Blog posts about Advice

We were recently invited to discuss the benefits and challenges of using data and digital twins at a roundtable event hosted by the Chartered Institute of Highways & Transportation (CIHT) and Ringway. The roundtable focused on the data rich delivery of highway maintenance specifically, but the experiences and advice we shared during the event are applicable on a broader scale, so we have detailed them in this blog post.

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If our many years of experience providing citizen-centred digital solutions to the public sector have taught us anything it’s that being able to collect and share up-to-date data ultimately helps you to deliver a better service – and by association, nurture a more engaged population.

As Alessandro Fornaroli and Daniel Gatica-Perez write in the introduction to their research article published in the July 2023 edition of the Digital Government: Research and Practice report: “Data availability is paramount to the functioning of a city, and therefore platforms allowing to collect data generated by people represent a key element in the transition towards more citizen-centric cities.”

How we help authorities deliver data rich services

Whether it’s being able to display accurate asset information on a map or communicating that a certain road is due to be resurfaced on a certain date, we have always strived to help local authorities enrich their digital services with data through integration. 

Among its many benefits, when used effectively, we’ve seen how data can help to reduce failure demand, increase accuracy and eliminate duplication or avoidable contact.

For example, where Buckinghamshire Council has been using integrated asset layers within its FixMyStreet Pro service, duplicate reports have dropped by 99.5%. The Council also uses asset layers to triage reports to parish and town councils based on the latest information available relating to speed limits, which has created anticipated savings of over £50,000 just for grass and hedge cutting reports alone. 

Or take the way FixMyStreet Pro is used in London as another example, where the borough council users of the solution benefit from automatic diversion of reports not only between each other, but also between other public bodies operating in the capital, such as Transport for London (TfL) and the Peabody Housing Association.

In Bexley and Greenwich, for example, reports are triaged between the two borough councils, TfL and Peabody in the Thamesmead area, which straddles the border between the two boroughs. To help users visualise where certain issues are the responsibility of TfL or Peabody, we display polygons and what we call ‘red routes’ on the in-report maps.

Any issue within a certain category reported on a ‘red route’ is automatically sent directly to TfL, while the polygons represent areas in which issues are the responsibility of Peabody. Equally, if a resident tries to report a problem to Peabody or TfL which is actually the responsibility of Bexley or Greenwich, the report will be diverted. 

The same can be done for triaging problems to National Highways elsewhere in the UK. 

Other examples include the use of QR codes to make it quicker to report problems with assets like street lights or bins, special map pins to represent issues you’re already aware of or live updates pulled from in-cab systems to inform of why a bin collection is delayed.

The challenges of a data rich service

As digital transformation accelerates at a faster and more competitive pace, and the sector and its suppliers begin to explore increasingly innovative uses of data, including the use of AI, there are challenges and unintended consequences that need to be considered.

Take this as an example: if residents can see at the click of a button a digital twin of each of your assets which tells them exactly how many streetlights are broken or gullies are blocked, you need to communicate what you’re doing about that – and if you’re not doing anything, why? 

Resident-facing, front-end solutions which enable closed feedback loops are vital here, otherwise you risk creating more pressure on customer services or on other service areas not equipped to cope with an unintended increase in contact.

Similarly, if your use of data is intended to enable you to create more cohesion across council service areas, provisions need to be put in place to ensure everyone can provide the same level of service to avoid inconsistency and failure demand. 

For example, when we implemented an asset layer for Buckinghamshire Council’s FixMyStreet Pro to enable the automatic triaging of reports to parish and town councils, we also delivered some functionality for those parishes to be able to update the status of reports even though they do not have case management systems of their own. 

Crucially, consideration needs to be given to how the use of data could affect the accessibility of a service. This includes permanent or temporary physical and situational impairments which may cause people to be unable to, for example, use QR codes, operate digital maps or start reports from photos. Alternative steps need to be built into user journeys to ensure no one is locked out or left behind. 

