Digital Transformation The MJ Achievement Awards 2020
Digital Durham
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Durham County Council Why Digital?
For most of us digital technology is an essential part of daily life. We live in an increasingly connected world where we expect instantaneous access to information and services. This has changed the way people want to request, access and receive our services.
To meet these changing expectations, we needed to enhance and expand our digital offer, increase choice, and use technology, to improve quality and deliver innovative solutions, allowing us to work in better and smarter ways, helping our communities to thrive in a digital world. Our Digital Strategy sets out the future for connecting Durham, how we will digitally improve services for customers and support our people and communities to deliver better outcomes for the people of Durham.
Our Core Themes
Centred around three core themes; Digital Customer, Digital Organisation and Digital Communities, the strategy is designed to enable us to put the customer at the heart of everything we do in changing technological landscape.
Digital Customer
Digital Organisation
Digital Community
The Digital Customer ABANDONED
BULKY WASTE
79% ALLOTMENTS
76%
ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR
55%
NEW BIN, REPLACEMENT
OR REPAIR
47%
66%
GARDEN
APPLY FOR
70%
100%
COMPLAINT
54% COMPLAINTS
NOISE
DOG
FOULING
57%
LESSONS
APPLY FOR
CHRISTMAS
TAXI LICENSE
TREE COLLECTIONS
96%
WASTE
99%
SWIMMING
SALT WASTE BINS
STREET
LIGHTING
59%
54%
78%
PERMITS
87%
ROAD OR FOOTPATH
57%
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Contact has been significantly digitised. We have improved our online offer with over 120 services now available online, resulting in substantial channel shift with an increasing number of customers now choosing online services (+150,000 customer accounts). This improves access to services enabling customers to engage with the Council at a time that is convenient to them whilst at the same time reducing our transaction costs. By December 2019, 65% of customers were transacting online, making it the preferred channel for service requests. Without this, an additional £171,000 would have been needed to meet customer demand. Over 30% (124,000) of requests are submitted online out of hours each year and we have seen significant take-up in services where the customer traditionally wanted to speak directly to a member of staff e.g. antisocial behaviour 55% and noise complaints 70% online. 85% of our customers give our online services 4 or 5 stars (65% 5 stars, 20% 4 stars).
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Voice Recognition Software (VRS)
Improved Communications
We’ve used technology to improve the more traditional contact channels. Also VRS has recently been introduced in the corporate contact centre improving telephony experience for customers, generating a reduction of 2 FTE, reducing call answer time by 10 seconds, and supporting the drive towards online services.
It doesn’t stop at contact! We’ve increased automation throughout the customer journey. For many services, instantaneous connections to and from front-line operatives provide customers with progress updates and feedback. 89% of customers say they were provided with clear information and 81% were well informed of progress. This has improved the customer experience and generated operational efficiencies. Customers can now ‘log an interest’, allowing us to proactively communicate and update customers on issues in their area. SMS messaging is used to proactively update those customers who have provided consent, to inform them of a wide range of issues such as delays in routine waste collection or road closures in their area.
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Customer Feedback and Insight Over 1,100 customers have volunteered to help shape our services. This group is actively used to redesign services. Customer satisfaction data and suggestions are collected from automated surveys triggered when a request closes. Over 700 customer satisfaction surveys are completed every month providing managers with better insight into our performance, vocalising the voice of the customer, enabling us to directly address poor performance and alternatively recognise good performance in our services. 62% of customers are very satisfied with the service they received and 23% are satisfied.
Data is actively used to reduce or manage demand. The ‘Health Call Digital Care Home’ (HCDCH) system is being implemented in partnership with the local foundation trust, in older people care homes. HCDCH was initially developed in response to care home feedback that telephone referrals for a health intervention were too time consuming. HCDCH provides a digital bridge for care home staff to share resident health information with health care professionals. The observations recorded can be pulled through by the clinician to the electronic patient record. HCDCH has resulted in a reduction of 2 hospital admissions per month per care home. Due to its success, full roll out by 31 March 2021 will be followed by expansion into other care settings.
