Meeting documents

To consider the attached report.

Contact Officer:  Maryvonne Hassall (01296) 585663

The Committee was informed that Cabinet had received a report in December 2017 (a copy was attached as an appendix to the agenda) in relation to the investment proposal for the delivery of Phase 2 of the Connected Knowledge strategy starting in April 2018.

Cabinet had agreed for £1.53m to be included within the budget proposals for 2018/19, which was the next agenda item.  The funding would be made from unallocated New Homes Bonus balances and would enable work to continue on delivering a leading edge, forward thinking platform to facilitate the development of customer first processes, a streamlined internal operation and a framework for increased opportunities for external commercial sales.

The delivery of the "Connected Knowledge" strategy was central to enabling AVDC to continue to make savings in the provision of services, to remain at the vanguard of innovative thinking and to the provision of excellent customer service.  It also provided the opportunity to generate income by both supporting general commercial opportunities and providing consultancy services to other councils keen to emulate the approach being taken by AVDC.

As referred to in earlier reports, the strategy would be delivered over a five year period.  The first phase of the strategy (approved by Council in February, 2017), was now coming to an end and the report to Cabinet highlighted achievements made so far and the proposed programme for phase 2 covering the period up to the end of the 2018 financial year.  The Cabinet report and the investment proposal for phase 2 were available to read on the Council’s website.

Phase 2 required investment across three key areas, namely:-

·                    Innovation – the introduction of innovative new solutions such as voice recognition and artificial intelligence for call handling and decision making.

·                    Transformational – the roll-out of internal process automation and customer self service.

·                    Legacy reduction – the removal of legacy technology and the introduction of more flexible systems that would further support integration of data to enable customer needs to be anticipated.

Experience of previous change programmes had indicated that strong governance processes were required both to ensure that the programme delivered on time and to budget, and that any variations to scope (and cost) were closely scrutinised and that benefits realisation was tracked.  To this end, the release of funds during the programme (and benefits realisation) would be closely monitored by the governance board to ensure on-going value for money.

The Cabinet report (and accompanying investment proposal document) set out the resource implications and specifically the staff resource requirements which required specific skills sets.  The total investment required had been estimated to be £1.53 million and Cabinet had agreed that this should be built into the budget requirements for 2018/19 onwards.  This element had now been taken into account in the budget proposals for next year.

Part of the programme of works took into account the new data handling compliance requirements of the European General Data Protection Requirements (GDPR) Directive.  The revenue cost of this had been estimated to be £100,000 p.a. and a pressure had been provided for within the draft budget proposals.

Members sought further information and were informed:-

(i)            of the work that was also being done on other communication channels and regarding digital exclusion, i.e. to ensure that people without access to the internet or a smartphone were able to access Council services or contact the Council.

(ii)           that the delivery of the Connected Knowledge strategy was central to enabling AVDC to continue to make savings and efficiencies in the delivery of services.  It was explained that some of the investment for Phase 2 would have paybacks, as detailed in the investment proposal.  However, some expenditure also related to the replacement of legacy systems that would need to be replaced in any event, or to undertake trials of new technology.

(iii)          that as the Connected Knowledge Strategy covered the period 2017-2022 it was likely in due course that there would be additional investment proposals for funding for future phases.  These investment proposals would be brought to Members for approval.

(iv)         that the elements of Phase 2 would be delivered in ‘bite-sized’ chunks.  Governance arrangements were in place so that each piece of work would need to be approved by a Governance Board before funding could be drawn down.  Equality Impact Assessments would be submitted for the individual projects.

(v)          that ‘Live Chat’ via the Council’s website was working and would become more efficient over time.

(vi)         that the Officers would ensure that webpages relating to the strategy were kept up-to-date.

Members also commented:-

·                    that it would be important that the Council’s HR policies were updated to take account of evolving issues such as flexible working and other impacts on staff from Connected Working.

·                    that the Council should consider in the future holding information sessions for residents on issues such as using the Amazon Echo.

RESOLVED –

That the Scrutiny Committee was supportive of Cabinet’s decision to include £1.53m within the budget proposals for 2018/19 in relation to the investment proposal for the delivery of Phase 2 of the Connected Knowledge strategy, to be funded from the unallocated balance of New Homes Bonus funding.