The AI innovators you didn't expect | EP.4 w/ Dwayne Johnson

When you think of AI innovation, your first thought probably isn't local government, but what if local councils are the unexpected AI innovators of 2025? My name is David Mantz, and my guest today is Dwayne Johnson. He is the Chief Local Government Director at ICS AI, and they're a company that specializes in helping the public sector deploy AI to improve services and save millions. Welcome, Dwayne. - Yeah, hi. And just to reinforce, I am the real Dwayne Johnson. I got the name first before some famous person over in the United States decided it was such a good name. So yeah, really pleased to be chatting to you today, David. - I made such a conscious choice not to refer to your name 'cause I thought you must be so sick of it, but I'm glad that you did mention that. Yeah, it must be, is that a bit of a, can it be a bit of a bane of your life at times? - Do you know sometimes, David, actually it can be quite productive because when I've been over to America before, as soon as they find out your name, people offer you a little freebie. So we've had a couple of times where we've been over to America and people have wanted to do a shout out of Dwayne Johnson's in the house. And then I've often got a free bucket of beer or maybe a little cocktail or something. So yeah, it can have its pluses. And it's always, it's quite a break. It's breaking down into little barriers and it's nice little intros sometimes for chains of people. - Nice, that's good. I'm glad you're making it work for you. Okay, so it'd be really interesting first of all, just to hear a little bit about your experience of care 'cause you at one point worked as a care assistant, is that right? - Yeah, when I came out of college, always been interested in social care. Some of that background with my mum, she was Boston and then adopted. So I was always fascinated into her life. But yeah, I was a care assistant for three or four years. Worked with Durham County Council. They had a number of care homes and loved the interaction with the residents. It was great to be a team member as well. And then yeah, I became an officer in charge around my own care home. On behalf of Durham County Council was a 46 bedded care home. It was just brilliant part of my career really, just looking after supporting people in their final days and experimenting and using new innovation at the time. So yeah, it was, I think it was a great part of my career. - What, give us an idea like when was this and what were the sort of innovations, the technological innovations around then? - Yeah, when was this, believe it or not? I am just over 60 now. And so yeah, it was the 1990s and the sorts of things I won a BBC award for using computers and care planning. And I use that because what we did was we really sat with residents and we talked about their life and what they'd accomplished and what were the highlights of their lives. And we put all that down on an old BBC computer and the people, the individuals were so pleased that we were interested, but then we were able to produce something. A lot of people shared that with their family, with friends. And so it was a real delight to be involved in that sort of time. And really, that's when computers were just starting to come to the fore. A lot of people obviously concerned about how computers were going to be used at that time. And I'm sure we'll be touching on that later when we talk about artificial intelligence. But it was, they were really exciting times to be honest. And we were at the forefront then of some of the technology really that was available to us. - It's a recurring theme on this podcast is basically suspicion around new technology. So whether that's computers, digitization, now it's AI. Yeah, these things are just, they're just on the loop, aren't they? These kind of challenges whenever a new technology comes along, how do we cope with it? And you always have people reacting in different ways to it. And then, so you've really worked, am I right in thinking all types of both care settings and local government settings? And then, am I right in thinking you retired? And then your current role brought you out of retirement? - It did, exactly that, David. Yeah, obviously I went through the social work route after my experience and time in care homes and became a team leader, a service manager, assistant director. I was a director of social services for about 15 years with a few local authorities and then retired as a metropolitan chief executive with over 4,000 staff. So I was very proud of everything that I'd accomplished and achieved. But on that point though, I was always really interested in digital services, some of that goes back to what I said earlier, but I was the lead with the leader of Sefton Council, the digital services in the combined authority. So that was Liverpool City Council and Mayor Rotherham. And it was an area that was really changing in terms of digital, that digital interface with the private sector and with the public sector. And we were looking at how digital services could enhance the lives of residents of people living in care homes and people who were getting support from home care. And then I did retire genuinely and ICSAI came along. I actually had never dealt with them before and they approached me and said, "Look, we've got these really exciting new systems "and platforms