'˜Clear direction' to improve technology at council

Parkside Chart Way Horsham - Horsham District Council and West Sussex County Council SUS-150723-162029001

According to officers while technology delivery is ‘generally good’ with a ‘stable and well maintained service’, opportunities for innovation and improvement ‘have been missed’.

A new strategy, which was approved by the council’s cabinet last Thursday (March 30), aims to make services more accessible to residents at the same time as delivering efficiency savings.

Jane Eaton, director of corporate resources at HDC, explained that a lot of their technology was old and expensive, was not designed to be mobile, and was often designed for one department.

She added: “A lot of our systems were probably designed around legislation and how we do the statutory bits of our job and not designed around people.”

The production of the strategy has been led by leader of the council Ray Dawe, who was not at the meeting.

It focuses on six key principles of good technology such as being cloud native where systems are designed for the internet age, mobile ready, interoperable so that data can be shared easily between people and applications, flexible, helping to ensure customers ‘enjoy a consistent journey across services’, and being proportionately secure.

Jonathan Chowen (Con, Cowfold, Shermanbury and West Grinstead), deputy leader and cabinet member for leisure and culture, suggested in an age of radical technological changes the council needed to keep up with these changes.

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