Taking stock of the digital journey
Author: Tim Magness, the LGC |
Digital transformation, the reshaping of organisations and the services they provide through new technology-based ways of working is accelerating across both the public and private sectors.
As authorities seek to transform services in response to significant service and financial pressures, digital transformation has moved from being a desirable innovation to an absolute essential. More than ever, standing still is not an option.
According to analysts PAC, the imperatives for the digital enterprise are customer centricity, agility and innovation, supported by data-driven decision making. Spearheaded by the Government Digital Service, there are many new initiatives under way from the Department for Communities & Local Government’s Local Digital Campaign to ambitions for the NHS to be paperless by 2018.
At Civica, we see an increasing number of local authorities pushing ahead with programmes to improve the experience for residents and visitors through the digitisation of services. Research that we conducted with the thinktank Localis found that the most efficient technologies within local government are those that support agile working (86%) and moving customer services online (83%). This demonstrates the momentum within the sector and the progress being made.
With the pace of change accelerating, the sector is often criticised when it comes to speed of innovation. But local organisations (as always) have been getting on with the job and have continued to show what can be done when we put our minds to it, and when we work together in new ways.
For example, in partnership with Civica, Eastbourne BC has restructured services as part of a move to streamline contact with citizens and to empower staff to respond more rapidly. The authority has moved to a paperless way of working, requests are dealt with through automated workflows, and citizens are able to communicate efficiently with the council, resulting in savings of £1.5m in the first year.
Despite the strides that have been taken, the journey to becoming digital by design with a new generation of efficient multi-channel services is still in the early stages. Innovation – in the way authorities operate and in the services they deliver – needs to be part of everyday business. Such innovation goes hand in hand with technology and automation, which people are familiar with in their daily lives. Convenience trumps everything, hence the focus on the ‘digital organisation’, with immediate channels and automated processes available any time, any place, through the cloud.
Through creating a more immediate, agile and connected way of working that is focused around citizen engagement, we will see local government organisations move even further along in the digital journey.
Tim Magness, group marketing director, Civica