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Agenda item

Croydon Digital Strategy

Officer: Jacqueline Harris Baker

Key decision: no

Decision:

The Leader of the Council delegated authority to the Cabinet to make the following decisions.

 

RESOLVED: To

 

1.    Adopt the Digital Strategy 2019-2024, attached to the report at Appendix 1; and

 

2.    In the event that the Digital Strategy is only approved subject to comments, to delegate to the Chief Digital Officer acting in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources authority to revise and approve the final strategy taking on board any comments received from Cabinet.

Minutes:

The Chief Digital Officer, the Head of Digital Operations, and their teams were congratulated for their work in developing the Strategy by the Cabinet Member for Finance & Resources. By moving away from one over-arching contract to bringing services in-house, or smaller contracts, the council would be able to build upon being the Digital Council of the Year. The Cabinet Member informed Members that the ambition was to be a “truly digital council” and the Strategy would help achieve this ambition.

 

The council continued to evolve in its use of technology, as from 2000 the council started to have some basic digital access and from 2010 there had been a shift to greater use of technology with My Account and work to reduce digital exclusion. The Strategy sought to build upon the secure base with automation and more information online. It was the aim to transform the lives of residents in their contact with the council, but also in a wider sense as it was recognised digital exclusion affected residents and their access to ensure they are able to manage their lives, such as insurance and utilities. Additionally, it was recognised that it was important that the Strategy looked beyond what the council did only and encouraged working with digital companies in the borough and sharing knowledge.

 

In terms of key deliverables, the Cabinet Member recognised that the council’s website was not what it should be and as such it would be overhauled and a new website launched in March 2020. It was intended that the new website would set the standard for council websites. Furthermore, it was recognised that many resident experiences were not to the standard expected and it was the ambition to improve residents’ online experience to make it the first choice to contact the council.

 

The Cabinet Member noted that the cost of transactions were greatly reduced from £8.21 per face-to-face transaction to 0.9p per online transaction; and as such it was the ambition to have 75% of resident contact conducted through online self-service. Whilst it was recognised that savings could be realised through greater online services, it was also important to ensure that there continued to be support for the digitally excluded.

 

The Cabinet Member for Economy & Jobs informed Members that the council supported the creation of digital hubs in the borough and welcomed the growth of the tech cluster in Croydon. As such, the ambition was to become London’s tech centre.

 

The Cabinet Member for Families, Health & Social Care stated that she felt that the Strategy was an excellent piece of work and that all areas had been covered. In particular, she felt that the Strategy was a positive change for adult social care with a focus on how going digital can be an asset rather than a barrier.

 

In response to Member questions, the Cabinet Member for Finance & Resources stated that there was not a ranking in terms of the four themes in the Strategy, as it was felt that there was an interdependency between the themes. However, it was recognised that the website was an important and clear deliverable.

 

In terms of measuring the delivery of services; the Cabinet Member stated that standard methodology would be used to ensure that services were being delivered to a high standard. It was important, it was stated, that the Croydon digital service was at the heart of council delivery; and as such the council would not do anything to damage that relationship and would work to ensure it was delivering.

 

Councillor Oliver Lewis arrived at 19.08.

 

The Cabinet Member stated that age was not a barrier to using technology and whilst it was noted that a large percentage of older residents were digitally excluded, support would be provided and work would continue on digital exclusion as it was recognised that it impacted on residents’ lives in a number of ways. Additionally, it was recognised that the interface for many services needed to be improved to be more accessible to residents and work was being undertaken to improve these services, where necessary.

 

In response to Member concerns, the Cabinet Member confirmed that the delivery of superfast broadband was being led by providers rather than the council. However, the council was working with these providers to ensure the delivery of superfast broadband for businesses as well as residents. The Cabinet Member for Economy & Jobs further confirmed that it was a priority for the council to improve connectivity across the borough; and as such the council was speaking with tech businesses and was piloting schemes such as free public wi-fi on Surrey Street.

 

Partnership working was recognised as being important to ensure the success of many of the ambitions within the Strategy, as it was essential that different systems were able to talk to each other; such as the council’s report it system and Veolia’s system. It was noted that many of the systems used by the council were reaching the end of their usability and it was no longer efficient to just do updates to them. Where this was the case, new systems would be developed and the Cabinet Member had been assured that the right people were in place to deliver all aspects of the Strategy.

 

The Leader of the Council delegated authority to the Cabinet to make the following decisions:

 

RESOLVED: To

 

1.     Adopt the Digital Strategy 2019-2024, attached to the report at Appendix 1; and

 

2.     In the event that the Digital Strategy is only approved subject to comments, to delegate to the Chief Digital Officer acting in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources authority to revise and approve the final strategy taking on board any comments received from Cabinet.

 

Supporting documents: