Ian Livingstone, Head of IT, a position of trust

Ian has just celebrated his 60th birthday – happy birthday Ian!

Whilst growing up, his father served in the RAF – this meant moving to a new posting every 3 years. Born in Ely, Cambridgeshire they lived in Gibraltar, Berkshire, Lincolnshire and Finingley in South Yorkshire. It was only when his father retired that the family landed in Hornsea. His mum had been an East Yorkshire girl, so they returned to the area to be closer to family, where Ian finished his school years.

This way of life always seemed normal to Ian who continues to sleep well amongst noise as he was used to sleeping with the sound of jet aircraft taking off! But he realises it’s not everyone’s experience, especially when out and about with his wife who might point out someone she’d been at primary school with. He finds this unusual as, after attending three different primary schools, he cannot recall the names of anyone there. When living on forces family estates, neighbours are changing all of the time. Therefore, it’s the friends Ian made in Hornsea that became life-long friends, the place where his family had settled the longest, and now he lives in Hull with his own family.

During O-Levels, Ian was adamant he was going to be a Civil Engineer, he always liked building and putting things together. He visited the University of Manchester’s Institute of Science and Technology and East Anglia as they were the top Universities for this subject. Then at A Level the school started a brand new course – Computer Studies. Back then the school had a Teletype, a huge computer which had to be loaded up with paper tape. He loved building software applications, it was a different type of construction and he soon discovered this was the career he wanted and subsequently, after school, he went off to Swansea to complete an HND in Computer Science. It was a great location, he enjoyed the whole experience and he was awarded a double distinction, to boot. He explains:

“After Swansea, part of me was interested in the forces so I submitted an application to the Navy to work with helicopters. Another job also came up at Hull City Council as a Computer Programmer. I said to myself that I would take the first one to accept me – the Council came up trumps and my first job was a Temporary Trainee Computer Programmer in 1984.

“In this job, every line of code was represented by a punch card with holes in it. It would involve thousands of cards, fed into the computer. It was a very long-winded process but it was my first introduction into the world of work. What started as a temp job became permanent when the lady who’d gone on maternity chose not to return.”

Ian progressed through a variety of roles at Hull City Council to reach Project Leader at the Corporate Centre. When KWL was being set up, he was encouraged to be Head of IT. In fact, Ian wrote the Commit System that is used by KWL today. It was implemented across the Council and became the backbone of the business. Today it holds 343 million records to include every aspect of the service; house repairs and maintenance, park repairs and maintenance, fleet repairs and maintenance – anything from painting, building walls, replacing central heating systems, street light repairs and upgrades and the same for KWL Fleet department, as well as all of the computers, laptops and PDAs used by operatives and office staff. The system manages all of this and 24 years later, it’s the same system Ian developed which continues to be updated by Ian and his team which now generates vital business information – live KPIs and performance to help KWL make informed decisions based on quality data.

He still enjoys dealing with the typical IT enquiries from the team:

“Quite often, a member of staff will misplace a file on the system – it’s so easy to accidentally drag and drop into the wrong place, we always manage to retrieve it for them. On the other hand, hardware can suffer from memory problems and the advice is always to turn it off and on again. This has become a cliché over the years but nine times out of ten, it does work.

“IT often involves detective work, and this is what I really enjoy, finding and following the evidence to find a solution.

“At KWL, we have a lot of freedom, mainly because we developed the platform and know the systems inside-out. I’m in a position of extreme trust and this feels like a huge privilege to me.

“Cyber Security of course is a growing risk. The key to protect a business is excellent communication, helping people to identify potential breaches before they become an issue. Hackers use sophisticated measures to catch individuals out. By making our people aware of these tricks, we can help keep the business secure.”

In his spare time, Ian very much enjoys family life and keeping busy in the garden. One of his passions is making cider. He explains:

“We don’t follow a recipe, we just juice some of the apples from our trees which are a mixture of eating and cooking apples, then add yeast and a bit of sugar. The taste is different every time – one year it was described as ‘apple port’. It just depends on the mixture of apples and the weather during growing season.”

Ian and his wife enjoy exploring North Yorkshire, in particular Whitby, Sandsend and the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.

He is now approaching the end of his working life. At the age of 21, he wasn’t too impressed that had to pay into a pension, but now he is glad that he did as he approaches 40 years of continuous service. The plan is to retire when he reaches 40 years of service in 2024, although he’s not one hundred per cent he will retire then. Watch this space.