Little Britain has an amusing skit; no matter what the request the computer always says ‘no’. It’s an exaggeration of course, but for many Council departments the experience of being told they have to work with a system that does things a certain way is a reality. But doesn’t going ‘Digital’ change all that? Not necessarily. The important question that needs to be asked is ‘can the application do what we want it to do and really match up to the processes that we work with? ‘

A number of cloud providers have sprung up with the answers to your IT challenges; just coming into their cloud will save you money, improve your service delivery and help sort it all out. And yes, after the initial hump of the cloud delivery costs it probably will save you money but not as much as a true shift to a digital working could. If the applications have just been moved you have the same complex, siloed structure to business applications – they’re just located somewhere else. So where’s the transformation? Unfortunately, all that is actually on offer are the same systems you already own and run, now running from their data centre (cloud) – not yours.

Transformation means ‘to change from one thing to something else’. Most service delivery departments work with legacy systems that have been written to do the job in a particular way – the reality though is that they often don’t do the job in the way that the services work now. To transform the way you work and how you interact with citizens your systems need to work in a way that accommodates new, leaner, ways of working and that take advantage of contemporary technology. No longer should you have a service application that only allows you to do what it says you can do. No longer should the computer say no!

So how can you transform the way you work?

Forget the technology for a moment - this is about people and processes. Every head of department knows how their team works and what makes their lives difficult. Imagine working with an outcome-focused team who will collaborate with you in order to understand exactly what you want out of a system. Using established platform technology and agile development, where results are fast, taking weeks rather than months to deliver.

Your digital transformation should give you features that many suppliers still treat as ‘luxury’ bolt-on extras, such as a single citizen sign on, a secure digital hub with 24/7 citizen access, mobile working by default (regardless of device or operating system) and cloud-ready apps that are both flexible and scalable.

That’s Arcus Transformation. We know it needs to be more than just a cloud offering. Transformation saves money, delivers the benefits of agile processes, packaged in a modern streamlined system that all service departments can benefit from.

There are already examples of Councils that are successfully making the transition. The private sector has already embraced cloud delivered line of business applications as the most cost effective model for their organisation - Local Government lags behind the curve and it is all too easy to find reasons not to start the journey. Only by embracing a completely new approach to ICT infrastructure will Local Government truly answer all the needs of citizens, staff, budget and future requirements.

A good real-world example of how true digital transformation is being achieved is Peterborough City Council (PCC). Working with the Council, Arcus developed a full Enterprise Architecture Roadmap with Data and Information Governance, creating a clear plan that the council and its ICT partners followed with great success. Following a thorough assessment of the environment, including visits to service departments and research into governance and operational processes, we devised an agile method for moving forward. Crucially, this highlighted potential pain points in IT functions, including integrating and migrating applications, aggregating and analyzing data, and looking at the needs of each of the services individually.

This collaboration has resulted in progress towards a truly transformed council with modern, streamlined systems which are designed to meet the evolving demands of their citizens and communities. PCC has a revolutionary system that is fully mobile, flexible and resilient, and which has set a foundation for future growth and change. The system is also space-saving, reducing the need for servers and infrastructure on premise.

Richard Godfrey Assistant Director, at PCC says, “Arcus Global has acted as a true partner for PCC, developing our architecture, and working collaboratively with our outsourcer Serco. Arcus have demonstrated the depth of their relationship with AWS and Salesforce.com, helping to ensure that PCC receives the most benefit in maximising the usage of their investment in the Cloud to show true value for money”.

In summary: The choice to move into the cloud in order to reduce your Council costs is a good one, but, when approached in the obvious way - simply moving systems into a cloud data centre offers, at best, fractional savings compared to a ‘designed for the cloud’ strategy that can deliver significant cost savings and position the organisation to be responsive and efficient in the long term.