2024 has been a bit of a roller coaster. Work has been ridiculously busy and we started the first phase of renovating the house. I set myself a goal of writing month notes - but did fairly badly - only managing 7ish.
Work - Public Digital
Work has been a bit of a mixed bag, with some bits I enjoyed, and others that I never properly got into.
I came into 2024 with a clear plan of what I wanted to do in my role as CTO, but that didn’t survive impact with week 1. I was aiming for a sensible balance between non-client work (like building our tech capability/offerings and biz dev) while also directly supporting teams on client work. For various reasons, that balance just didn’t work, and I didn’t get to build the momentum I wanted.
While I didn’t get to do everything I wanted, I did make a start at building my tech community of practice - bringing people together, hiring some new faces to increase our capability and bring in additional experience, and starting to set out where we want to focus our efforts. From this, we’ve written down our approach to Cyber Security - for how organisations should build a sustainable way of managing this complex area.
One of the big highlights of the year though was leading PD’s response to the CrowdStrike incident. As well as a blog post and getting to edit a special edition of the PD Newsletter, my comments also got picked up in lots of the media. I got quoted in pieces for The Times, The Independent, lots of trade press and more recently The Standard. I also got my first radio interview on LBC.
Next year, I’ll be focussing on building what we stared last year, and increasing the profile of our tech offering.
Away from technology, I spent most of this year supporting our work in North, Central and South America as part of the Americas sector leadership. We have a brilliant team, and it’s been great to onboard our first team members based in Paraguay and Canada (British Columbia and Ontario).
On the client side, I started the year supporting our teams on two very different engagements. In Ontario, we were helping the public safety organisation Ontario One Call with a Digital Maturity Assessment and working towards becoming a service-led organisation. With Kyiv, we were helping the city with their digital transformation, so they can support citizens in very difficult circumstances.
In April I got to spend a couple of days in Halifax Nova Scotia. While Anna and I have now handed over leadership of the RMV work to Victoria, we’re still supporting them from the sidelines. Giles ran some training sessions on working in the open - I got interviewed as an expert in early days of GDS. I also spent some time onboarding Alex to PD - our first Canadian hire. I always love going to Halifax - it’s a beautiful city, lovely people and good food. This visit unintentionally coincided with the solar eclipse, which we got to see from the waterfront.
In the summer, I got involved in the early stages of our work with Change Grow Live - a UK based health and care charity. As part of this, I spent a day at one of their recovery centres in Cambridge, to understand how they work. I also got to spend a few days in Cambridge with our Global Impact team supporting an event around Digital Public Infrastructure.
The latter half of the year involved supporting one of our teams supporting a client in the United States. In September, I spent a week in Washington DC and got to visit the West Wing. Disappointingly they wouldn’t let me stand behind the podium in the press room.
As well as all of this, I had various visits to London throughout the year for workshops and socials, and represented PD at the 10th GovCamp Cymru in Cardiff.
Work - Health board
The big activity in my NHS role this year has been chairing the development of the new long term strategy for the health board. We started the year with a set of published design principles, and the team have spent a huge amount of time and effort listening to people and communities across Gwent. Over the course of the year, they’ve spoken to and heard from thousands of people about health and care. They’re now taking what they’ve heard, and delving into data and metrics to develop the draft strategy.
It’s been fantastic that this hasn’t followed the traditional ‘consultation’ process - and instead has started with what is essentially user research. The wealth of information and data they’ve gathered over the last few months will lead to a much better strategy at the end. They’ve even been blogging along the way.
Outside of that, we’ve had the usual sets of board and committee meetings, and plenty of time talking about digital delivery in NHS Wales. I’m very pleased that the board has approved the plan to roll out electronic prescriptions across our hospitals. They’re taking an iterative approach - rolling it ward by ward, learning as they go - rather than a big-bang approach. It’ll also put in place lots of the foundational infrastructure the hospitals will need for future digital services.
House work
Over the winter, our normally sedate little stream caused significant damage to its banks. It’s very reactive, and can turn into a raging torrent very quickly. When this happens, the erosion can be pretty bad, and by February we had several trees at risk of being taken out by undercutting. My dad came up with a plan, and in March we installed Willow Spiling along the full length of our boundary. Its made a huge difference already, and looks good as well. My dad wrote a blog post talking about the process.
We also kicked off the first stage of renovations on the house. The outbuilding - a former artist studio - is being converted into offices for us. It started out as a glorified shed, but over the year we’ve had it stripped back to a shell, fully insulated, new roof and rooflights and new electrics and plumbing installed. We’ve also had an extension built, linking it to the house.
We’re not far off this part being finished. The painting was done just before Christmas, with 2nd fix starting tomorrow.
Fingers crossed we’ll be in at the end of the month. Work can then start on phase 2 - the rest of the house.
Travel
Ann and I spent 2 weeks in October in Costa Rica on a wildlife tour. We spent time on the Caribbean coast in Tortuguero National Park, the Arenal Volcano, the Monteverde cloud forests, the Pacific coast and up into the mountains of Sevegre. It was amazing.
We got to spend a night watching a green turtle dig her nest and lay her eggs (and baby turtles running to the sea) - absolutely incredible, and a very special thing to witness.
I’ll let the photos tell the rest of the story.
We also made our annual pilgrimage to Northumberland, and brief visits to the Gower and Machynlleth, as well as more exploring around our local area.
Other things (in brief)
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In April Dilys suffered from IVDD and needed emergency surgery. This meant weeks of crate rest, followed by months of physio and hydrotheraphy. Good news is that she’s now back to normal and stronger than ever.
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I spent some time this year supporting our local gin distillery - Silver Circle. I helped fund their move into a better facility, and helped design and make a special small batch gin to celebrate (there’s still some left…)
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Ann and I continued exploring various fantastic South Wales restaurants. We returned to the Whitebrook, visited Heaney’s multiple times, and had an amazing meal at Gwen in Mach. We also enjoyed the street food market in Newport, (particularly Bab Haus Mex and Masala Craft), and the food vendors at Cardiff Market - we definitely recommend Perogi Cardiff and Bao Selecta.
Year in (more) photos
Finally, more photos - one for each month