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The landscape of public sector digital services is ever-changing, and we’re proud to be a part of it, working in partnership with a growing number of forward-thinking local authorities and other public bodies like Ringway, who sparked the idea for this blog post through their roundtable. 

If you’d like to talk more about data rich citizen solutions to help you provide better services, please get in touch.

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Image: Eric Weber on Unsplash

One of FixMyStreet Pro’s key features is its ability to enable councils to automatically keep residents informed on the status of their reports as they progress.

Status updates are important because, according to research we carried out with YouGov last year, receiving updates in response to a report is one of the most important things citizens expect from a reporting service. It’s also the thing that would most effectively stop them from chasing updates via other channels, which drives up the cost of reports for councils.

Templates for report status updates can be created and managed directly from the FixMyStreet Pro administration dashboard, or they can be pulled from an integrated case management system used by the council. Each time a report’s status is changed, an update will be sent to the report-maker and to anyone else subscribed to the report.

Common status updates relate to scenarios such as, but not limited to:

• Report received 
• Scheduled for inspection
• Not council responsibility
• Scheduled for repair
• Work underway
• Unable to fix – and why
• Re-opened
• Resolved

There is no limit to the number of templates you can create within FixMyStreet Pro, and they can be edited or deleted whenever necessary by staff, enabling you to quickly address any seasonal or situational changes.

So that’s what status updates are, but what makes a good one?

Best practice for report status updates

Be transparent 

For updates to be effective in reducing avoidable follow-up contact and failure demand, they need to accurately reflect what’s happening with the report. That means as well as explaining what you are going to do about a problem, you also need to explain if you are not able to do anything and why that is. 

Honest and open updates help you to educate residents on your intervention criteria, manage expectations during periods of high demand and discourage despondency and disengagement even if a problem cannot be fixed. 

Make it relevant 

Tailor your updates to the different types of problems residents are able to report to you so that they know what to expect once a report has been submitted. It helps to outline the timeframe within which you will respond to different problems, or explain why a particular problem may be higher or lower on your priority list.

Use accessible language

Take care to ensure your updates are understandable to everyone who may receive them. Avoid using technical jargon that only makes sense to members of staff, or codes from your integrated systems that won’t mean anything to residents. 

Additionally, consider using the local words for things where appropriate to apply an extra level of accessibility to the language within your updates. 

Signpost to more information

While it’s good to provide detail in your updates, it’s also important to keep them concise. Put the essential information in the update and include a link to another web page or document where the recipient can find more information if they want to.

Signposting can also be used to direct residents to emergency contact details, additional services and even customer satisfaction surveys.

Don’t create a dead end

If the update you provide is to inform the report-maker that the issue is not your responsibility, try to provide information on who is responsible, or assistance on where they might be able to find this out for themselves. This will help to reduce the likelihood of the report-maker getting back in touch. 

Acknowledge the value of the report

Finally, don’t forget to thank the resident for their report. Research shows that the main reason why residents report problems is because they want to improve the place where they live. Acknowledging this in your responses helps to improve the experience for residents and encourages continued commitment to helping you care for your area. This is particularly important in instances where the problem cannot be fixed. 

Additional advice

Alongside transparent status updates sent to residents after they have made a report, FixMyStreet Pro equips councils with a few useful ways to manage expectations beforehand, too. 

One of these is its site-wide messaging functionality, which displays a message from the council to report-makers in multiple places to inform them of, for example, expected delays in responses due to increased seasonal demand. 

Councils can also schedule these messages to display only during certain times, such as out of hours or during bank holidays.

Another way FixMyStreet Pro helps with this is by enabling councils to assign in-category messages which display during the report workflow. These can be used in a number of ways, such as to help educate on intervention criteria to ensure the report can be actioned or divert emergencies. 

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For more information about FixMyStreet Pro and its features, get in touch with us.

