sharing Cities lead cities and what urban challenges they help address;
• help in understanding the value proposition of the solution, in economic, social, environmental, and financial terms;
• offer practical guidance to equip city/borough officers with the necessary information to implement the solutions in their city, including:

o technical design;
o ownership structures;
o business models;
o financing options and routes to market;
o stakeholder engagement and communications;
o how to safeguard citizen interests;

• offer responses to common questions and concerns that cities and/or industry have about these solutions; and
• summarise the key challenges, recommendations, and lessons learned from testing these solutions so that other cities may replicate them from a more advantageous position having gained insights from the lessons learned through Sharing Cities.

The preferred supplier will be required to:

• produce up to four high quality, visually compelling digital Playbooks, using the existing Sharing Cities branding and style guide, using Playbook templates currently in the GLA’s possession.
• provide designed versions of graphics in the Playbooks that can be pulled out as assets to be used for digital media communications purposes (including LinkedIn and Twitter).
• produce a set of infographics based on headline statistics and key messages from the Playbooks.

Section 9 of the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code requires where the expected value of a contract for services is between £10,000 and £150,000 that the services be procured competitively. However, Section 10 provides that an exemption from this requirement may be approved where a supplier has had previous involvement in a specific current project or the where the work proposed is a continuation of existing work, which cannot be separated from the new work. To this end, the consultant’s direct involvement in the first stages of the work provide for an exemption. GLA officers have liaised with TfL Procurement who have agreed an exemption based on these particular grounds would be appropriate. TfL Procurement have also undertaken to support GLA officers to ensure that the appropriate contractual documents are put in place.

GLA Officers have secured value for money as the unit price per Playbook is a reduction from the original which was competitively tendered and consistent with the costing provided by the other interested parties. No further Playbooks will be commissioned and therefore there is no risk that the scope/value of this contract will be expanded further in the future.

The objectives of this work are to:

- demonstrate the benefits of scale for the technology developed in the Sharing Cities programme in order to promote collaboration on procurement.

- communicate the value of adopting smart city solutions to local communities by focusing on improved mobility, sustainability and wellbeing.

- create a marketing tool for Sharing Cities to help drive uptake of smart solutions by city officers.

Under Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 (Equality Act), as a public authority, the GLA must have ‘due regard’ of the need to:

- eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation; and

- advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who have a protected characteristic and those who do not.

Protected characteristics under the Equality Act comprise age, disability, gender re-assignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, and marriage or civil partnership status.

No particular effects of this proposed decision, positive or negative, are foreseen on persons with a protected characteristic under the Equality Act.

The programme’s aims of introducing innovations in technology and improving the use of data are presenting new ways of meeting peoples' needs in urban landscapes. These technologies have the potential to transform the efficiency of city operations, city-level decision making and the relationships with people and businesses to improve sustainability, while at the same time addressing resource pressures faced by communities and authorities.

An increased emphasis on technological solutions can have positive impacts on people with protected characteristics. Green buildings and improved infrastructure will cut carbon emissions, and alongside information about NOx emissions will improve health outcomes for Londoners. Smart-parking, self-driving cars and e-bike services can specifically support people with certain disabilities, while access to shared vehicles can increase mobility for those on low incomes.

The project directly contributes to the delivery of the Mayor’s key strategic objectives of the Smarter London Together Roadmap which aims to deliver world class connectivity and smarter streets and to solve London’s environment challenges by bringing together people, technology and data.

TfL Procurement have been consulted on this proposal and have approved the award of the contract without the need to competitively procure the services (single source exemption).

GLA Officers are not aware of any conflicts of interest in the drafting of this form nor any others that may undermine the award of this work.

The programme is at a critical period and with less than eight months left until the official end date, any delays to this work could impact our ambition to promote greater city-wide adoption of our measures. Furthermore, the GLA is the programme’s coordinator and is seen as a ‘transversal’ partner who is responsible for the activity for all partners of the consortium across the three lead cities. Therefore, the GLA’s activity is not only an outcome for the GLA and many, if not all, of the GLA’s partners will require these resources for their own activities.

Assistant Director’s approval is sought for expenditure of up to £12,000 to commission a graphic designer to develop up to four additional reference documents ‘(playbooks’) that will be used for the promotion of the Sharing Cities programme’s activities and aid the programme’s replication and scale up ambitions. This takes the total expenditure to £18,250 where £6,250 was approved under a Delegated Authority Record in February 2020.

This expenditure of £12,000 will occur in 2020-21 and will be fully funded from European Commission income that funds the H2020 Sharing Cities programme within Strategy, Intelligence and Analysis unit part of Strategy and Communications Directorate.

Section 30 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (as amended) (“GLA Act”) gives the Mayor a general power to do anything which he considers will further one or more of the principal purposes of the GLA as set out in section 30(2) which are:

- promoting economic development and wealth creation in Greater London;

- promoting social development in Greater London; and

- promoting the improvement of the environment in Greater London.

Sections 1 to 4 of this report indicate that:

- the decision requested of the Assistant Director falls within the GLA’s statutory powers to do such things considered to further or which are facilitative of, conducive or incidental to the discharge of the GLA’s general functions as set out at section 6.1 above; and

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

• pay due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people;
• 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; and
• consult with appropriate bodies.

Section 9.1 of the Code requires the GLA to seek a call-off from a suitable framework where possible or, if not, undertake a formal tender process to procure such services in relation to all contracts for goods or services with a value above £10,000. However, the Assistant Director may approve an exemption from this requirement under section 10 of the Code upon certain specified grounds. Section 10.2 of the Code also requires the GLA to explain how it intends to obtain value for money when seeking an exemption from the Code.

Section 10.1 of the Code states that one reason for an exemption is where a proposed supplier has had previous involvement in the specific current project. Officers have indicated in section 1 of this report that this ground applies, and that the proposed contract affords value for money.

Officers must ensure to append a completed Single Source Request Form to this decision form in accordance with section 10 of the Code.

On this basis the Assistant Director may approve the proposed exemption if satisfied with the content of this report.