G-Cloud
Councils have been under pressure to keep at least a minimal level of service running in areas like waste collection. That has meant, especially in the early days of lockdown, some having to switch staff over from other service areas like street cleansing or green spaces. Easy-to-use mobile working systems have added flexibility and made operating in this way much more viable. How the pandemic has driven through change As we come out of lockdown and look to the future of council services, necessity is likely to become in some senses ‘the mother of invention’. The pandemic has driven many to start to adopt mobile and remote working to look at ways they can improve their online portals and capability in order to interact with citizens more closely at a time when many are confined to home. They have had to become more agile. Covid-19 has in this way, therefore, acted as a catalyst for change. It has also undoubtedly shone a light on the need for councils to be more agile in areas like asset management and maintenance and delivering environmental services. The latest connected asset management platforms can certainly play a part here. If they are software as a service based, they can be accessed from anywhere. They facilitate working from home which has become essential in the current climate. They also facilitate mobile working meaning that operational staff out on the frontline
can be tasked with new jobs or have their projects changed quickly and easily without having to attend a depot or central location. Having a consistent user interface and user experience in place also makes it easier for councils to move staff quickly from one service area to another where the need for regular staff to take time off for illness or selfisolation dictates. Connectivity is also key in a lockdown scenario of course. It is easy for back office teams to assign work and for engineers and inspection teams to log when they have completed it. If systems have an open application programming interface (API), it is easy for them to connect with other systems and through such an approach make key information publicly available and keep citizens informed.
As we look to the future, there is a growing difference here among councils between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’. Those that have online capability and mobile systems, and technology that provides the ability to communicate and collaborate, have been able to be much more agile and adjust quickly to the new normal. Moving forwards, more and more councils will come to the realisation that in order to deal more effectively with the next crises, they will need to have the latest connected digital technologies in place. L
Steve White is head of Transformation Accounts, Yotta. FURTHER INFORMATION weareyotta.com
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