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Image: Reuben Juarez

Our mission here at SocietyWorks is to help local authorities and other public sector organisations better serve citizens through effective and intuitive digital solutions. That’s a big remit, and a vast user base with a wide range of accessibility requirements. So how do we accommodate everyone? Bekki Leaver, our Head of Product, wrote this blog post to explain. 

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Being suppliers of public services we have a responsibility to ensure our tools and solutions are accessible to the broadest audiences possible. This is both a legal and moral obligation, and something we take seriously. 

As Head of Product, it’s my job to ensure our tools are built to meet, if not exceed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) AA standards. Here’s what this means in practice, and some advice for local authorities and any other public sector bodies who provide public-facing digital services.

What is WCAG?

WCAG is the international standard for web accessibility created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Within WCAG there are four principles for web accessibility. Each of these has conditions that need to be met to achieve a particular standard. These very sensible principles are:

• Perceivable; making sure content is available to all. Any images have alternative text and descriptions, captioning on audio and video. Ensuring content is accessible to assistive technologies.
• Operable; let people use the thing. Avoiding distracting or flashing animations, let people interact with the website using keys or other technology.
• Understandable; things should make sense and be readable. Being able to change font sizes or zoom in on content. Allow people to correct their mistakes.
• Robust; works with the tools a user wants. Browser and device combinations.

The UK Government expects all public services to meet the WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standard, both for citizens and staff users.

Our process

SocietyWorks is heavily influenced by the GOV.UK Service Manual when it comes to designing or improving our tools and products. If you’re familiar with this, you’ll know that this means everything starts with needs: both user needs and the service needs. 

We also consider the context of use: where, when and how will the service be accessed? In addition to considering any permanent physical impairments that may impact the way a service needs to be used, we think about situational and temporary impairments too.

For example, making button targets larger for people using a service one handed due to holding a baby, having a broken arm or having bad arthritis, or improving the contrast for use of a service in poor lighting environments or by users suffering with an eye injury or partial blindness.

Our developers use semantic HTML – that’s using HTML elements for their intended purposes to build the front end of our tools. This lets browsers know what the element is and how it should behave, which makes it easier for keyboard navigation and for other assistive technologies to correctly render a website for their users. 

When we’ve got something designed and built, we test it. We use a combination of automated and manual testing to make sure the technology meets the WCAG standards, which includes, for example, checking we can tab through elements and that screen readers behave as expected.

Our biggest challenge

Knowing that no two councils or public authorities are the same, we build our digital solutions to be flexible enough to adapt to each of our clients’ individual needs. This is a great strength, but it can occasionally pose a challenge when those needs have an impact on the accessibility of the solution.

For example, we are sometimes asked to apply brand colours which have a poor contrast ratio or adjust forms to match a third party integration’s workflow in a way that makes them more difficult to use for users with certain needs. 

Advice for councils and other public sector bodies

When these instances occur, we do our best to help mitigate any negative effects on the accessibility of the services we provide. Here are some of the top tips I offer to clients when it comes to accessibility.

Firstly, I would always highly recommend commissioning an accessibility audit with a reputable auditor, such as RNIB, but you can find other providers through the Digital Marketplace. This will give you complete peace of mind that everything is working as it should for everyone who needs to use the service.

Secondly, consider your brand colours. Colour is a regular issue with accessibility, usually caused by text and background colours not having a high enough contrast. 

Lastly, ensure the language you’re using is appropriate. Whether you’re writing form field labels or creating explanatory text, use language your users will understand. For example, avoid using system-related terminology that residents may not understand, but do consider using the local names for things. You can check the readability of your content using online tools like readable.com.

Final thoughts

Creating and maintaining an accessible and inclusive service is an ongoing task. Criteria and expectations change. Keeping these goals in mind from the beginning certainly helps, as does remembering that designing services to be inclusive makes them better for everyone.

If you’re interested in learning more, check out these resources:

• WCAG Guidelines
• Accessibility and assisted digital – service manual

Or, if you have any questions about making digital services accessible to everyone, get in touch with us here.

