Managing your resident experience through Local Government Reform

Executive summary

Dorset Council, formed in 2019 by merging six councils, is on a mission to enhance resident experience through local government reform. By converging multiple systems and data sources, the council focuses on understanding and addressing resident needs, particularly around the cost of living. Building on solid foundations from legacy councils, they have evolved their customer services centre into a 24/7 operation, aiming for a consolidated “one Council front door” experience. 

Despite progress, challenges in aligning services and overcoming operational silos persist. The council’s 5-10 year transformation strategy emphasises intervention, prevention, and demand management, gathering insights from customer service channels to improve processes, and reduce fragmentation. A key focus is shifting traditional contact methods to digital and self-service channels, while ensuring support for complex and vulnerable cases. 

Financial constraints compounded with an increase in demand for council services drive the council to leverage technology for cost reduction and efficiency.  Progress has been made with online services integrated with back office systems such as Garden Waste, Highways, Child Work Permits,  and blue badge processing. Customer experience remains inconsistent across the number of systems used with further opportunity to use technology to be proactive and reduce demand.  

To promote digital engagement, Dorset Council uses community digital champions and is developing a customer account to enable single sign-on to council services. Automation plays a crucial role, with platforms like UI Path and Placecube Digital Place enhancing service delivery. Internally, – users are empowered to create workflows using Microsoft Power Automate to support work management with their workforce digital champion. 

Overall, Dorset Council’s approach emphasises data-driven decision-making, technological integration, and continuous improvement, aiming for a consolidated, efficient, and resident-centric service environment. 

Read on for the full story… 

How to manage your resident experience through Local Government Reform: insights from Dorset Council

Dorset Council, formed in 2019 by merging six councils, has embarked on a transformation journey to enhance resident experience amidst local government reform. This journey began by converging multiple systems and data sources, focusing on understanding and addressing resident needs, particularly around the cost of living. 

Initially, Dorset Council built upon solid foundations from legacy councils, notably an established customer services centre which has evolved into a 24/7 operation, aiming to provide a consolidated “one Council front door” experience across various services. Despite these advancements, challenges remain in fully aligning services and overcoming operational silos. 

Strategically, Dorset Council is planning for the next 5-10 years. The council gathers extensive insights through its customer service channels and the use of service design to understand and address avoidable demand improving services around the needs of its customers. This involves reducing fragmentation, making it simple and accessible through provision of a customer account to a consolidated digital front door.  

A significant focus has been placed on improving the digital experience. Residents expect the same seamless interactions they experience with private sector services. Thus, Dorset Council aims to shift traditional contact methods e.g. phone and email to digital and self-service channels, while ensuring complex and vulnerable cases still receive support from colleagues. 

The financial aspect of service delivery is a driver for change, with the council leveraging technology to reduce costs and improve efficiency. This includes redesigning workflows so that they are automated, linked to the customer account and integrate to the back office system where required. 

However, there are ongoing challenges in merging diverse systems from the legacy councils. Regulatory services, for example, continue to work on integrating their disparate systems. The council has also faced external challenges such as the pandemic and cost-of-living crises, complicating the transformation process. 

Encouraging digital engagement remains a priority, with barriers identified in residents’ initial online experiences and the need for continuous updates. For complex services, such as adult social care and special educational needs assessments, personal interaction is still crucial. 

To support digital engagement, Dorset Council employs community digital champions, using libraries to provide residents with digital assistance. The council is developing a single sign-on customer account system to provide a consolidated digital front door that enables greater personalisation, aiming to maintain resident engagement online. 

The council’s automation journey involved selecting suitable platforms with the help of consultants. They chose UI Path for automation and the Placecube Digital Place platform for customer service, providing a mix of low-code solutions and custom development capabilities. Additionally, Granicus E-forms are heavily utilised for online services, with plans to integrate these with the new customer account system. 

Internally, Dorset Council uses Microsoft Power Automate extensively, with over 600 workflows created facilitating work management and business intelligence capabilities. This strategic use of technology supports operational efficiency and the delivery of streamlined services to residents. 

In conclusion, Dorset Council’s approach to managing resident experience through local government reform emphasises data-driven decision-making, technological integration, and continuous improvement in customer and digital services. The focus remains on creating a consolidated, one council, efficient, responsive and customer-focused service amidst ongoing challenges and financial constraints.  

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