Aberdeen City Council is harnessing the latest technology in a bid to improve services for residents and businesses – as well as cutting costs.
This digital project will bring more services online, so customers can manage their council business online quickly, easily and at any time.
The initiative is part of the local authority’s transformation programme, designed to improve the way the council operates with a leaner workforce. A programme of voluntary severance and early retirement began last year.
North-east based digital technology company Incremental Group and multinational professional services network PwC are to work with the council to drive forward the digital project.
In addition, this new partnership will continue to advance the Smart City agenda – working with businesses and other public-sector partners in Aberdeen to develop digital skills and stimulate economic growth.
The council said a budget of up to £4.5million has been allocated to support the work of the digital partnership over two years.
Incremental, based in Inverurie, was launched at the end of 2016 and the local authority deal is one of the biggest it has landed to date.
The company currently employs around 35 people in Inverurie, the same number in Glasgow plus a handful of staff south of the border.
Neil Logan, chief executive of Incremental, expects the Aberdeen project to lead to a “sizeable” number of extra employees at his firm.
He said his firm and PwC were both excited by the potential for digital technology to help create better experiences and improve service delivery for all the council’s customers.
He said: “The improvements to be made will be truly transformational.
“We are all becoming increasingly digital savvy these days. We have become used to checking our bank accounts and credit cards securely via our mobile phones, connecting with companies via social media to get support and checking our bills and making payments online.
“We are now expecting the same convenient experience from our public-sector bodies.
“From a council perspective, harnessing digital technology allows improvement of customer services – while allowing more of the council’s budget to be pushed towards service provision.”
Mr Logan said that anyone with a council query will typically get in touch through its contact centre.
He added: “Last year, the contact centre received almost four calls for every citizen in the city. While the contact centre will remain an integral part of how people will interact with the council, we know many citizens want to interact in other ways.
“In some cases it’s possible to use bots – internet robots able to respond to questions in natural language – rather than humans to answer simple questions in a very responsive and cost-effective manner.”
Mr Logan said the digital partnership is at the inception phase of the overall programming – planning and prioritising the various projects.
“The programme will herald a change in how the council looks at its service provision in the long term.”
Aberdeen City Council chief executive Angela Scott said: “Alongside our community planning partners, the council has an agreed set of priorities for what we need to achieve on behalf of the people of Aberdeen.
“Underpinning all of this work is having strong financial management, so that we can meet our priorities and get the best value for the public.
“This digital partnership is key to us realising these ambitions as we move forward and thus our work will be important to everyone in Aberdeen as we look to build a sustainable future.”
