Gateshead Council Productivity Plan

The Council have signed the Local Digital Declaration and we are committed to:

• Putting users first - Our services will be tailored to fit our users' needs, prioritising users above professionals and the organisation.
• Creating technology that connects - Our IT systems will join up effectively, using simpler and more reliable software with open standards to give our data a common structure.
• Building trust in data practices - We will only ever share information safely and securely, building trust among our partners and users, and better supporting the most vulnerable members of our communities.
• Leading digital transformation - We will demonstrate digital leadership, creating the conditions for organisational transformation, and ensuring all those we work with embrace this Digital Declaration.
• Fostering open and collaborative working - We will champion an open working culture that helps every colleague to succeed with working digitally, through sharing our plans and experience, working collaboratively with other organisations.

Our I.T. services continue to work with services to enhance the Council's digital offer on an ongoing basis.

Since the pandemic employees have embraced the opportunities technologies, such as Microsoft 365 with its array of collaboration tools, have offered and where the role permits employees now work in a hybrid manner across the organisation. The introduction of a cloud based telephony solution enables services to be contacted on a variety of devices wherever they are working, in the office, in the community or at home. This has enabled us to rationalise our office space, introducing hot desks, touch down spaces and meeting pods, freeing up valuable space in which to host external and partner organisations.

We use cloud based solutions and storage where possible with the intention to reduce the requirements in relation to our datacentres, contributing to the Council's carbon reduction commitment, whilst enhancing resilience.

We have invested in technologies to secure the Council's data both on premise and in the cloud and have delivered multiple workshops and awareness sessions to ensure our workforce are aware of the risk of cyber-attack, enabling a level of cyber resilience across the organisation at all levels.

We recognise that data is one of our most valuable assets and are reviewing the Council's approach to data, how we use it and how we manage and maintain it to make the right decisions for our residents and businesses. This approach will be underpinned by technologies that enable the efficient sharing of data across systems, enhanced analytics and use of AI supported by a strong governance framework, all of which are required to provide the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the data in our care.

Challenges exist in relation to the improved use of data, we have a number of legacy solutions which do not lend themselves to data sharing through lack of Application Programming Interfaces, solutions which are costly to replace, contractual matters can prevent the extraction of data without great cost, and capacity and skills to facilitate enhanced use of data are scarce, with the ability to attract staff to public sector proving problematic.

The move to subscription based pricing for core technologies, technologies that we rely on to secure, transmit, store and process council data, coupled with steep price rises proves to be a further budgetary challenge.