Bristol City Council has commissioned a review of its IT services, capabilities and structure as a step towards developing a new digital strategy.
It has appointed public sector transformation specialist Agilisys to carry out the work, which is also intended to support its One City plan to build a sustainable local environment.
This follows the recent completion of a two-year IT transformation programme, in which the council has invested in the technology platforms to deliver efficiencies and improve service delivery.
It has engaged Agilisys to act as an independent ‘critical friend’ to review the impact of the programme and the opportunities now available.
The company said the output from the review will provide a clear baseline view of Bristol’s current IT position and how far transformation has progressed from a digital perspective. This will make it possible to address any fundamental issues and switch focus onto creating new digital capabilities.
Pivot to transform
Simon Oliver, Bristol’s director of digital transformation, said: “Our strategy is to pivot from a traditional operational IT organisation to one with the digital capabilities needed for the organisation to truly transform. This is about more than fiddling around at the edges.
“Our intent is to become an organisation where digital is at the forefront of change, where we have the full suite of digitally enabling capabilities.
“The early work completed by Agilisys has already identified some areas where high cost services are not adding the expected value, or where we should consider focusing our resources differently to generate the maximum benefits for our organisation and our customers. That independent challenge has shown the value of engaging a trusted partner working as a critical friend.”
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