Covid-19 and the recent exponential adoption of ‘connectivity’ and ‘immersive’ technologies have had a significant impact on citizen lifestyles and social dynamics. The pandemic has intensified the social vulnerability of citizens through job redundancy, changes in citizen engagement, disruptions and new models of social care and citizen services, and much more.
Local UK governments and councils are under severe pressure to respond to demanding needs and changing social dynamics. Gen Y and Z expect citizen services and engagement in a different format to the boomers - easy to use digital and omnichannel engagement, user experiences and services at lightning speed, as the new normal.
Local councils need to adapt and adopt digital capabilities such as analytics, machine learning, data lakes, intelligent automation (robotic process automation), blockchain, and cloud computing to support fast-changing citizen engagement models. Gone are the times for citizens to turn up physically to council offices. Whilst there will be a need to continue to exist for physical engagement, most services, understanding consumer needs, and sentiments can be digital.
Council budget is spent predominantly on high-cost services such as:
- Adults with complex needs
- Troubled families
- Social care
- Fraud and risk
The above are highly complex in nature (homelessness, vulnerable children, fostering, families with multiple complex issues, adults needing multiple care) and require multi-team support and cross-government agencies to respond. Most of it touches the border of emergency and risk to human life, hence the cost of delivering these care services is very high (billions). Moreover, these demands are not predictable unless policies and proactive programs shape societal outcomes.
With digital capabilities, local government and councils can and are able to develop solutions to carry out preventive and proactive interventions such as:
- Identifying troubled families early on, designing appropriate intervention plans using AI, analytics, and digital capabilities (mobile apps, user experience, integration).
- Understand and predict factors that lead to homelessness and how these can be tackled using data-driven and machine learning capabilities.
- Social sentiment analysis and citizen dialogue to determine the priorities and demands for the public and feedback on the local government quality of services.
- Council Tax Fraud and Risk using integrated data and systems including new age systems (social channels and open data).
- Intelligent automation and citizen experience capabilities (RPA, mobility, UX solutions) to increase citizen engagement, transparency, and deliver operational efficiencies.
Invenio’s digital solutions and capabilities for local government and councils are underpinned by the philosophy - ‘Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast'. Local councils can deliver these solutions quickly (in weeks) at a low cost (cloud-first, digital and open-source tools). The ROI and time to market are attractive with our ability to deliver these solutions in a unique way – ‘The Invenio Way’.