Nottingham City Council

Outcome of Expression of Interest: Invited to apply

Homelessness prevention through Digital Innovation

Dealing with Homelessness in the UK is a major issue for Councils. Annual homeless cases have increased from 89,120 to 115,550 over the past 6 years, which is a 30% increase and rising.

At Nottingham we spend considerable money on emergency accommodation. This is a national problem which could be avoided through better prevention which improves the lives and prospects of those at risk of homelessness.

Following an Initial analysis with our housing aid team we propose to:

  • Perform a detailed discovery to identify which issues can be improved by implementing digital processes
  • Research which technology is out there and how it could be used
  • Design a digital service model and principles which could be adapted to other councils
  • Research and Design a self-service digital prototype with an emphasis on a streamlined triage
  • Produce future state process maps for a system to be developed in the alpha stage

Although homelessness is caused by a range of factors (e.g. unemployment, poverty, lack of affordable housing), we believe digital innovation will streamline and improve processes. This is something we feel very passionate about and the work we will do will be of benefit for other councils.

  • Digital leadership training (for council leaders, service managers or senior executives)
  • Digital and agile awareness
  • Introduction to user research
  • Introduction to service design

Other training requests

In order to successfully deliver the project we will make use of our existing skills but would appreciate the following training which is being offered: • Digital leadership training – This would be for the housing aid leadership team predominantly as they we will require support to new ways of working to be able to embrace working digitally. We would like to explore extending this offer out more widely and incorporating our Development & Change team who are in the process of re-designing their offering and looking to develop digital service/leadership courses. Training for the project team (TBC): • User research • Service Design • Agile We would also really appreciate some support from the GDC Academy to suggest any other courses which they feel would be useful.

1 thought on “Nottingham City Council

  1. As Senior Bid Manager, Future Cities Catapult:

    Hi Nottingham,

    We would be keen to have a conversation about working with you on other funds to develop the concept further if you aren’t successful with the Local Digital Fund and just to find out a little more about your concept.

    I also thought it would be an opportune moment to make you aware of our new housing programme here at Future Cities Catapult due to launch early next year. In line with our wider mission, the programme will seek to help UK firms develop innovative products and services to address some of the biggest challenges in the housing sector, to scale, replicate and sell to the world. Developing digital tools and platforms to improve service delivery is a key area of expertise here at Future Cities Catapult. Therefore, looking ahead, we’re really keen to work with innovative cities such as yourselves to develop market-shaping concepts to transform the way housing services are delivered, so please do bear us in mind as a partner to work through some of the big challenges you face in the housing domain.

    For now though please let me know if you’d be interested to talk about your homelessness prevention concept further and we can take it from there.

    Thanks,
    Daniel Quirke

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