2) How we plan to take advantage of technology and make better use of data to improve decision making, service design and use of resource
The council’s digital transformation programme enhances digital capability and modernises our core platforms, with a clear focus on delivering more accessible, efficient and resilient services, and is informed by user insight, data, and national best practice, supporting improved decision making across the organisation.
Integrating our Customer Experience and Digital Strategies alongside a focus on innovation, will support the creation of seamless, modern services designed around customer needs bringing together user insights, data and technology. A new CRM system has been introduced to streamline customer interactions, centralise information, and support more data‑driven decision‑making.
The transition to a modern telephony solution integrated with Microsoft Teams, enables seamless communication across multiple channels, including SMS, social media, telephone, and email. This upgrade will streamline customer interactions, enhance the overall resident experience, and provide opportunities for real-time feedback to continuously improve service delivery.
We have reviewed and modernised our webforms for requesting assets and services. The updated forms support secure payments and allow residents to upload documents or images as evidence, while seamless CRM integration automatically creates and routes cases to the appropriate teams, reducing processing time and improving overall user experience.
The council has modernised its Geographic Information System (GIS) and street‑cleaning operations by replacing paper-based processes with an integrated, mobile‑first ESRI platform. Service requests from residents and the Contact Centre now feed directly into GIS, allowing operatives to manage tasks in real time, capture photos and provide immediate updates. GIS has evolved from static maps to an interactive suite of web apps, dashboards and story maps, making spatial data more accessible and useful for staff and the public. These improvements have increased efficiency, strengthened transparency and enabled faster, more reliable services for residents. The council is also exploring how to modernise and digitise local plan engagement using GIS and other technology.
The new Financial Planning Analysis (FPA) system that has been introduced and a financial services team restructure has strengthened financial management support, enabling improved forecasting, monitoring, planning, and reporting capabilities and clearer budget analysis for in year and longer-term revenue budget and capital forecasting.
The council is eager to embrace innovation and keep track of new technological advancements. A newly implemented AI policy sets out how AI should be used within the council and we are exploring how AI can further improve efficiency through automation, smarter reporting and resident engagement while maintaining strong safeguards and cyber-security.
| Further initiatives include: |
| Introduction of Business Intelligence tools to strengthen performance monitoring, support better decision-making, enhance data visualisation and analysis and improve information sharing. This includes major datasets such as demographic analysis so that performance and trends can be easily understood. |
| Development of a good data guide covering the corporate use of data (data principles, quality and data standards), and an information governance approach to standardise how information is stored, retained, shared and managed (“the information life-cycle framework”). This ensures that data and information handling is robust. |
| Where practically possible, implementing a strategic migration from on-premise to cloud solutions to reduce costs, improve scalability, and strengthen security and resilience. This will enable faster deployment, remote access, and integration with modern tools, while driving innovation and sustainability. |
| Our SharePoint staff intranet has undergone a full refresh, strengthening both its visual design and the quality of its content. The result is a more intuitive, user‑friendly experience that helps staff quickly locate the resources they rely on. |
Cyber security has been a key priority for the council, with a strong focus on building a resilient, well‑governed digital environment that protects the organisation while supporting efficient operations. This work has centred on strengthening security frameworks, reinforcing governance arrangements and maintaining continuous assurance to reduce operational and cyber risks. This ensures that the data we rely on is protected, robust and secure.