and we'd be really interested "in your thoughts about them "and what you think would residents in care homes "and people who are receiving home care services "and social workers, "do you think there'll be any benefit?" I have to say I had my doubts at first. And yes, I've been working with them now for probably about 12 or 18 months since I retired. And just the pace of change has been incredible, really with the launch of the new generative AI, which I'm sure we'll be talking about in a little bit later in the podcast. So, yeah, that's what really changed my view then on whether or not I should really retire or whether or not I should support this really, begin changing innovation. - It's really interesting that you, yeah, initially you were skeptical. What were, can you tell me about a specific moment where you thought, oh, hang on, but this is, this could be super valuable. - Yeah, it was skeptical because I thought really, can the AI systems really support staff in the way that was described? An example at the time was about some of the transcription and automation services. Could it really enhance and provide some support for social workers? But once I tested the systems and I'd use the transcription services, and once obviously we need to talk about privacy and ensuring that individuals signed up to being recorded and then listening back to what it does record, how it records it, how it summarizes, how it connects back to a care plan, how you can use some of the automated systems to pull information from 12 months ago, two or three years ago, how it can summarize the history of an individual. Particularly if you're a new social worker coming to an individual, then you haven't got a lot of knowledge or information about that tapping into that system and using artificial intelligence. I think it's been a real game changer. - Yeah, okay, let's talk about what that looks like in practice, excuse me, in practice for a social worker. So you're saying they'd come, let's say they're new in the job, they're coming to work with the client for the first time and you're saying they'd be able to literally ask questions, do you meet, would that be like using their voice or typing about that person's case history? - Yeah, I think so, you can do it in two ways. The unified platform that ICS has, the starting point really would be to use that system or on your own laptop, you use the tabs that are on the system and that looks at an individual's history, visits that have been undertaken by home care staff, or their life in a residential care home and the experience that they've had in their, in receipt of that care. So they really have a look at that first, go back, check some of the history, find out who have they got family, have they got advocates. So you'd look at all of that and then you'd probably have a look at the last review. What did the last review actually say when you were visiting someone? You could also use it, it can interface as well with residential home care system. So you could ask the residential care home manager or a home care member of staff what their current view is on that individual. So yeah, you would do all of that first. So that's good preparation for the visit. To the care home or to somebody at home. Then once you're there and you're visiting somebody's, somebody's home, I think you've got to make sure that you're complying with all the data privacy issues and the data protection and impact assessments. And all of that has been considered first of all by the organization that is the council. But also when you're introducing yourself to that individual, that client, that resident saying, look, I'm going to be using this transcription service. Are you comfortable with me recording what has been said and reassuring them that information won't go any further other than contained in the vault in the system. And really that, how it works is it uses AI powered transcription tools that really automatically generates very detailed high quality assessments from their care visits and conversations. And from the experience that we've had from facility who are an organization that employ social workers from Derby council and from Dudley council, the social workers are telling us that they're spending far less time on writing up detailed care notes because the transcription service actually provides all of that on the system and can provide submarines. And it's also got a language model as well. So it can eight or 10 languages which are very sophisticated, very comprehensive. So yeah, it's incredible too. - Okay, so they might be speaking in Polish or Urdu. - Yeah. - And you're social, okay. And it's summarizing that just as well. Okay, that's pretty awesome. And so you're saying that it's saving them like a huge burden of writing up notes and summarizing. What kind of impact does it have like in the moment when they're talking with the client, understanding more about a client situation? - Yeah, I think there's two separate issues there. I think in the moment that, because it's saving 50, 60% more time, it's meaning more direct interactive discussions with that client because they know that the administration work will be significantly reduced because we're using this sort of system. So I think that's really very powerful in terms of an issue. But I think as well in terms of the moment, I think with a resident or with the client, I don't