Changing citizen demands: How local authorities are adapting to the digital-first world

We all know that the aim of digital public services is to reduce administrative burdens on businesses and citizens by making interactions with public bodies efficient, more convenient, and less costly. But in the now digital-first world, most local authorities have had to further up their game to meet the expectations of their citizens, writes Stella Power, Managing Director of Annertech.

In the most recent Public Service ICT Strategy (2015–2020), one of its five pillars is a digital-first approach. This tenet called for the “digitisation of key transactional services and the increased use of ICT to deliver improved efficiency within public bodies and provide new digital services to citizens, businesses and public servants”. However, whether it is due to the precipitation of the pandemic or not, the Government’s vision for a Public Service Digital Strategy has stalled at a time when most transactions and interactions need to be online.

The importance of a digital-first approach for local authorities

“Efficient and transparent public services have a direct impact on the quality of our lives. It is the digital-enablement of these services that fosters coherent and user-centric processes, improves the quality of services through flexible and personalised interactions and increased efficiency,” explains Power.

Annertech is Ireland’s leading open-source digital agency, with its core areas of business being the delivery and maintenance of websites and web applications that are developed using the Drupal platform. They have a strong heritage in helping local authorities to deliver digital transformation and count Limerick City and County Council, Fingal County Council and Cork County Council among their clients.

“The site looks and functions well and has received a lot of praise from councillors, staff and users since launch. From the outset, we were very impressed with your approach to the project, the openness to feedback along with the pragmatic attitude to solving problems as they arose.”

Deirdre Ní Raghallaigh, Senior Executive Officer, DCC

“What we have found through our work with local authorities is that they all share the same pain points and, by and large, have the same challenges when it comes to bringing services online for their citizens and businesses. Though the Government hasn’t been forthcoming with the next five-year strategy, building on the success of previous local authority projects, we are continuing to help the sector to create innovative digital solutions in the digital-first world,” continues Power.

Recently Annertech teamed up with McCann Dublin and Enovation to deliver a new, robust, user-centric digital platform for Dublin City Council (DCC) – here is what the project entailed.

Enabling Ireland’s largest local authority serve its citizenry

In keeping with the Irish Government’s ICT Strategy, DCC made the commitment to using digital technologies to fundamentally change the way we live, work, and interact with each other. Part of this commitment is the delivery of a user-friendly, intuitive website that meets the needs of its citizens.

The challenge

The DCC website was showing signs of age and was not fit for purpose. Issues included:

• The information architecture had been altered as services grew, and this had an adverse effect on the overall information architecture;
• The website did not perform well on all devices leading to users being unable to locate important information;
• Searches were returning unexpected results and were reduced in quality by out-of-date content; and
• The look, feel and accessibility of the website no longer met the needs of users.

McCann Dublin, Annertech and Enovation were enlisted to deliver a digital experience that would help their users to access services easily while also helping DCC to become more efficient. This required the following approach.

Our approach

Discovery

The first step was to understand the scale of the problem, from both internal and external perspectives. McCann conducted on-site customer research where we asked people waiting in the Council’s Wood Quay offices whether they had considered using the website or not and recorded their feedback live.

We also held departmental workshops with DCC employees. We used user personas and data gathered from consumer research to help DCC employees to see the site from the user’s perspective.

Content and editorial support

The new dublincity.ie site required a lot of content, over 700 pages worth. The majority of it was written by DCC employees who had attended our empathy workshops. Before content went into production, we developed templates for every possible kind of page that outlined what information should go where.

Information architecture, wireframing and site design

During the workshops, the sitemap was optimised with input from DCC employees. This allowed us to develop an informed information architecture and intelligent, accessible wireframes. We designed all site components, as well as the functional spec of more complex elements such as the location finder and search.

Technical solution

After the completion of the extensive discovery and UX/UI phase, Annertech was charged with the delivery of a digital platform that was secure, high-performing, and easy to use by content editors.

To achieve this, we undertook the following:

• Implemented Drupal 8 CMS that allows the Council to have complete control over their content whilst keeping within style guidelines by implementing reusable components;
• Created a custom theme which responds to the device being used to ensure visibility of content for all;
• Custom-built search interfaces for specific resources and fine-tuned search results ensure users can locate the content they need;
• Migrated content from a draft repository;
• Worked with the Council to create a custom editing interface which meets their needs for internal workflow and content governance;
• Extensive testing and bug resolution — systems testing, UAT and performance; and
• Worked with their hosting partner, Enovation, to ensure the site was performant and worked well in the production environment.

How local authorities can thrive in a digital-first world

A new behavioural paradigm has emerged in the past 18 months. Not only do people expect ubiquitous digital interactions but they now want to transact with organisations on their own terms, expecting convenience and a seamless experience across all touch points. This is no more so than with interfacing with local authorities.

“What has become apparent from our work with local authority clients is that they are grasping that as customer preferences change, an opportunity exists to simplify the channels they offer to their citizens. Also, as people now use digital channels as their first port of call, local authorities need to come up with innovative ways to digitally interact with their citizens,” says Power.

One means to achieving cost savings when developing your digital platform is learning from other councils and indeed building upon what they have done. We have seen this in the code sharing between Limerick City Council and Fingal County Council that adheres to the Government’s build to share principle.

“As build to share and digital-first are the first two pillars of the Government’s ICT Strategy — and will very likely form the bedrock of any new strategic objectives — it is how local authorities coalesce their knowledge to solve common problems that will then free up time, money and resources to focus on innovation and nuanced ways to further meet the expectations of today’s citizens,” Power concludes.

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