Prepared for Steve Gardner-Collins & the OSJCT Senior Leadership Team
better WAI logo

AI Strategy & Operations: A Summary

Hi Steve, this page is a useful reference for you and your SLT colleagues. It summarises the key points from our conversation and sets out how better WAI works - and what an engagement with OSJCT could look like in practice.

Paul Wilkinson, better WAI Following our conversation, 08/06/26

About OSJCT

  • AI is already in active use across the organisation - from Nourish and Found 2.0 in the homes, to acoustic monitoring and circadian lighting in a handful of homes, and growing adoption of ChatGPT and Copilot across support functions
  • An AI policy exists within marketing, with broader exec board approval for organisation-wide use confirmed this week - but no unified AI strategy has been developed to accompany it
  • With policy now in place but no central strategy, departments are running with AI independently: different tools, different outputs, no shared direction - and brand integrity has already started to feel the effects
  • There is currently no L&D or training framework for AI, meaning staff are finding their own way without consistent guidance or governance
  • OSJCT faces a genuine three-layer challenge: support functions and central teams, home-level operations, and - looking further ahead - resident experience
  • Staffing and recruitment pressures are real, and there is genuine interest in whether automation can help bridge the gap

Intro to better WAI

better WAI is an AI operations consultancy working exclusively with charities and ethical businesses. Our purpose is to help organisations deliver more results for their cause with less effort.

We do this through three pillars:

Pillar 01

Strategy & Governance

AI policy, strategy roadmaps and the governance frameworks that let teams use AI with confidence - and in line with their values.

Pillar 02

AI Training

Practical, department-level sessions that build confidence and capability across the whole organisation, not just the tech-savvy.

Pillar 03

Automated Processes

Bespoke tools and workflows that remove manual work and free your team for higher-impact activity.

The outcomes of our work result in teams saving time, reducing the amount of admin they do, and doing more of the work that makes the biggest impact.

Everything better WAI builds is hands-on and collaborative - created side-by-side with your team, enhancing their strengths rather than replacing them.

Human review is built into everything, so AI never works unsupervised and is never designed to replace people.

How better WAI Works in Practice

We make AI useful, we make it human, we make it work for good - this is how.

Months 1-2
Phase 1 - Strategy and Governance
A structured discovery across your departments produces an updated AI policy brought to life as a practical guide for your whole organisation, and a working AI strategy roadmap that is finalised through the Application phase.
Months 2-3
Phase 2 - Foundations
Practical AI training for every member of staff, covering the tools already available in your Microsoft subscription. The goal is confidence and safe habits across the whole organisation, not technical depth.
Months 3-4
Phase 3 - Application
Sessions with each department establish how the learning can - and can't - be applied to their specific work, surface blockers to inform the build strategy and identify the right people to go deeper as champions.
Months 4-6
Phase 4 - Champions and First Build
A small group of people from each department trained to go deeper with AI, building and running tools independently - guided, overseen and kept consistent with policy by better WAI. Alongside this, the first major build is delivered.
Months 6+
Phase 5 - Scale
A quarterly rhythm of builds from the roadmap - some delivered by better WAI, some by the champion network - with ongoing training and regular strategy reviews as the programme deepens.
What the Engagement Includes: The Detail

Strategy and Discovery

A structured audit of your organisation - surveys, interviews across departments and a review of your current IT setup and licences - establishing what AI is already being used for, where the risks are, where the time is being lost and what the technical foundations look like. From this we produce an updated AI policy brought to life as a practical guide, and a working AI strategy roadmap, both agreed with leadership before the programme moves forward.

Training Programme

Training runs at two levels throughout the programme. Universal foundations training covers every member of staff with practical AI skills grounded in your policy. Department-specific sessions then work through how that learning applies - and where it does not - to each team's specific work and ways of working.

The Champion Network

Two or three people from each department trained to go deeper with AI - building and maintaining tools independently, guided and overseen by better WAI throughout. Champions become the internal advocates and first-level support across the organisation, growing OSJCT's own AI capability over time.

Builds and Automation

Every build is chosen from the strategy roadmap and prioritised for impact. Some are more complex custom builds delivered by better WAI; others are delivered by the champion network once trained and ready. The split is agreed during the Application phase.

Our Work with Together for Short Lives

Together for Short Lives logo

We are currently eight months into a retained engagement with Together for Short Lives, a national children's palliative care charity, covering strategy, policy, bespoke AI builds and organisation-wide training. Below are three examples of builds delivered as part of that engagement.

Media Monitoring Tool

The TFSL communications team previously spent significant time manually tracking media coverage across a wide range of sources. We built an automated monitoring tool that continuously scans trusted sources, surfaces relevant coverage and delivers a summarised report to the team.

This freed up meaningful hours each week for the campaigns team to focus on higher-value work.

Frees up meaningful hours each week

Time Tracking Tool

TFSL needed a clearer picture of how staff time was being allocated across restricted projects - important both for operational planning and for reporting to funders. We built a lightweight tool that is completely free to run, regardless of how many people use it.

It integrates with their existing Microsoft systems and will save thousands in subscription costs.

Free to run, no per-user costs

Family Support Hub Tool

TFSL's call handlers support families navigating complex care situations - researching funding, respite options and specialist grants. Responding to each query required manually searching almost 200 different websites and resources, which could take up to a week.

We built a custom AI tool that the team can speak to directly. They describe the family's situation and the tool searches every source simultaneously, returning a comprehensive list of every grant and support service relevant to that family's specific needs. The team then reviews the output, checks each source, and the tool produces a branded PDF that can be sent directly to the family.

Response time reduced from up to a week to one hour

Advantages of Working with better WAI

Care Sector Experience

One of our existing clients is a specialist marketing agency for the care sector. We spend significant time working with care home operators on strategy - so we understand the sector, the pressures and the language before we begin.

A Tailored Approach

We bring a clear framework and proven approaches, but how we apply them is shaped entirely around your organisation - your teams, your systems, your priorities. No off-the-shelf product and no generic playbook.

Microsoft Expertise

OSJCT is a Microsoft organisation. We know the Microsoft 365 ecosystem well - Copilot, Teams, Power Platform, SharePoint - and build within your existing infrastructure where possible, avoiding unnecessary new tools or licensing costs.

People Focused

For us, the technology always comes last. We start by getting to know your purpose and ways of working, learning from each department to understand their processes and strengths - only then do we decide the right tool or approach to implement.

What It Costs

Retainer packages run from £2,000 to £4,000+ per month, depending on the scope and complexity of the engagement. Organisations of OSJCT's scale typically require the upper end of this range. A day rate is also available for ad hoc projects. Full pricing will be confirmed at proposal stage once the scope of the engagement is agreed.

Next Steps

If this feels relevant to OSJCT, we would welcome the conversation.

  1. 1Join the senior leadership team to present
  2. 2Further scoping session if required
  3. 3Questions in the meantime - get in touch
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