think from the feedback that we've been getting from the social workers, that they feel intimidated or concerned about the fact that they are being recorded. So we're not getting any of that concern back. So I think that is relaxing individuals and people feel reassured that the social worker is reassuring them about some of these systems and how it's gonna be operating. - Yeah, okay. And yeah, just have interest like how are you? So you're saying, I'm just interested how you build trust with people when it comes to things like data privacy and compliance. Perhaps that's more an issue actually in your role when you're speaking to stakeholder, when you're first speaking to people that used to do your job at councils. Can you just tell us a bit more about what are the reassuring kind of points on your system, what you called it a vault? - Yeah, yeah, let's start from the beginning. Let's unpack that one a little bit. I think the key thing first of all, even before we get out to a client is making sure that the data protection impact assessments and the data privacy concerns are all being addressed. So that does require councils updating some of their privacy notices and some of their system usage. I think the second thing is, is then working with social workers in the home care and residential care staff talking through how it will actually work and making sure that the workforce culturally feel comfortable with these sorts of systems. And also reassuring them as well that this isn't about replacing jobs 'cause I don't actually see this happening. This is more about using a system to reduce the administrational burdens and also using some of the automation products that are available that I was describing earlier, which speeds up some of the systems but also allows some fantastic access by the social workers and by, and with the appropriate permissions that you've built into your compliance and privacy system. So there's a whole range of issues there. I think with then just dealing with individual clients and residents, it's first of all telling them that there are very robust systems in place that their data is protected, that it is contained within a council's system. It's not going anywhere else. It can't escape. That data is protected within the vault, within the system of a council. And of course, what we don't wanna do is we don't wanna pressure that client or that resident. So if somebody says, "Well, I'm uncomfortable with a conversation," then a social worker doesn't have to record it. It can be done afterwards when the clients finish with notes. It can take pictures. If you've done some notes on a notepad, you can take a picture and that can go into the AI system. Or of course, you can use your laptop if a client's comfortable with using your laptop. So there are lots of different ways. It depends on circumstance, depends on context. - Yeah, okay. So in a minute, we're gonna do a little demo. I'm gonna try out one of your systems, which is the voice agent, the receptionist. But yeah, just from my perspective, and I said this in the intro, I don't particularly, when I think of councils, I don't think of innovation in particular. And yet, my background is like ad agencies. And I don't see many of those like doing, like really pushing the boundaries that much with AI. And I do see some really interesting stuff happening in local councils. So do you think it has to get a bad rap when it comes to innovation? - Yeah, I do. I do think that. And it was really quite interesting just recently. I think it was this week or last week, the prime minister was at a tech conference. And I think he said, he used a particular example of speaking to one of the social workers about innovation. And he was wanting to highlight how social work and councils were at the forefront. And he actually particularly referenced artificial intelligence. So I do think we do get a bad rap. I'm not quite sure why, in a way, because when I think about, when I was a director of social services, there was lots of technology that we were using that was really at the forefront of change. We were using some of the latest technology to support individuals to remain at home. We were using sensors so that people could use various pieces of kitchen equipment to reduce risk. We were using equipment in people's homes to monitor whether or not they were falling. And of course, then you've got things like Alexa and using Alexa for medication prompts. And so there's lots and lots of examples, I think, where we've been at the forefront of change. And maybe if I was being self-critical, perhaps we don't shout enough about some of the technological advances that we've been making. And artificial intelligence, this is a great example, I think, where we can get to the front of the queue within local government. And I really like to think that we can talk much more about artificial intelligence and the impact it could have on changing lives. - Yeah, I think, I wonder actually, if one of the reasons councils might innovate more is just because you're forced to by budget, because AI does give you that opportunity to do more with less and perhaps that's what we need. - Yeah, do you know what, David? I think that's a really good question, that, because I think there is something in that that something comes onto the market like this. Generative AI, we're gonna be ringing Darby, aren't we, in a minute, is