Birmingham City Council - ICT& Digital Strategy (2016-2021)

We asked what the citizens, businesses and visitors to Birmingham would want to see included in The City Council’s Corporate ICT & Digital Strategy (2016-2021).

One reason was to ensure that any social groups with protected characteristics (under The Equalities Act, 2010 ) would not be disadvantaged by the proposals contained in the strategy.

The second was to understand if stakeholders (citizens, businesses, visitors, public & third sector partners, et. al.) felt that there was something wrong with, or missing from the strategy.

We asked people to draw on their experience of using Council services or their own knowledge & experience.

• There were between 22 and 31 responses from individuals.
• There was one response from other public and third sector partners.
• There were no responses from private sector organisations.

Equalities:

We have determined that there were three protected characteristics that might be affected by the ICT & Digital Strategy (2016 -2021) - namely: Disability, Age and Ethnicity. The ways in which this might happen are:

Disability

The screens used in ICT & Digital solutions being perceived as a barrier to people with:

1. Visual impairment
2. Reading disabilities
3. Entering information might be difficult for people with visual impairment and/or a physical handicap

Age

This may also be a barrier for reasons 1 & 3 above.

Ethnicity

Ethnicity, or more specifically language, may be a barrier if Council digital solutions are not available in a variety of languages that is aligned with our (major) stakeholder groups.

Disability

18% of respondents said they were registered as disabled

Of these 9% (three people) said that they thought their disability might be a barrier to accessing Council Services through ICT & Digital means:  

1. One issue was that phone calls made one respondent very tired on account of chronic fatigue syndrome
2. Another issue was put down to “the Ageing process”
3. The last respondent said that the technology “…tend[ed] to be very difficult to use and hard to get to the right person or department a lot of older people are not that up to date with the technology know available”. 

Age

The age range of respondents was:

Four people (12%) of respondents said they thought ICT & Digital might present a barrier to them accessing Council services on account of their age. The reasons given were:

“The ageing process”.

“Remembering passwords.  Would rather have one User ID and Password that can be used for all of my interactions with the Council e.g. single sign-on or one authentication process e.g. through verify” 

“It's not clear what council services are to be delivered through a computer, so this strikes me as a trick question. I note that you're not asking if I'd prefer some services to be via contact with a human being rather than a machine”.

“ [Me]not being able to use the site properly”.

Ethnicity

Of the 33 respondents we had the following spread of ethnicities:

Of these people, 31 people said they did not think ICT & Digital solutions would not present a barrier to accessing Council services on account of their ethnicity. Two people did not answer.

Suggestions about the ICT & Digital Strategy (2016 -2021)

The document itself

• More detail
• The language is very-much ICT & Local Government speak
• No concrete examples
• No detail on how to implement the strategy
• Strategy needs to have specific objectives

Public Access and ICT Capabilities

• Community ICT Learning
• Library closures affecting digital inclusion
• Increased public training
• Help in person for elderly or new UK residents
• Wider choice of venues to access online services
• Better community internet access
• Links to Government Digital Services
• More services need to be online - with support for those less familiar with the technology
• Faster response times from the technology
• Support for those less familiar with the technology
• Links to other partner websites - NHS
• Have a WMCA portal
• Better website design for people with visual impairment
• Multi-channel Access

Online Quality

• Have a help chat facility
• Ensure online channels stay up to date
• Platform independence and responsive websites - no timing out
• Make it simple to use
• Maintain Housing Digital Logbooks
• The ability to use personal data for a single customer record - by default
• Citizen profiling
• Targeted e-Mail updates
• More Visual Representation
• Adapt the online presence to the device being used

Real-World Delivery

• Balance ICT investment with real-world delivery
• Ensure the Real-World delivery happens

Better in-House ICT Management

• Use of Master data management
• Improved data quality
• Data quality checks on entry & Audits
• Staff ICT Training
• Internal list of available software packages
• Smarter use of efficiency tools
• Use of video conferencing
• Master Data Management
• Consolidation of Council data from disparate small databases

Better integration with delivery partner ICT

Equalities

Disability & Age – The Council will continue to provide ICT & Digital Services that conform to WC3 - Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.

Ethnicity – The Council will continue to make use of Google Translate to allow people to switch Council webpages into their first language.  

