LG/WWW

A few years ago, after checking the website of a well known flat-pack furniture company I visited their nearest store only to find that the item I wanted was nowhere to be seen. “They only update the stock on the website every now and again” a helpful employee told me, which was however no recompense for my wasted journey. Whilst most local government services are a tad more complex than selling Billy bookcases, it’s experiences such as this I want to avoid for council service users, where people who use one channel are treated differently or are given conflicting information to others. At best it presents an impression of disorganisation and at worse it worsens the digital divide. That’s why we’re starting to roll out an omni-channel, or Many Channels, One Service approach at my place. Why “Many Channels, One Service” though? It’s easier to remember and more descriptive of its aims than “omni-channel”, and if you’re introducing new concepts and practices across an organisation, it’s m...

It’s been six months since we introduced digital tip permits so now seems like a good time for a retro. Paper tax discs have long disappeared from windscreens, and more and more people now choose to pay with parking apps instead of fumbling for small change, but up until six months ago we were still asking residents to display a paper permit every time they visited one of our tips.  Alongside this, although residents could apply for a permit online, the rest of the process after they clicked Submit was manual and there was therefore a cost to administering every application and to print and post a paper permit. With an added delay due to the snail mail, the whole process felt a bit 20th Century. So on 30 November 2021 we launched a new online tip permit. Created with our digital platform vendor we essentially allow users to search the DVLA’s database of vehicles and create a permit for up to three vehicles. The new permits were styled similarly to the old to create a sense ...