Digital Perth and Kinross 2023-2027

In the digital age, information and technology must be a core part of that business. This also means that the measures of success for information and technology must be explicitly linked to business outcomes, rather than internal activities such as cost, project delivery or services levels.

 

-Gartner

Digital Perth and Kinross underlines our ambitions for using digital, information and technology to enable positive change. Where there is no scope to radically re-imagine and transform services, we are optimising to make the very best of what we already have.

It is a mark of our growing digital maturity, that we accept such change will be best evidenced via 'softer' measures such as successful adoption of new ways of thinking and working, rather than 'harder', more traditional metrics and indicators.

We will know we are making a difference when...

We are measuring success based on outcomes for citizens and communities, rather than productivity targets, savings or number of services provided online.

• For example: we will report on how citizens rate our online services rather than how many services are online; and how confident families feel about the safety of elderly residents whose homes are monitored by IoT sensors rather than how many sensors have been installed.

Digital is not just an IT thing: it is part of our culture and an essential enabler for making things better, as well as for solving problems. 

• For example: we have already baselined our digital maturity via Local Government Digital Office and Audit Scotland assessments. We will continue to use external opportunities like these to measure our digital capacity, capabilities and readiness against objective standards, for assurance that we are continuing to keep pace with wider digital opportunities and trends.

We are using technology to do things differently rather than to do the same old things, only with different tools. 

• For example: our new social care solution is introducing citizens' portals; new business processes that cut across service boundaries; and secure information sharing between a wider range of partners. We will demonstrate this change is successful by showing the extent to which our new approaches are delivering what citizens need and providing them with a positive experience, rather than by ticking off actions in an implementation plan.

Our first-choice approach is to share and co-operate in boundary-crossing multidisciplinary teams, that use shared platforms, shaped around life events to streamline and improve the citizen experience. 

• For example: consolidating around a single 'technology-enabled, multichannel' customer contact centre will give citizens and local businesses more choices around when and how they contact us and reduce frustration resulting from unproductive calls. We will analyse a range of traditional indicators such as channel uptake, patterns of demand and customer feedback in combination to give us deeper insight for informing future demand management strategies, that maximise accessibility for citizens who need to contact us. 

We continue to grow from sound digital foundations: the IT Capital/Asset Management Plan delivers, and continuously improves, our core infrastructure to deliver the robust, secure launch pad we need for digital change and innovation. 

• For example: Zero Trust Networking is an approach for delivering more resilient, secure, anytime, anywhere, any device access to business applications and information, for improved workforce flexibility and mobility. When we implement this, we will measure success based on staff satisfaction levels, to understand its impact, and the extent to which it enables and enhances service delivery, rather than via conventional metrics such as time taken to implement or number of current users. 

These can be nebulous measurements to pin down: clarity around benefits realisation can often emerge only over time and often retrospectively. How we demonstrate success will need to evolve in step with the implementation of individual strategic projects and the launch of new digital capabilities. Meanwhile, we will also continue to monitor operational indicators that together contribute to a general picture of the overall health of our digital operations and readiness for change. Cumulatively, these will add to the rich picture we want to build for demonstrating how we are delivering on our digital ambitions.

Digital is not just an IT thing: it is part of our culture and an essential enabler for doing things better.