“Really really impressed with the speed of the turnaround” “Easy to use and a much better process than most councils we deal with” “I am 80 years old and this was very easy”
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Digital Organisation A key element of the strategy is ensuring our workforce can use technology to deliver better services. This has been achieved in a variety of ways.
Self Service We have made it easier for staff to self-serve for many of our internal processes including; • Online Payslips Access - Efficiencies in printing and posting paper payslips - 91.06% of employees are accessing payslips online - 1,600 of external customers/employees. • Digitised Annual Leave - Deployed in April 2019 to 4,800 employees - Electronic annual leave request and upon approval the employee and manager receive an automated Outlook diary entry.
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Digitised Processes and Mobile Working Outdated inflexible line of business systems have been replaced with modern cloud-based solutions. For example, the replacement of numerous systems used to manage Children’s Services into a single information system (liquidlogic). Staff now benefit from all care data in one place, have a suite of dashboards to provide immediate oversight of their work and have greater flexibility in the way they undertake their work with improved tools to manage caseloads and compliance with statutory requirements. This has reduced processing costs by £200,000 per annum. These new systems, combined with our smarter working policy and refurbishment of our strategic sites, means we now have staff working more flexibly. Many frontline operatives now work from mobile devices, including high volume areas such as waste services, environmental services, highways, neighbourhood protection and Children’s social work. Reducing the completion of
paper records, unnecessary travel and double entry has enabled staff to maximise their effort where it is most needed. For example, we have been able to offer ‘same day’ pest control appointments to over 600 customers and have increased our capacity by over 20%. This also generates significant savings, e.g. £45,000 in the clean and green service alone. Officers can now proactively report issues electronically not specific to their role across the County. Over 18,000 reports have been made by staff, reporting issues in advance of customers needing to contact us. Staff have embraced these new ways of working and many services have digitised other internal processes by using low-code technology solutions or robotic process automation, removing non-valueadded activity.
Office 365 is successfully being implemented across the authority to improve team work and collaboration with the support of Digital Champions who are key to the success of the adoption. The Shifts application is being piloted in various areas for example, in Leisure Centres, making it easier for managers to schedule resource and for staff to record time.
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Children’s Digital Transformation - What has been achieved? Learner Processes £20m paid through system Single electronic 1 child record
Clear impact on performance
Mobile technology giving flexibility
Over 100,000 child records migrated 1,300 users trained Positive feedback from users
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Skill Development A change programme is in place to ensure employees are upskilled, equipped and confident to use and exploit current and future technology. 620 digital skills sessions have been delivered to support smarter working and 79% of staff now have the digital skills to undertake their role.
Durham Learning and Development System Digital Conferences take place regularly. These are well attended and provide staff with a platform for discussion, to share ideas and showcase great examples of digital adoption from across the authority. The feedback is extremely positive with over 96.6% of staff feeling digitally inspired from these events.
Operational Effectiveness Data and Business Intelligence Real-time fully automated data dashboards are now available to managers. This means that performance against service standards, channel shift, customer satisfaction, staff performance and financial information is accessible at any time, providing huge benefits in terms of service improvement, making staff more accountable and providing better information for decision-making and continuous improvement.
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Durham Learning and Development System - What has been achieved?
Access to over 300 digital and e-learning courses
Electronic booking onto face-to-face training courses and online classrooms Embedded evaluation process - supporting return on investment
Ability to view mandatory training requirements and training records
Management info and reports on gaps and skills
Electronic Personal Development Reviews (appraisals) and records for over 6,000 employees replacing paper based records
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Digital Durham Faster broadband is key to unlocking economic growth to create more jobs, increase business opportunities, support education and learning, and transform access to services for communities. The programme aims to maximise the amount of superfast broadband coverage with the funding available. At the start of the programme, superfast broadband was unavailable to around a third of properties within County Durham. Superfast coverage now stands at 96%.
