Our principles for change
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication
Simplicity is the overarching objective for all the improvement and change within the areas covered by this strategy.
We want to develop simple:
- digital services where residents can find the information they need
- processes that deliver exactly what the customer needs when they need it.
- online forms and intuitive processes that can be used without help.
If residents do need help, we will offer help for those who need it, which are fully covered within other sections of this DDaT strategy.
To achieve this, our DDaT strategy guiding principles are:
Develop a culture of informed service improvement
The Corporate Business Intelligence Review (CBIR) found that there is awareness across the council of how data can support the services in providing better outcomes for residents.
Not everyone recognises the value of data, and that data is another asset available to the council.
The current use of data is about:
- meeting statutory requirements
- what happened in the past
- verbal accounts of what is happening for decision making.
Our current reporting is descriptive.
Services now need more sophisticated insight that will allow users to:
- explore data
- answer the business questions they have
- get insights to support service improvements.
Where data is presented for decision making, it's in a static summarised format, that must be manually produced.
This process can be difficult, time consuming and subject to error.
There is not always the capacity to provide supporting analysis.
This means in some cases, busy decision makers in services analyse the data themselves, usually from tables of numbers or simple graphs, which can give misleading information.
Plans are being developed to provide decision makers with accurate, up to date, dynamic information.
Data quality
Improvement in our data quality would provide the foundation for digital service transactions as quality data is readily available in a secure format.
It can supply advanced digital transactional processes including those provided by data integration between:
- applications
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
Without professionally managed, clean, unbiased, and useable source data; Insight, Predictive Analytics and AI will deliver incorrect outputs.
Data stewardship is key to good quality data.
Fostering a culture of shared ownership of the data we collect, use, and store will not only ensure clean data but good information governance.
Key performance questions
It's vital that each service determines their Key Performance Questions (KPQs) before they even start thinking about Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
Identifying exactly what questions services want to answer with data will make sure that only the most relevant information is:
- obtained
- analysed
- presented
Identifying clear KPQs will also:
- immediately put the data into context
- allow communication
- guide discussion
- direct decision
- lead to the development of more meaningful KPIs.
Meaningful KPIs will also lead to more concise, focused, performance reporting.