Building a New Website Scarborough Borough Council

Born of the e-government era Old commercial software Old expensive server Not mobile Too big Difficult to maintain Reduced resource No external access Online services restricted to forms and a few payments

Scarborough Borough Council Mobile first Open source Cloud hosted Smaller 24/7 editor access End to end services

Scarborough Borough Council Based heavily on GOV.UK Our version was given the thumbs up by Tom Loosemore, Deputy Director of the GDS and Ben Terrett, Director of Design at the GDS

Scarborough Borough Council Time (or lack of) Get most things right Target high-volume, transactional services Reduce waffle Fewer hands/more consistency Fail quickly/fix quickly Experience Trust Common sense

Demo of self-service portal and DASH Scarborough Borough Council

Self serving

Self Service – promoting ‘channel-shift’ Scarborough Borough Council

Telephone greeting The vast majority of contact with Scarborough Borough Council is made over the telephone. So … Our main greeting message was changed to incorporate the ‘Do it Online’ key message.

Scarborough Borough Council Customer contacts Customer First staff who deal directly with residents over the phone or face-to-face allows us to promote our online channels. So … Customers are being asked if they would like to be set up with a self-service account.

Scarborough Borough Council Scarborough Customer First With the majority of face-to-face enquiries coming in via the Scarborough Customer First Centre, we wanted to use the space to promote ‘Do it Online’ and self-service. So … We created a new slideshow for Customer First and Civic Reception with a heavy emphasis on ‘Do it Online’; and put new decals on the Customer First windows to promote our website.

Scarborough Borough Council Self-service leaflets After launching the new website and self-service portal and giving it a little time to bed in, we were eager to tell our customers about it and get people to sign up for self-service accounts. So … We produced a ‘Do it Online’ leaflet for people visiting Customer First and other offices / venues.

Scarborough Borough Council Letters, etc We wanted to present a more modern image of our council. So … We redesigned our letterhead, compliments slips and business cards. We continue to work with Services to incorporate the new artwork on letters that are automatically generated.

Scarborough Borough Council Helping information to ‘stick’ Staff dealing with customers face-to- face often need to write out phone numbers or other important information for people. So … We produced some ‘sticky’ notepads for Customer First staff to use. They contain the key ‘Do it Online’ message and are in line with other branded materials.

Scarborough Borough Council Corporate signatures Over the past few years, there looks to have been a scattergun approach to signatures, with house style seemingly ignored. So … We are re-establishing a corporate template while crowbarring in some key ‘online’ messages.

Scarborough Borough Council Bin collection calendar Refuse collection is a Service delivered to every household in the Borough. So … We made sure we included some signposting to our website on the bin collection calendar distributed each year.

Scarborough Borough Council Opportunity to use bin lorries Our bin lorries reach every part of the Borough. So … We negotiated with our colleagues in Cleansing Services to get some space on their bin wagons to promote the ‘Do it Online’ message as well as our social media channels.

Scarborough Borough Council 56,000 A5 council tax ‘inserts’ With 56,000 Council Tax bills sent out to every household, the chance to promote self-service in the same mailshot was too good an opportunity to miss. So … We inserted a ‘Do it Online’ flyer with the bills.

Scarborough Borough Council What’s next More ‘assisted digital’ in Customer First 2,000 fridge magnets for distribution Training to Housing Association staff (Yorkshire Coast Homes) Digital Inclusion Partnership More online cross promotion Funding bids to expand peer-to-peer digital projects