Agenda item

The Committee is asked to provide comment and inform the development of a Digital Strategy for Croydon Council.

The Committee received a report setting out the proposed scope for the new Digital Strategy. In attendance at the meeting for this were:

-       Councillor Simon Hall - Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources

-       Councillor Manju Shahul-Hameed - Cabinet Member for Economy and Jobs

-       Neil Williams - Chief Digital Officer

-       Dave Briggs – Head of Digital Operations

-       Opama Khan – Head of Digital Place

  During the introductory presentation on this item the following was noted:-

·         The majority of the responsibility for the Digital Strategy fell within the Finance and Resources Portfolio, but the areas concerning the wider borough including the Smart Cities work streams came under the Economy and Jobs Portfolio.

·         It was noted that the Government had produced a new code of practice for all local authority digital services. The Council’s most recent IT Strategy had expired in 2014 and did not focus on the wider digital remit proposed for inclusion within the new Strategy.

·         It was confirmed that the Strategy would be structured around three main themes – Digital Council, Digital Services and Digital Borough.

·         Within the Digital Council theme, it was highlighted that there was already a good range of hardware and software in the Council, although there were issues around the wi-fi in the Town Hall to resolve. At present the service was in the process of transitioning away from Capita to a system using multiple vendors who were experts in their respective fields.

·         Going forward, there would be some learning and development required to upskill staff on the use of software and a need to embed a digital culture within the wider Council. 

·         A potential threat to the Digital Council theme was the limited market for business specific software, but the Council was due to join the London Digital Declaration with other local authorities, which would increase the ability to influence software providers.

·         Within the Digital Services theme, evidence indicated that was a high volume of people accessing Council services online. However, a significant amount of work was needed to improve the quality of the user experience, with only 30% of enquiries resolved through online services.

·         Through improving the online service for customers there was potential to make savings and also allow the Council to focus its resources towards those with more complex needs who were not able to access self-serve.

·         Potential threats to the delivery of the Digital Services theme included there being no sustained funding in place for its ongoing delivery and also the need to overcome public distrust due to how the service operated in the past.

·         For the Digital Borough theme, the strengths included decent broadband coverage within the borough and the Croydon Tech City legacy.

·         Weaknesses included the lack of coverage for fibre broadband, which was a priority to address and that the Tech City had been disbanded due to stagnation.

·         Opportunities included the existing support to promote Croydon as a tech destination and the scope in Croydon to participate in Smart City trials.

·         Potential threats included the continued doubt over the Westfield project and Brexit hampering ambitions. There was also the need to work with providers to deliver fibre broadband.

·         Since the Chief Digital Officer, Neil Williams, had been appointed in October 2018, the Council had signed the Local Digital Declaration which gave a commitment to a set of declarations including the Digital Service Standards.

·         The Service had been renamed as the Croydon Digital Service (CDS), which included the merging of a number of former separate areas and programmes. The focus was now on developing the team after its restructure away from a traditional IT team to one that met the Digital Service Standards. Services such as software support and web development were in the process of being brought back in-house. Work had also commenced on the web site redesign and rebuild.

·         As part of the process of drafting the Strategy, input was being taken from a variety of sources. It was not envisioned that the final Strategy would be a lengthy document. Instead it would focus on the Council’s current status regarding digital, where it wanted to be and how it would get there. The Strategy would be supported by public road maps that confirmed in more detail what the Council was doing. This would enable the Service to be held to account.

Following the presentation, the Committee were given the opportunity to ask questions about the Digital Strategy. The first question concerned the possible resistance from staff across the Council to the proposed changes and how these would be overcome. It was acknowledged that this would be a significant challenge for the team to overcome. The shift from an IT team to a Digital Service focussed upon user needs would be key to the process, as it would allow CDS to have open conversations with teams on what they were trying to achieve. This would allow CDS to gain the trust of staff that they were delivering the best solutions even if this involved changing processes and practices. At present, there seemed to be a willingness across the Council to welcome the introduction of the new Digital Service.

It was highlighted that data sharing seemed to be a big issue for the organisation, which took a long time to do, particularly when sharing with external partners. It was agreed that there was a need for the Council to be able to quickly move data around in a way that kept the data safe. To achieve this there would be a need to look at innovative solutions, such as building new technology to fit on top of existing systems used by the Council and its partners to enable data sharing.

It was confirmed that at present some of the software used across the Council was operating under separate contracts, but where possible these would be brought under the remit of CDS.