it can, it understands context, it understands humor, it understands frustration if you're getting frustrated with something, and you might wanna give that a go actually, and just see what it says. This could be reputation damaging, because let's have a play around with it and see what it does. Yeah, I think there is something in that, but it's things like giving it a bit of press and people seeing for themselves what it can do. I think that's when we can be pushing far more of the innovation. And of course, we're always concerned about putting our heads above the parapet that somebody's gonna shoot us down, because some people just like to do those sorts of things. But yeah, I think that's, I wouldn't disagree entirely with what you've said there. - Yeah, okay, let's give this a go. I'm gonna, so I'm just gonna call the Derby Council main line and record it. We'll just do it live and see what happens. - Find out more information about how your personal data is processed. Please refer to the council's privacy notice at derby.gov.uk. I'm here to help answer your questions and guide you to the right service. You can ask me about council topics just as you would with a person. If you'd like me to send you a text message with a link or any information I mentioned, just ask me for a text message after I've answered. How can I help you today? - Yeah, I'm a bit worried about my uncle Joe. He's, he's home, he's on his own. He seems to be forgetting quite a lot of stuff. And he's, yeah, I'm worried he might be missing meals. I was not really quite sure what to do about it. Come on, please. For an elderly person living alone with memory issues and possibly missing meals, there are several support options available. The Derby City Dementia Support Service, run by the Alzheimer Society, offers information, advice, and support for those experiencing symptoms of dementia. They also organize well-being and peer support events. You can contact them by phone at zero, one, three, three, two, four, nine, seven, six, four, zero, or email at Derby City Dementia Support at Alzheimer's. Additionally, the My Care Directory provides information on local services that can help for well-being and daily living. For more details, you can visit the My Care Directory by going to mycare.derby.gov.uk. If you'd like the link sent to you as a text message, just let me know. Can I help you with anything else today? Yeah. Just let me know. Please send me that link by text. I'd like to get that, please. Working on that for you. Please wait. Okay. While you're doing that-- I'm going to give you a text message. If you have another query, please ask me now, or feel free to end the course in the end. Text has come through, so that's good. It's telling me. Yeah, it's giving me that information. Thank you. Just a moment, please. Thank you for reaching out. I'm glad the information was helpful. I think there's been a lot of late talks. I've been picked up on the memory thing, picked up on the fact that we're dealing with dementia and missing meals. Now, look, yeah, I'm getting quite worried because he's actually fallen down. I've been calling before. I'm not getting any good answers. And yeah, Uncle Joe is now in quite a lot of distress. What should I do? Thank you. Just a moment, please. Big test, man. Sorry that you're feeling frustrated. Please keep in mind that I'm an AI assistant and continuously learning. If you're happy to persist, please ask your question again, this time providing more context and I'll do my best to help. Can I help you with anything else today? Just let me know. He's quite a lot more serious. Oh, let's... Yeah, his situation... What would you suggest? I'm interested in... I was going to either say, like, he's had a fall, or maybe I should ask about funding, something like that might be helpful. Yeah, you could do it. I'll be honest with you, David. There was a few bits there where you cut out. I couldn't hear, actually. I would just ask Darcy. He's been falling at home. I think that's a good one. He's been falling at home. And I'm really worried. What advice could you give me for that? Just let me know. Is there anything else I can help with? Just ask. Yeah, so Uncle Joe, he's actually been having a number of falls, and he's hurt himself quite badly a couple of times. What should I do about that? For an elderly person experiencing falls and injuries, the care link service can provide valuable support. Care link offers equipment to alert a control centre for help in emergencies. If a fall occurs, a responder will be dispatched to assess the situation. If it's safe, they will use specialist lifting equipment to assist the person to assess the situation. A few things we covered. It picked up on the memory issues and missing meals, pointed me to some local services, sent me a text while I was on the call, picked up on me, getting frustrated, and then we tried out... Yeah, just advice around falls, seemed to have some pretty solid advice there. Yeah, that's... I just think voice agents, people aren't aware of the power of them, and yeah, it's amazing. I think the key thing... There's a few things there, isn't there, as well? There's a societal issue, isn't there? We've got to get used to these because they're going to become more and more prevalent. But I also think just based in terms of what we're training, what we're teaching, we've got to make sure we educate them in the right way. We've got to provide them with the right information. It's got to be accurate information. But the other thing is just the speed of response. Yeah, there was a little pause there, wasn't there? But it was a tiny pause. And you wouldn't expect, unless it's a very experienced community care worker working in the field or in the contact centre, for somebody to give you that information straight away. But this is what it's all about, really, providing that information at an early stage. It was really good, the response about dementia, because that's about early intervention and prevention. So the experience we've had in Derby, on their generative AI, the latest, the most, one of the first, if not the first in Britain, is deflecting around about 60 to 65% of those calls away. So that means that those contact centre staff can be dealing with other information. And of course, you can ask for a human. And of course, Darcy knows as well when to put your onto a human. So if you started to ask us anything about abuse or domestic violence or anything like that, they will put you straight through to a human. They're key issues, I think, for me. But I was pretty pleased with that. You did break up, as I said, a little bit there. So if I couldn't hear that correctly, maybe Darcy couldn't. But overall, I thought that was good. OK, yeah, very good, very cool. Yeah, what excites you most about the ways that AI can shape the future of adult social care? I think what excites me most is that we're going to be using cutting-edge technology to improve the lives, I think, of people living in the community. And that means a lot more people living at home for a much longer period of time. I think it'll actually attract more people into the care field, because we've been struggling with this now for many years, attracting younger people and attracting people of all ages in. So I think using this will be a more attractive tool. And let's face it, home care staff, residential care staff and social workers are really hard-pressed. These are people who are at the limits with capacity. So I think having an automated tool, administration system and using these systems, I think these are going to really change our field. And so I think that's why we want to be on the forefront of this technology. And then I think it's just adapting and changing some of the technology and using it in so many different ways. I think we're living in exciting times. Yeah, no, I think that's it's such a huge issue, obviously, staffing in the sector. And so, yeah, you're right. If a role involves whatever stat you had there, something like 40% less time writing up notes, then you can see that the job's going to appeal a lot more to people who have entered the profession, essentially, because they want to care for folks. That's what they're doing it for, is what it's about. I think the other thing is, at a strategic level, if I was a councillor, elected member or a leader of a council, they're under so much pressure to deliver efficiencies, improve productivity, and make savings. This is an area where you can deliver those savings. Given the way we are with central funding from governments, this is a way to achieve some of those savings, I believe. Yeah, I guess one last point. If there was one big opportunity that you see for councils that you think they should grab now, what would that be? Yeah, I think it would be the uniform platforms. For example, ICSEI have this. We've just heard it, they have that system. They have a staff co-pilot system, which is very different. So you can use the staff co-pilot to write reports. It can do data analysis if you provided it with data on either an individual if they are worth building a home, or you wanted to look at public health information in a particular area to support with some of your strategic planning. There are all sorts of mechanisms that the staff co-pilot can support individuals. And then of course, you've got smart notes, which we've talked a lot about the other areas in terms of uniform platform, debt management systems. So I think they, for me, having that unified platform is a real important aspect of supplying artificial intelligence to organisations. There was one stat you said, I don't want to miss that stat on the amount of money that Derby Council had saved. Yeah, Derby have saved. They just announced at a national conference on Wednesday that they'd saved £7.4 million, which is a massive, massive number. And they're heading towards £12 million over the phase in two and three. So it's a big number. And of course, then the leader, the cabinet members, the chief exec, they've got some choices then, haven't they? They either reinvest that money into delivering other council services, potholes and all in terms of they're really being cash strapped in special educational needs and disability services or children's services. They can reinvest some of that money into those areas. Very cool. All right, that's fantastic. I really, I've found this really interesting, Dwayne. I think the more I've heard about the stuff you're doing, the stuff with councils like Derby and you can just see, I think the more people hear about it, the more it's going to spread. So thanks a lot for sharing. That's it for today. I'm David Mantz, founder of Frank Care Marketing. And I hope you join me again for another episode of AI in Social Care. [ Silence ]