PR & Media Centre

---

11/09/2007

Local Government IT Excellence Awards 2007 - shortlist announced

Six local authorities have been chosen as the shortlist for this year’s Intellect, Socitm and SOLACE Local Government IT Excellence Awards. They will present their projects to the judging panel on September 14th and the finalists will be notified the following week. The winner of the awards will be announced on October 16th at the Socitm Annual Conference.

This year 29 percent more local authorities entered the competition than last year. The awards, which are now in their twelfth year, seek to highlight the use of best practice in local government and ways that technology has been used innovatively to deliver best-value public services. This year’s awards are supported by Ericom Software Ltd.

Ian Platt, Managing Director of Ericom Software UK commented: “These awards are very important as they encourage and reward innovation in a sector that receives few plaudits for the excellent work it does. Ericom works very closely with a large number of local authorities helping them to deliver their remote application access and flexible working initiatives. I congratulate all those local authorities on the shortlist and wish them good luck for September 14th.”

The short-listed entries, in alphabetical order are:

Blackpool Council: Customer First – Thinking and Working Differently
Blackpool Council’s ‘Customer First’ programme is part of its commitment to both the Government’s Transformational Agenda and achieving local ambitions. By combining ‘systems thinking’ with CRM and Enterprise Case Management from Lagan, the Council has established a whole new approach to serving customers. Blackpool Council has consequently realised savings of £2 million, improved overall satisfaction with the service to 99.81% and reduced the need for individual IT systems. The Council was one of just two local authority councils to be improving strongly and have increased its star rating (from two stars to three) in the Audit Commission’s 2007 annual CPA.

Derbyshire County Council: Picture the Past
This unique partnership between libraries and museums in four local authorities, Derbyshire, Derby, Nottinghamshire and Nottingham, creates access to historic images reflecting the development of local communities. To date, over 65,000 images have been digitised and made available through libraries, and to everyone via the Internet. Indexing and searching tools have been created, enabling students and researchers to find relevant material and for local people to access images of their locality. Users can order and pay online for photographic quality copies. The project encourages co-operation and resource-sharing between partners and delivers economies of scale in the implementation of new technology.

Kirklees Council: Looking Local – Doctors Appointments National Rollout
Booking a doctor’s appointment can be fraught with difficulty; getting through busy telephone lines during limited opening hours, finding an available slot and keeping the appointment within hectic schedules.
From the surgery side there is a deluge of calls at opening time, frantic patients who want immediate attention, repeat prescriptions, baby clinics and flu jabs to be scheduled in. Kirklees Council, via the DigiTV service they operate on behalf of local public sector in the UK, has successfully rolled out the facility for patients to book, cancel and amend appointments in 1,100 surgeries via digital interactive TV and mobile phones.

London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham: Customer Access Strategy
The customer access strategy is innovative and unique; Hammersmith & Fulham are truly putting the customer first. We believe that if you want to put the customer first, then you’ve got to know them better. We can’t improve their satisfaction without first understanding what matters to them. By prioritising our work on the basis of customer value and impact, we are transforming our organisation, improving service quality, cutting costs and systematically tackling the root cause of dissatisfaction with the council. Hammersmith & Fulham are using the data we gathered about our customers to drive real and lasting change. It’s not about quick wins it’s about a long-term vision and delivering real results.

North Lanarkshire Council: MySWIS - Mobile Single Shared Assessment
“mySWIS Mobile Assessment” is a tool that allows full Single Shared Assessments (including IORN) to be undertaken by staff from North Lanarkshire Council and partner agencies (including NHS) whilst in a client’s home or hospital ward using mobile technology. The solution operates real-time (or offline when necessary) allowing information gathered during the assessment to be validated against the back office mySWIS application then, once successfully validated, it is updated. The tool allows the provision of homecare services to be initiated at an earlier stage for the client, and for information to be shared, where applicable, with partner agencies.

Wolverhampton Arts & Museum Service: British Sign Language (BSL) Video Guides at Bantock House and Museum
This project has used modern technology in a new and exciting way to welcome deaf visitors to our local history museum. We are now providing deaf visitors to the museum with a BSL signed video guide which they watch on a hand held player as they look around the museum. Deaf people are one of the most excluded groups in our society. This project not only allows our deaf visitors to access the same information as hearing visitors but also empowers them to explore the museum on their own.

PR Mailing List

Press wishing to be added to the Intellect press release mailing list should email our This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , and provide the following information:

Full name
Contact telephone number
Publication (publications if you are a freelance writer)
Areas of interest