The Royal Borough of Greenwich has published its first digital strategy with an emphasis on six workstreams.
The council has initially steered away from any ambitions to use emerging technology, instead emphasising its priority outcomes and a series of approaches built on proven technologies and approaches in local government.
First of the six streams in the strategy is to build new resident services offered online by default. These will be developed according to data driven priorities and involve a series of service-by-service transformation programmes.
Second is to give the council’s staff the tools they need, with an emphasis on mobile devices, a move to the cloud, a redesign of the desktop estate and new service desk software.
Third is to get better with data through building a dedicated team, working with the business areas of the council to develop a programme of work, expanding the data warehouse and working with suppliers to get better access to the council’s data.
Fourth is to make infrastructure and systems secure and interoperable, with connectivity improvements, integration through APIs and using software-as-a-service wherever possible.
Apprenticeships and learning
Fifth is to build the digital capability through a rolling programme of apprenticeships, mandatory learning and development for staff, and redesigning the existing digital and customer service teams.
Finally, the council aims to support innovation across the borough through projects on the use of IoT – an area in which it is already one of the national leaders – city data analytics and developing the local digital economy.
Among the steps already taken has been the provision of over 2,000 new mobile devices for remote working, the procurement of a Digital Place low code platform, and migrating office productivity tools to the cloud.
Writing in a blogpost, Kit Collingwood, assistant director for digital and customer services at Greenwich, said: “Although we have a major investment window, this is really the beginning of the new normal for Royal Greenwich; we are putting in the building blocks not only to bring the council right up to the present day, but to build the skill set, leadership, and nimble, loosely coupled technology which mean we will never slip behind.
“We’re doing this all by focusing not on show-off technology and futuristic promises (you won’t find AI or the blockchain in this strategy), but on the solid building blocks of a modern public sector organisation which uses digital technology as a means to better serve the public and meet its mission, not as an end in itself.”
Image: Greenwich street by Daniel Case, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
