Mobile computing leads to more effective working by
local councils - just as for all organisations. In fact local
authorities, with their diverse and dispersed range of clients, sites
and services, can probably benefit more than most if they get it
right.
Councils however often have a problem knowing where to
start in developing innovative ways of working. Project Nomad, one of
the UK government's "National Projects" has been set up to help
councils understand better what can be done and how to do it.
According to Project Nomad, there are potential
benefits to be gained worth up to £336 million per year.
This is made up of:
| Benefit |
Cost reductions & efficiency savings |
Increased revenue |
Service improvement added value |
| Enables |
More productive field ties, faster turnaround of
tasks |
More effective revenue collections |
Improved data quality & customer improvement.
Asset rationalisation |
| Value |
£30-81m |
£5-50m |
£40-205m |
Transforming the way councils work
Transforming the organisation involves reassessing the
roles of people, processes, places and technologies. Nomad advocates a
comprehensive approach, introducing step-by-step change to demonstrate
the benefits and build the business case, leading to more
radical change in due course.
The benefits include:
-
delivering services in the field
-
increasing accessibility of services outside council
offices
-
enabling service professionals to spend more time with
clients
-
allowing councillors faster access to information for
themselves and to provide to constituents
-
enabling more effective partnership working with other
agencies.
"Proof of concept" trials
Project Nomad has financed trials of a range of
technologies and applications as "proofs of concept". These
include the following:
Financial assessments for social care
The London London Borough of Sutton has achieved
efficiency savings of up to 47 % demonstrated by the use of
"Electronic Financial Assessments" enabled by changes of process,
places and technologies. It
has equipped its financial assessments team with tablet PCs onto which
staff can write directly when they carry out home-based interviews for
people in need of financial support. Clients can now see how the
figures are worked out - leading to fewer complaints. And a
letter is generated on the spot about the contribution clients need to
make to their care package.
Overall there has been a 30% increase in productivity
as financial assessments now take 1 week to process rather than 4-5
weeks.
Re-engineering Building Control service
Sutton has also implemented a mobile solution using
tablet PCs and e-forms for Building Control officers - these are the
people who go out on site to ensure that all building works meet the
standards for health, safety, welfare and access.
The project aims to "deliver an integrated electronic
management system and to re-engineer current working practices"
helping to streamline the service and introduce efficiencies around
the recording and storage of site data.
Tablet PCs are used, as well as digital cameras,
portable printers and mobile phones. The project has improved
communication with officers working remotely, and enabled much better
access at all times to necessary files and drawings, allowing more
work to be completed on site and reducing the need to travel back to
base to input and collect information.
Sheffield councillors become more efficient
Elected councillors form part of an often
underestimated urban task force who network with citizens, report work
that needs to be done and chase up the council workers to see that it
is done. In this role mobile technology is well suited to improve the
turnaround time of case work.
The council has provided its 84 elected members with
an end-to-end mobile solution using Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs0
to send electronically reported issues to the council Contact Centre.
Councillors and citizens can then track the progress of their issue
through the Internet.
Early feedback from the project indicates that
councillors are saving around 2-3 hours per week which they can
hopefully use to be of greater benefit to Sheffield citizens.
Ambulance access to social care systems
Successful cross-agency working has been achieved by Cambridgeshire County Council
and the local Ambulance Trust.
The County Social Services social care system (SWIFT)
holds information on the all the County's social care clients.
It was realised that there could be significant benefits if Ambulance
Trust staff had access to a certain level of information such as being
able to contact a relative or care worker to assist.
The solution has been to provide an end-to-end mobile
solution allowing ambulance staff to use Blackberry handheld devices
to connect to specific elements of the SWIFT database using the
Blackberry's Internet browser.
Security is a key issue. The SWIFT database is
kept securely behind the corporate firewall, and cannot be dug into
further for confidential information, nor can the records be altered
by ambulance staff.
The key benefits of the system have been to reduce the
number of Accident & Emergency admissions and to make more informed
arrangements for care of vulnerable people during a crisis.
A Nomadic future
Project Nomad has demonstrated the way forward for
local authorities - but it is a time-limited project. What is
the future for mobile working in the sector?
According to Chris Haynes, who is Senior Advisor with
the government's E-Government Project Team, "Remote working is key to
the government's efficiency agenda". The e-government agenda is moving
on, and after 2006 there will be no central funds available for
specifically "e-government" projects. Councils will have to make
the business case for remote and mobile working in the context of
efficiency improvements in order to obtain funding.
So, as Project Director Ian Laughton put it: "It's not
all about the technology. It's about organisational change and
realising the benefits for delivering services more effectively".
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