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Strand 3 - Make better use of data

Data is a key asset enabling us, as a council, to deliver improving services that are innovative, targeted, and impactful to our residents. These will be designed and delivered around our data assets, transforming our services, improving outcomes and driving efficiencies.

The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the innovative use of data, with a range of data-driven interventions launched or repurposed during the pandemic, providing invaluable assistance to our residents at a time when they needed it most. Whilst the vital public interest, legal basis for processing has now passed, we must not lose sight of the power that deploying our existing datasets in differing ways had in furthering and increasingly tailoring our services to the needs of our customers.

Information and data are crucial to every part of the council’s business. Managing and using it correctly, making sure it’s secure and making it available helps us to identify areas to focus on to deliver improved services.

We also monitor search terms so we can ensure our visitors can find what they are looking for no matter how they search for it as well as enabling us to communicate with our residents using the same terms that they are accustomed to using. Also, by reviewing our website visits and call centre data we can predict times of the year when we expect to be even busier, allowing us to put measures in place to deal with increased demand.

What we will do

  • Continue to develop our approach to cyber security.
  • Build on our digital dashboards to inform service delivery.
  • Continually review and cleanse the data we collect and process for our core functions making sure it is used securely and ethically.
  • Develop a borough profile so we understand our residents better and inform the best way to deliver services.
  • Use analytics on our social media channels to develop digital profiles of our customers.