01.08.14
A mobile solution serving the whole community
Source: Public Sector Executive Aug/Sept 2014
Philippa Davies, corporate director of resources at Wyre Council, discusses an innovative mobile service.
There are many communities in the UK where access to online services is limited by location or age. How does a forward-looking council broaden its services without excluding those who are most in need of support?
Wyre Council serves a rural, urban and partly coastal community in Lancashire. Many people within our region do not have internet access (17%) and our last Life in Wyre survey indicated that this figure increases to 40% for our residents aged over 65.
Moving services online is clearly an important step forward and something Wyre is definitely embracing. We realise that by offering more self-service opportunities, our advisors actually have more time to deal with those residents who prefer to deal with us face-to-face. But while encouraging self-service, it is also important that services remain available to every individual within the community, regardless of location or demographic.
We have invested in an alternative version of a ‘mobile strategy’ – a new Mobile Advice Centre that drives services to those who need them.
An advice centre was originally introduced to deal with council tax and housing benefit enquiries, but the introduction of KANA’s Lagan software into the advice centre has enabled advisors working on the bus to handle enquires relating to all council services, including waste management, environmental health and housing options.
By using Lagan over a 4G mobile network, the officers can direct enquiries and requests for service directly to the relevant team almost instantaneously; on some occasions the job is completed before the customer has returned home. The CRM allows us to record who is contacting us about what, and to set response times with automatic prompts for senior officers where necessary. This provides a much better service for residents.
When you are out in the community, enquiries unrelated to the council are inevitable – but signposting to the likes of Lancashire County Council, neighbouring local authorities or the Department for Work and Pensions is no trouble. With direct links to private landlords, the mobile advisors have even been known to find people a new home having made a couple of calls.
Investment in a face-to-face presence seems to run counter to the policies of other councils, whereby the means of contact are concentrated in automated or remote channels. The Mobile Advice Centre takes the council to locations where fewer people have ready access to technology, and there seems to be widespread support for the bus in the communities it serves. It has cut the time taken to process enquiries and helps to build social inclusion.
In fact, it has been so successful that we’ve bought a new bus and extended our mobile service to include a volunteering and tourism information outlet.
The Mobile Advice Service operates five days a week and has seven different stops across the Wyre area; each stop is visited at least once a fortnight. This enables the council to bring its services to all the people of Wyre, including those with limited or no access to online services.
The bus typically handles over 250 enquiries per week. The council has found that the bus has substantially reduced the time for handling benefit applications (down to less than four days in 2013-14), as often the work can be completed entirely in one visit. Most revenues and benefits work requires the examination of papers and documents, and this can only be done face-to-face.
The Mobile Advice Centre has also enabled the council to reduce handling times for many of its other services, as it enables advisors to handle complicated requests effectively. In fact, the bus has the ability to record and resolve issues of any nature. It is in effect a mobile Civic Centre.
This Mobile Advice Centre has achieved efficiencies at the same time as providing a face-to-face service outlet; an important part of the council’s service delivery. In comparison with local offices the bus allows savings on premises and equipment. Importantly, the bus has enabled a continuity of service to all elements of the local community.
We’ve recycled the original Mobile Advice Centre, which has returned to the road as the i-bus, an innovative way of getting people more involved in shaping local services. From Monday to Wednesday it pairs up those with the time and inclination to give something back to their community with a real mixed bag of volunteering opportunities.
A partnership with our local CVS means that 170 or so voluntary organisations can also use it to promote the work they do. By heading out to places where people already go in their daily lives, it serves to raise awareness of the benefits of volunteering among a new audience. This includes those with time on their hands or between jobs who might not realise that giving up a few hours every week equates to new skills, improved health and wellbeing and keeps social isolation at bay.
There’s space for consultation to take place too, giving even more people a voice in how we run things, plus an opportunity for our residents to meet the leader of the council on board and tell him what they think.
And when all that business is done, the i-bus heads to one of our prime seaside locations to serve as a three-day visitor information centre, helping holidaymakers and day-trippers make the most of their time in Wyre.
We are confident that our full range of services is being delivered to those who need them and especially those who may feel digitally excluded.
A well-established concern within local government is that digital services exclude large proportions of the general public. Our mobile advice service removes that barrier completely and provides the best of both worlds.
This partnership proves that with the right technology, a digital strategy can be tailored for any location.
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