Southwark's digital journey

What has been achieved since the last strategy

• Improving resident experiences

  Residents using the MySouthwark resident account has increased by 136,000 residents since 2021 and now has a total of 236,000 residents who are choosing digital first to engage with the council.

  Services which have been improved include Fix My Street, an online tool for reporting and viewing local street repair issues, further developments have also been made to pest control and online waste reporting. For example, being able to schedule Christmas tree collections.

  Following engagement with our residents the website has had a refreshed design to make technological advancements to the interface and content has been edited to meet accessibility standards.

  A replacement website programme has been launched to replace the underlying Content Management System to improve the residents experience and allow the use of new technology such as personalisation, chat bots and better integration with council systems.

  We introduced a Housing solutions chat bot to create a new channel for residents to transact with the council. This technology will be used where appropriate across Resident services.

  As part of the leisure insourcing project we implemented a new payment systems, leisure management systems including the resident’s app and web portal to improve the take up of leisure services as part of our public health agenda.

• Supporting our staff

  A programme of work was established corporately to enable the council to use operational data to enable early intervention and predict future council services, by allowing better visibility of needs and demand.

  The development of the Modern Data Platform has enabled better use of data across our departments. There are now 15 data sources from across the council
  uploaded to the data lake, including datasets for Supporting Families (Childrens), Building Safety, Public Health and Planning with a future programme in development.

  We have delivered on existing and future legislative requirements placed on the council in relation to data integration and maturity in Children’s Services.

  Working with our Microsoft delivery partner, Hitachi, we have trained 150 members of staff to enable the organisation to deliver 144 Power BI dashboards from 949 datasets with 924 user reports. There are now 900 active users of Power BI.

  To improve the user experience of system we have utilised the Microsoft Power Platform in the following areas: Planning applications, housing applications and supporting families dashboards. We have created a Centre of Excellence based around Microsoft Power Platform technologies and plan to use this technology in other services.

  We have implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365 technology to improve case management across front line services and to implement chatbot technology in housing repairs and for the Homes for Ukraine scheme. A longer term strategy is to create a single view of the resident and key systems such as NEC for housing will be improved using this technology.
  
  Wi-fi and networking infrastructure has been updated in Tooley Street with other keys sites being completed as part of the new strategy 2024 – 2026. This is to enable the workforce to benefit from the latest technology to enhance the experience of working from office locations on wireless devices.

  We successfully insourced Leisure services from an external provider including implementation of new network, infrastructure and hardware across 8 leisure centres.

  We supported the opening of the new Una Marson Library, Kingswood Library and refurbished Peckham Library. We replaced 180 PCs across 12 libraries and upgraded the infrastructure across all of the public libraries.

  63 meeting rooms across the Southwark office estate have been updated with Hybrid Microsoft Teams Technology. There is an ongoing programme of work to include Queens Road and other sites.

  The implementation of Microsoft collaboration tools including optimising the use of Microsoft Teams and SharePoint for seamless communication, file sharing, and collaboration for all users.

  We have implemented security desktop features and compliance measures provided by F5 VPN, for threat protection, and security compliance.

  Introduction of Microsoft Intune compliance application, to manage and secure mobile devices enabling Bring Your Own Device for all employees including Front Line Workers.

  We have developed a Business Partnering Function to create a collaborative relationship between Technology and Digital Services (TDS) and service areas within Southwark. Business partnering ensures that TDS initiatives are closely aligned with the overall business strategy and objectives.

• Making Southwark one of the best connected boroughs in London 

  45,670 properties have access to gigabit connectivity through our wayleave agreement programmes with Community Fibre and Hyperoptic.

  113 community buildings have been provided with a free gigabit broadband connection.

  58 small cells have been installed to improve the mobile network capacity across the borough particularly focusing on high footfall areas such as London Bridge, Borough Market, Tate Museum and areas of poor connectivity.

• Tackling digital exclusion, ensuring residents have the right tools, skills and technology

  We are part of the GLA digital inclusion taskforce across the London Boroughs to ensure the provision of broadband is incorporated into policy, procurement, social value and planning.

  • 1670 sim cards were distributed to residents as part of the Good Things Foundation National Databank
  • 1440 residents have received support with their digital skills this year

  We are working with our partners, Virgin Media and AgilityNet, to support elderly residents with digital skills including courses at sheltered housing units and the Healthy Living and Learning Centre in Bermondsey.

  We are supporting 15 community organisations across the borough with digital skills and connectivity, via upskilling staff to become Digital Champions and providing connectivity grants.

  We are supporting technology students from London South Bank University with experience and hands-on learning from internships and coding projects supported by our partner, Docklands Settlements.

  We are working with organisations, community groups, charities and academia to share best practice and increase cross sector participation.

Next: introducing the 5 pillars

Page last updated: 08 May 2024