It’s nearly May. And although it’s still sometime snowing and sometimes feels like still Christmas (or at least the depths of winter) it’s actually four months into 2018! This means it is also four months into Stockport Council’s second major digital transformation programme.
The pace of work and the demand for digital transformation shows no sign of slowing. This time, although the programme remains distinct with specified savings targets for our Corporate and Support Services and Stockport Family (integrated prevention and social care services), we are working to create a more integrated approach to digital transformation in the council as a whole.
Joining up IT and Digital Development Teams
In this blog I want to mark this as a move away from a distinct digital programme or team and encourage us all to think as an agile organisation capable of harnessing digital (and other tools) to keep us one step ahead. Meeting the needs of government, citizens and businesses in the most cost effective way.
Regardless of funding stream we are prioritising and delivering the most important work for the organisation across IT (systems and infrastructure teams) and digital development teams in a more joined-up way than ever before – with services and citizens in the driving seat ensuring the products are user-focused and do the job.
Short-term savings are still vital to achieve, but we are also prioritising compliance with the new GDP Regulation and new EU accessibility standards, keeping the lights on, and creating products for the long-term. Products that change the way citizens can interact with us, find and deliver services in their own community and keep themselves well and independent for longer.
Programme update
Since the New Year we have delivered countless fixes and updates to the system keeping us secure, up to date and running smoothly. We have also delivered a number of features into the live environment for services:
Stockport Website and My Account
- Improvements to website accessibility
- My Account on-boarding wizard to guide users who have just created an account on how to link council services into their account
- Enhanced the admin tool for My Account to enable staff to support users with unblocking, verification, and other security measures.
Corporate capabilities
- Facts and Dimensions Business Intelligence (BI) Warehouse
Stockport Local – Service and Groups Directory
- Groups auto-archiving
- Added ‘Manage your Group’ to the My Account Dashboard
Stockport Local Fund (Our community grants investment fund)
- First release as a new service in our central case management system
Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) services
- Home visit service added to booking system for Local Advice centres
Council Tax and Benefits
- Council Tax admin tool enhancements (first line support)
- Council Tax Matching on My Account enhancements
Registrars
- Deaths – online form enhancements
- Reporting enhancements in booking system for Registrar’s Office
Finance
- Procurement spend Manager Information dashboard
Information Governance
- First release as a new service in our central case management system which will go fully live at the end of May
Stockport Family
- Mobile working for Stockport Family second phase delivered
- Stockport Family form security amendments
- MASSH forms, smart answers and new interactive voice response release
Adults
- Support for replacing Social Care case management system across Adults and Children’s social care.
- Automation data transfer across council system to remove manual work
Place
- Pest Control price changes implemented in online service request form
- Waste Management price changes for replacement bins
- SSK Rebranding to Stockport Totally Local Company
- A new online form to enable schools to book a trip to a Stockport Museum or attraction
- In-cab devices updated to work with new system and security requirements
- Automation of Strategic Land Availability and Site Assessment
What’s next?
We are also currently working on:
- Creating a case management system for the IAG team (Advice service, Debt Advice and Help with Benefit appeals)
- Creating a corporate comments, compliments and complaints service including an online form and case management
- Council Tax and Benefits change of address
- Council Tax reductions
- Council Tax payment arrangements
- GDPR privacy notices
- Stockport Local Fund application and management process
- Stockport Family school forms
We’re recruiting
Lastly – we are busy as ever, have great teams and dedicated, enthusiastic people who are rightly proud of what they achieve. But we are BUSY and still keen to recruit!
We are looking for people to join us across a range of disciplines at all levels and are keen to talk to people who would like to share their experience with a young and enthusiastic team creating great digital public services. We are also keen to help people develop their technology careers.
If you have an interest in and aptitude for tech and are looking to be trained and grow as a developer, business analyst, user experience designer or a wide range of other roles please see our Digital Jobs pages for more details and get in touch.