Regarding having a single password - The Council aims to provide a single account for people to use in accessing services online. Doing this makes things simpler for its customers and simpler for The Council itself. The strapline for the Strategy is “Simplify, Standardise & Share”.

The document itself

This document is a strategy and intentionally will not deal with detail or specific objectives. It is a document about what The Council is planning to deliver, less about how it will do this. However, the way in which this will be delivered is now being worked on within The Council, as a series of smaller delivery projects. A balance needs to be made - some criticism has been that the document is actually too long already. Other criticism has been that the language used is too technical or to “local government”. The difficulty we faced is that the document is meant to be read by professionals and non-professionals alike. We did provide a non-technical summary brochure for anyone not wishing to read a large technical document. As suggested, examples of how ICT may deliver benefits have been given in the form of short Case Studies.

Public Access and ICT Capabilities

We have noted that The Council’s current financial position is having an impact on public and community access to ICT and ICT learning, but this is something above and beyond the influence of an ICT & Digital Strategy. We accept that ICT sessions for older people or ethnic minorities can and should be improved. The ICT & Digital Strategy is supportive of these ideas:

“- we want to make it easier for our stakeholders to access more of our services online, and to meet the growing demand. Our aim is to enhance the user experience, to improve the range of services offered through a variety of Digital Channels. This will mean building our technology platforms to deliver intuitive end to end public services that enable simple, swift, personalised and secure access using ‘single sign on’ and authentication solutions that remember and relate to users intelligently, so we interact as a single organisation.”  (BCC ICT & Digital Strategy 2016- 2021, section 3.2.1)

Other comments were made regarding both: links to other partner websites (e.g. the NHS) and the development of a West Midlands Combined Authority portal. Neither of these is in conflict with the aims of the strategy. We have listened to past criticism and are actively engaging with our local and regional partners.

Online Quality

Another group of comments and suggestions was centred on the quality of The Council’s digital presence (website). There were three comments regarding: “ensuring the website stays up to date”, making the website “simple to use” and “adapting the website to the device being used” (having a website whose layout switches to suit mobile and desktop devices). All of these are good comments that we have acted upon (in part) with the rollout of the new website (see below).

Another comment was looking for: “Platform independence and responsive websites - no timing out” The aim of the recent website re-design was to create a simple, mobile-friendly and responsive website. Comments around timing out may well be due to the speed of an internet connection rather than the speed of the website itself.

Other Digital Services

There were some comments around existing and new features to The Council’s digital services. People like “Housing Digital Logbooks” and “targeted e-Mail updates”, so we will try and ensure these are maintained. One additional item, used by other organisations, is the online live “help chat facility”, which we will pass on to our Digital Access Strategy group.

Real-World Delivery

Some comments related to “Balanc[ing] ICT investment with real-world delivery” and “Ensur[ing] the Real-World delivery happens”. These are valid points – reflected in the strategy comment about: “Technology is nothing without the people who use it” – and deliver the service requested through it. This is primarily a question of good organisational and performance management, that ICT can support and enable.

Internal Comments – more sophisticated technology - better in-House ICT Management

This consultation was made with people both inside and outside The Council. Some of the more technical and professional consultees mentioned:    

• The ability to use personal data for a single customer record - by default
• Citizen profiling
• More Visual Representation

As before – these suggestions are supported by the strategy. The Insight Theme is fully supportive of visual representation and understanding our citizens better. The development of a single customer record is something that The Council is striving for, where permitted, in order to simplify our information and processes. We are working with Government Digital Services to try and provide the integrated service that can be obtained when dealing with National Government agencies such as the Passport Office and DVLA.

Building on this, there were more comments around:

• Data and data quality
• The use of master data
• Checks to ensure data was correct when entered into The Council’s databases
• Consolidation of Council data from disparate small databases

In keeping with these comments and suggestions, we are in the process of producing an Information Management Strategy that will steer and govern the way The Council collects and manages data as well as the information that stems from it.

One comment was made about introducing videoconferencing. We have recently signed an Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft that will allow us to introduce their Skype product for this very purpose.

Other comments revolved around: Staff ICT Training, related to this: Smarter use of efficiency tools as well as having an internal list of available software packages. All of these are good suggestions which The Council will need to address if it is to make the best of its investment in ICT.

One final comment related to “Better integration with delivery partner ICT”. This is a fundamental principle of the strategy: “Simplify, Standardise & Share” - “Share” being the approach by which we will maintain and strengthen these links.