More work is planned, which should result in this coverage figure rising even further, supporting more residents to get digitally connected. With Durham as the lead, Digital Durham is a collaboration between ten of the twelve councils that make up the North East.
Digital Communities
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Reboot We offer low-cost, refurbished computer equipment to registered charities and social enterprises under the Reboot scheme. A quarter of Council owned desktops and laptops are replaced each year to ensure they are up to date and perform well. Some of these devices are suitable for reuse and offered through the scheme. Since the launch of Reboot, almost 50 organisations have joined the scheme. This has resulted in more than 200 devices being made available to communities, benefitting thousands of residents.
• Used for administration to assist the charity to run more effectively • Helps organisations provide free online access • Supports residents to learn new skills - often digital skills • Recycles redundant council laptops and desktops • Low-cost, quality equipment for registered charities and social enterprises
reboot
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Digital Drive Digital Drive is a £4m initiative that aims to help SMEs in County Durham to maximise their growth potential and sustainability through digital technology. It is funded by the European Regional Development Fund, Business Durham, which works on behalf of Durham County Council, and private investment.
• £4m initiative aimed to help County Durham SMEs • Maximise growth potential and sustainability through the use of digital technology
Digital Durham
• One to one business support • Fully funded master classes and conferences • Digital Health Check to enable tailored recommendations • Grant funding of up to 40% to support digital related projects
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Free Computer and Internet Access All 39 libraries have free internet access either over the public wi-fi using your own device or through one of the reservable computers that come with a range of software and high-speed broadband. This enables local people, visitors and students to have easy access to digital resources, encouraging them to try something new, keep in touch with friends and family or even apply for housing solutions and school places as a digital citizen. Libraries are located at the heart of the community and support residents who often cannot afford to purchase and maintain their own equipment.
Adult Learning Information Technology (IT) courses Short, fun and interactive learning sessions are offered to help improve employability, communications skills and confidence. Some courses help residents learn how to search for jobs from the internet and use digital platforms to practise job applications. Longer programmes, support studies on a broad range of themes including: using email, using the internet, using mobile devices, word processing, using databases, publishing, data management and IT security.
Building Skills for the Future Digital Conferences take place regularly. These are well attended and provide staff with a platform for discussion, to share ideas and showcase great examples of digital adoption from across the authority. The feedback is extremely positive with over 96.6% of staff feeling digitally inspired from these events.
Get Digital Real-time fully automated data dashboards are now available to managers. This means that performance against service standards, channel shift, customer satisfaction, staff performance and financial information is accessible at any time, providing huge benefits in terms of service improvement, making staff more accountable and providing better information for decision-making and continuous improvement.
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Our Digital Principles 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.
Be digital by design Be driven by data Design services that are people and outcome focussed Understand our customer, market and audience Design for scale Build for sustainability Be innovative, agile and able to adapt to change Use automation Deliver value for money Support collaborative working Ensure foundations work Ensure processes are fast, integrated and light Use Open Standard, Open Data, Open Source and Open Innovation
14. Apply GDPR principles when processing personal data
Why Should We Win? Our County’s digital journey has been transformative. We now have a culture where customers, staff and communities actively work together Digital Principles and use technology to create services of the future. What’s more impressive is that we’ve done this whilst achieving efficiency savings in excess of £500,000. 1. Be digital by design 2. Be driven by data
3. Design services that are people and outcome focused 4. Understand our customer, market and audience 5. Design for scale
6. Build for sustainability
7. Be innovative, agile and able to adapt to change 8. Use automation
9. Deliver value for money
10. Support collaborative working 11. Ensure foundations work
12. Ensure processes are fast, integrated and light
13. Use Open Standard, Open Data, Open Source and Open Innovation 14. Apply GDPR principles when processing personal data
In this digital era, technology and customer expectations will continue to change. The culture we have created ensures we can continue to improve and provide the best digital offer to all residents, businesses and visitors. Our digital strategy and principles are, and will continue to, make Durham a better place to live, work and do business. Please view our video at: https://youtu.be/a4J6P4Nt02I