Huntingdonshire District Council

As a joint partnership the three councils are embarking on a replacement programme for our Streets and Grounds (Waste coming later) back office application. As part of this work we are seeking to align our back office processes (we have over 150 variations between the councils) and redesign these to be more customer focused and take account of new IT capabilities delivered by our new Digital platform. This will allow for end to end digital processes from customer report direct to Operational crews to action with proactive status updates back to customer upon progression of service requests. We have mapped AS IS processes and are in the process of designing our new TO BE processes. These include assessments/mappings of the user journey for each process. We are keen to prototype this work prior to the full roll out in the new year.

We have ambitious public service reform plans, to deliver to customer needs more seamlessly across agencies, driven by the Combined Authority and the Multi-agency Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Public Service Board. We view the on street solution as a key stepping stone to further closer working, and are already discussing building safeguarding referrals into our waste service system.

Discovery evidence

Lean activity has identified significant waste, failure demand and poor customer experience driven by the requirements of our current process for manual intervention, and the resulting absence of real time information. In addition we have struggled to change customer behaviour due to our inability to easily show planned activity.

Our Streets and grounds services have mapped out their current processes. Business Analysts are in the process of refining the TO BE processes and this work will be completed by end of November. We are seeking to use the funding to develop a prototype Alpha integration in December before the full roll out commences in January. These changes will enable us to offer a transformed customer experience, accurately showing planned activity, real time information on tasks, and manage expectations appropriately. All whilst removing a substantial amount non-value added activity from the internal process.

The anticipated next steps are to engage with the wider community in discussions around who is best placed to deal with some requests, and how we will involve the community in supporting our efforts to keep communities clean. Addressing not just cleanliness issues, but building social bonds – reducing isolation, and helping generate a sense of community.