To widen the input into the Digital Strategy, the team had been having consultation stands in local shopping centres and would be looking to carry out more public consultation going forward.

As there had been a number of different IT strategies produced by the Council in the past that had met with varying degrees of success, it was questioned how the Digital Strategy would be different. In response it was highlighted that the world was totally different to when the previous strategies had been produced, with digital ways of working embedded in everyday life.  The Corporate Plan also set out how the Council would interface with the public, including locality based working which would be facilitated by digital systems.

It was questioned whether there was leadership support for the new strategy and whether there should be shared ownership. It was confirmed that leadership development was part of the work undertaken as part of the Strategy to deliver a shared understanding.

The decision to keep the Digital Strategy concise was welcomed, but it was suggested that there should be more information included about the Council’s strategy to assist those residents unable to access the Council digitally. It was confirmed that digital inclusion would form part of the strategy. Assisted digital was a separate stream and was about the duty of care to ensure that anyone was able to access Council service regardless of ability.

As the strategy would place digital ways of working at the centre of the Council, it was questioned whether there was sufficient ongoing budget allocated to achieve its aims. It was confirmed that significant transformation resources had been allocated, as well as significant amounts in the capital programme. Looking forward to 2020-21 it would be necessary to put in a growth bid for the core budget. It was likely that the budget could be balanced through savings achieved in other services from adopting new digital processes. 

It was agreed that open data should be referenced in the Digital Strategy. Data was a theme cross cutting across the strategy and the need to publish open data would form part of this.

It was noted that the responsibility for social media content sat within the Communications team. It was agreed that further work was needed to enhance the Council’s social media presence and the Digital Service would need to work with Communications to ensure the benefits that could be derived from these platforms were maximised. The Committee agreed to include this as a recommendation to the Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources.

It was suggested that the Digital Strategy should also make reference to the Library Service, as the use of technology would become increasingly important for the future delivery of this service. In response it was highlighted that a Library Strategy was due to be considered by the next meeting of the Cabinet and included proposals to transform the purpose of libraries. This would include reconsidering opening hours and other proposals to reinvent the libraries as community assets such as agile delivery and meeting user needs, which would need the support of CDS to deliver.

It was highlighted that the report did not indicate that the Smart City project would be included within the Digital Strategy, which was questioned. In response it was advised that it was important to base any Smart City projects around the actual needs of residents, such as providing support for people suffering from dementia. The final Strategy would include an update on the current thinking on Smart Cities.

It was confirmed that the Digital Strategy was due to be considered by the Cabinet in July 2019. Much of the detail would be outlined in the aforementioned public road maps, with a prototype for this being developed.

The Chair thanked the Cabinet Members and the officers for their attendance at the meeting and extended an invite for them to return to the Committee in twelve months to provide an update on progress made with implementing the Digital Strategy.

Conclusions: Following the discussion of this item, the Committee reached the following conclusions:

1.     The Committee welcomed the enthusiasm of the representatives from the Croydon Digital Service team and felt that their engagement with the questions of the Committee was to be commended.

2.    The Committee were reassured that there was a genuine vision for the Digital Strategy.

3.    Although the Committee were reassured about the vision for the Digital
Strategy, concern remained as to whether the wider culture of the
organisation would hinder its delivery, as history has shown that previous improvements was slow to be delivered or were never achieved. As such it was concluded that it would be important to review the progress of embedding the Digital Strategy within the Council in twelve months.

4.    The Committee had concerns about the Council’s current presence on social media and the usability of the council's website, and agreed that the Digital Strategy should directly address the need for Croydon Digital Service to work with the Communications team to improve the performance in this area.

5.    The Committee was keen to know how this strategy would incorporate the council's commitments to openness and transparency, in particular its commitment to promotion of open data, and accessibility of information for both businesses and residents.

Recommendation: The Scrutiny and Overview Committee agreed to recommend the following to the Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources:-

1.    That the Digital Strategy should specifically reference how the Council’s social media presence, including its website, will be improved.

2.    To ensure that improvements are delivered the strategy needs to be supported by a work plan that has measurable outcomes, where progress against targets can be assessed and monitored by the public and Councillors.

3.    The concepts of transparency and open data needs to be embedded within the new strategy, and the strategy needs to include how it will assess improvement of these concepts over time

4.    That the progress made on the Digital Strategy be reviewed by the Committee in twelve months.