Agenda item

To consider a report of the Executive Director Core Services  in respect of Barnsley Council’s Digital First Programme (Item 4 attached).

The following witnesses were welcomed to the meeting:

Andrew Frosdick, Executive Director – Core Services

Dave Robinson, Service Director, Customer Information & Digital Services

Kay Deacey-Coulton, Head of IT Service Improvement

Members of the Committee were provided with a report informing them of the reasons for establishing the Council’s Digital First programme; the structure and governance of the programme and the progress of the workstreams so far, together with details of the future activities and next steps that will be taken along the digital improvement journey.

In the ensuing discussion, and in response to detailed questioning and challenge, the following issues were highlighted:

There are a number of risks associated with the programme which were discussed in detail.  These include cultural aspects of the programme around change management, which can take time to embed, employee engagement and adoption of the programme by customers.  Members were reassured that there is a robust risk monitoring system in place to deal with all identified risks and dedicated Change Management Officers and change management framework in place.  

It was highlighted that employee engagement and adoption of technology and new ways of working isn’t controlled by the programme but  extensive change management and adoption work has taken place using new approaches such as digital campaigns, the new Spotlight on Digital Skills site, Digital Support Clinics, creation of ‘digital personas’ and introduction of videos  on the DigitalFirst YouTube channel to support the workforce through change and try to mitigate the risk of non-adoption.  Introduction of the SAP system for finance (mileage and expenses claims etc.,) was successfully rolled out, with a robust programme for system users and lessons were learned from this and applied to future projects. 

Communication is key and there is a need to engage with everyone through diverse means, ensuring that everyone gets the right information at the right time. The programme has a comprehensive communication and engagement plan in place.

Microsoft Office is being superceded by Office 365.  It was explained that previously Microsoft supported BMBC running Office 2010 on its own servers but this is now changing to cloud storage and an entirely subscription based model. Although there is a cost attached to introducing Office 365, this will bring about savings in the long term as consolidated databases will be put on the cloud, which doesn’t require maintenance.  Employees are being  supported to migrate data and more than 3000 devices are to be upgraded  at a rate of around 40 per day.  Resources for refreshing existing devices have been earmarked in budgets.   

There will be tangible differences for customers.  The service is currently redesigning forms within the customer portal so that the processes of reporting and transacting are much easier.  Customer data will be consolidated so that there is one place for everything.  This will be rolled out over the next 12 months.  This should create capacity in contact centres, where other improvements are being made.  For example, ‘chatbots’ are being created, which will free up capacity in contact centres for more complex cases.  Customers are at the core, with opportunities for the public to make suggestions for improvements and to ensure the system meets their needs.  There is currently a mobile phone app for customers to use.  The design process will involve citizens at all levels of capability.  Customers will only have to log in if they want to track progress on queries but more verification will be needed for more complex transactions.  A Member suggested that the house number could be used as a unique identifier for information relating to a property but this could be a problem if the information was accessed by the wrong person and could potentially compromise GDPR regulations.

Partners are also classed as customers, and it is important to consider how to work effectively with them and their systems.  Services such as shared care and population health management will be looked at in the next stage.

The Council holds PSN (Public Services Network) accreditation, which it achieved on the basis of total transparency and cyber security threat protection.  This accreditation ensures that the Council can access information from government departments.  Endpoint protection is to be upgraded and there is a prerequisite list of similar accreditations for the cloud.  The Council works hard to protect on-premise and off-premise data.  Egress, the current secure mail system, will continue to be used until it is phased out once testing has been carried out on Microsoft’s equivalent system.

Bi-monthly meetings take place with Officers from the other South Yorkshire Authorities.  Barnsley appears to be ahead in terms of rolling out Office 365, web transactions and process automation.

Members requested to be kept up to date with the progress of this programme and the officers advised they will plan to bring an information station to Members in due course.

RESOLVED that

(i)            Witnesses be thanked for their attendance and contribution, and

(ii)          A Member briefing be held at the start of the new Municipal year to update members on progress.