How will we know we have succeeded?
Our people and communities will say…
Somerset Council listens to me, collaborates with me to improve my access to services in the way I want to access them. I feel supported by my local council and can see that my county is flourishing.
Our employees will say…
I am proud to work for Somerset Council. I agree that the organisation has a strong sense of vision and stands by its values.
Our partners will say…
We are now more aligned and connected, sharing data and insights, and working together to meet shared goals and face shared challenges improving access to key services across Somerset.
Governance and Decision-Making
- Fewer internal committees, boards, and formal meetings
- All committees, boards, and formal meetings have a clear scope and terms of reference with identified membership
- Reduced number of management layers
People and Skills
- Staff agree with the statement “The work I do makes a real difference to the residents of Somerset and to my work colleagues.”
- Staff agree with the statement “My manager encourages me and my colleagues to be flexible about when and where we work and to use space and technology creatively.”
- Staff agree with the statement “I am able to make improvements happen in my area of work.”
- Reduce the overall wage costs of the authority by £40M
Digital and Technology
- Fewer systems and associated costs
- Increased pass marks in the Cyber Assessment Framework
- All staff complete the Cyber Awareness Training
- AI (Artificial Intelligence) is adopted widely with increased efficiencies measurable by time and cost reductions per process
- Our website is 100% compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2, at least at level AA
- All services are fully aligned on the website with no district picker where one is not needed (sometimes, where a person lives will be part of the process to direct them to the help they need if it is not the Somerset Council)
- The use of microsites to deliver services is reduced where they do not add value
- Maintaining Search Engine Optimisation for our highest traffic services and optimising the search results
Data Insights and Evidence
- Provision of a single data platform to meet the goals within the TOM outlined above
- Improve our scores in the Data Maturity Assessment around data engineering and data insights reporting
- Increase our usage of Data Partnerships and Information Sharing Agreements where it makes sense to do so – evidence the benefit of doing so, we are measuring the quality of data sharing, not quantity
- Increase in the number of Services that have access to and use Performance metrics in decision making
- Visible performance dashboard on the website, which is linked to Service Standards
- Reduction in processes which have manual data collection in favour of automatically collected data
Service and Process Design
- We will aim for 80% of our transactional contact to be handled by Digital Self-Serve, with more supported to be able to use Digital, with 20% or less remaining as face-to-face and telephony, where it adds value to do so
- Reduced footfall at Customer Service Points
- Reduced demand the services due to a greater, more efficient digital offering
- Removal of unnecessary or outdated processes where we find them
- Increase in processes that are digitised, offering self-serve for Customers and Staff
- Fewer e-mails to customer service/administrative and general mailbox(s) directing to digital processes that deliver the outcome of the query,y instead
- Increase the use of automated payment methods
- Improved User Experience