Technology replacement and service redesign are typical features of a council’s corporate plan for transformational change. ICT will be prominent, and service redesign is certain to extend online access. Successful implementation will require close alignment of a digital strategy with the corporate plan.

The digital strategy should show how ICT can improve both service and financial performance, and the principles for selecting, prioritising and delivering ICT projects, such as in the Digital Hampshire Strategy:

1. Helping everyone join in – designing accessible digital services and improving broadband access

2. Supporting business growth – maximising opportunities for digital business services, encouraging inward investment and a lower carbon footprint

3. Customer in control – maximising transparency and self-service, with service user control over information and access

4. Digital by default – accelerating the move to a ‘digital only’ delivery where possible, while reflecting the needs of different groups and allowing for choice, and balancing efficiency with service quality

5. Public services together – sharing insights, technology and services for cost effectiveness and joined-up services.

The majority of councils already use cloud computing (the provision of ICT services over the internet, when required and to the level required at a particular time). The at-scale potential of the cloud is demonstrated by the City of Westminster’s expectation to become ICT infrastructure-free for non-critical applications, and to join up the services of the tri-borough partnership.

The cloud offers the benefits of:

• Cost reductions through economies of scale and use of better resources
• Ability to connect and integrate several cloud service suppliers together into ‘cloudbanks’
• Greater flexibility for new ICT capacity and reconfiguration without capital investment,
• including for joining up and sharing services
• A smaller routine workload for the council’s ICT team, freeing them to focus more on ICT strategy, planning, training and development
• Downsizing the council’s ICT data centre estate.

Driving improved service delivery calls for cross-service working. Camden Council, for example, has teams dedicated to flexible & mobile working; channel shift and customer access, business intelligence & open data and master data management. ICT also needs to be recognised as a central corporate service.

The real challenge of transformational change is not technological but about culture, people, communication, and retuning the council mindset from service provision to service facilitation. It is about skilling-up service teams to deliver the redesigned services with ‘agile’ methods (work viewed as an activity not a place; performance not necessarily requiring presence; trust-based relationships instead of hierarchies; people valued more than property). Appointing an ‘agile’ coach for each project will help with this.

To unlock the full potential of the cloud, it is important to see how ICT defines, not just supports, internal council processes and interactions with service users. For citizens, this is about facilitating end-to-end self-help online, with assistance for the digitally excluded. Within the council, this is about process redesign for remote and mobile flexible working, and better partnership working – using open data, open standards and open source software where possible.

In Part 2 (published next week) we will discuss procuring cloud services.

Peter Hill is a senior associate at law firm Geldards LLP.