More than £750,000 has been awarded to councils looking to
improve services using digital technology, Local Government
Minister has announced (12 September
2019).
Six projects by local authorities working together across the
country have received £753,000 from the Ministry of Housing,
Communities and Local Government’s Local Digital Fund.
They include projects aimed at improving online housing repairs
services, making websites for planning applications easier to
use, and giving residents smoother methods of online payment.
Minister for Local Government, , said:
Councils up and down the country are working together to
embrace digital technology and improve public services.
They are truly looking ahead and adapting their work to make
things better for residents. I’m delighted to invest over
£750,000 from our Local Digital Fund into 6 more collaborative
projects aimed at improving local services.
Projects funded and the local authorities involved are:
Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council (lead), Leeds City Council,
and Manchester City Council - £350,000.
Providing social workers with better information to cut the time
and cost of child referrals. A project to provide social workers
with better family context information from other local services
for their child referrals. It will speed up children’s social
workers’ decision making, improving the experience of families,
and saving money.
Buckinghamshire County Council (lead), Adur and Worthing Council,
London Borough of Croydon and Leeds City Council - £50,000.
Prototyping an open community directory of support services. The
project will be aimed at developing a community-based service
directory in local areas to help residents and council officers
know which support services are available locally. This includes
both council and third-sector provided support services.
London Borough of Southwark (lead), London Borough of Hackney,
Greater London Authority, and Surrey Heath Borough Council -
£100,000.
Exploring how to make the planning process more efficient and
transparent. The project will look at user-centred digital
planning application systems.
City of Lincoln Council, London Borough of Southwark, South
Kesteven District and Royal Borough of Greenwich - £100,000
Developing a better online housing repairs system. A project to
explore and prototype common service patterns for reporting and
managing repairs.
Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council (lead), Allerdale Borough
Council, Cherwell District Council, Huntingdon District Council,
North East Lincolnshire District Council, Sheffield City Council
and South Northamptonshire Council - £80,000.
Exploring income management and e-payments. A project to help
councils overcome blockages to adopting existing cost-effective
payment and management systems and move away from legacy systems
and suppliers.
Worcestershire County Council (lead), Redditch and Bromsgrove
Council and Suffolk County Council - £73,000.
Providing registrations data to local authority housing services.
A project to use death registration data to reconcile the
availability of social housing, reduce the wait time for families
on local housing lists and prevent lost council tax revenue.
This funding round was only open to projects which were
previously awarded funding last year. A
funding round remains open for
new local authority projects to apply to the Local Digital
Fund before it closes on 16 September.
Ideas could range from making people’s lives easier with more
efficient, online ways to pay for services or get help, to
embracing tech to support vulnerable people or making bin
collections, social housing repairs and taxi licensing services
more efficient.
For the projects, lead councils across the country partner with
at least 2 other councils to share knowledge and ideas. This
collaborative approach is a key pillar of the
government’s Local Digital Declaration,
launched in 2018, to coordinate public bodies seeking digital
solutions
The Fund is also being invested in digital skills and digital
leadership training for council staff.
See more
information on the Local Digital Fund, projects
previously funded and how to apply.
Only councils in England are eligible to lead on applications;
councils in other parts of the UK are still eligible to partner
on applications.