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Images

Featured image – Daniel Ali on Unsplash

Illustration – Sherm for Disabled And Here

This blog post was written by our Managing Director, Angela Dixon, in June 2023 for techUK . You can see the original publication here.

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The use of disclosure logs in relation to freedom of information (FOI) requests under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is recommended for principal local authorities by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

There are a number of reasons for this advice, the main one being because well-maintained disclosure logs make it much easier for citizens to access information that is already available. This, in turn, saves local authorities time and effort spent on responding to duplicate requests, or requests for information that have already been published elsewhere.

Short-term effort, long term advantages

With an easy to navigate disclosure log in place, citizens should be able to browse or search for already published information. If a request is made for information that already exists in the public realm, information officers can quickly apply the Section 21 exemption in response and simply signpost requesters to the information they seek.

Disclosure logs also represent an opportunity for citizens to learn what a successful request for information looks like. The more responses published in the log, the more useful it becomes, with today’s responses answering tomorrow’s requests.

In certain cases, some of the software used by local authorities may even allow information officers to manually enter topical information into the disclosure log in anticipation of potential future FOI requests, giving them the opportunity to work proactively and publish information before it is requested.

What’s stopping more local authorities from using disclosure logs?

In spite of being recommended by the ICO, and in spite of the usefulness they represent, research in 2019 by our parent charity, mySociety, shows the use of disclosure logs by local authorities is still inconsistent.

There is a distinct lack of established sector-wide process for setting up a disclosure log, technology is rarely designed to meet the needs of information officers or FOI requesters, and there is a huge disparity in inter-authority knowledge sharing and training around this topic.

Of course, local authorities are under significant pressure to reduce costs, create efficiencies and contribute towards Net Zero targets, among many other responsibilities. Understandably then, while the long term benefits for councils’ information officers and for citizens are desirable, the short term effort required to establish an easy-to-maintain disclosure log may be considered a relatively low priority.

However, with fifteen years’ experience working in freedom of information, and over a decade of experience providing services to the local government sector, we have seen firsthand how disclosure logs, when used to their full potential, can save significant time and effort for local authorities in the context of managing scarce resources and competing priorities.

Expert advice for local authorities

In collaboration with the FOI experts on mySociety’s Transparency team, who run the well-used WhatDoTheyKnow request service, and expert FOI consultant Martin Rosenbaum, who was the BBC’s leading specialist in using freedom of information for journalistic purposes, we have put together a best practice guide to using disclosure logs for local authorities.

Download Disclosure logs: a best practice guide for local authorities to discover:

• Why, although not a legal requirement, using a disclosure log is a must for local authorities
• How to effectively set up and maintain a disclosure log
• Real world examples of councils using disclosure logs well and the positive impact they have
• Advice from FOI experts specifically for local authorities

Click here to download your free copy.

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You can view more research and guidance for local authorities and the public sector on our website: https://www.societyworks.org/research-and-guidance/

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Image: Iñaki del Olmo

This week was Public Sector Insight Week 2023 – an annual event dedicated to bringing together government and businesses to help each other use digital more effectively.

As part of the event, our managing director Angela Dixon delivered a best practice session on closing the feedback loop between local authorities and residents.

Closed feedback loops are essential to building trust, managing expectations and increasing efficiency.

In our twenty years of experience working within the public sector, we have seen how difficult it can be for councils to keep feedback loops closed, with over-stretched budgets, the transient nature of local authority staffing and a multitude of different systems used for dealing with different issues.

Angela spoke about the common problems local authorities in particular face when feedback loops are broken, how to fix them effectively and shared some of our lessons learned from our experience of helping to bridge the gap between citizens and the public sector with innovative open-source digital solutions.

If you couldn’t make it to Angela’s talk, but you are interested to hear what she had to say, you can watch the full session on YouTube.

FixMyStreet, our map-based reporting tool for street and highway problems, and FixMyStreet Pro, the fully branded, hosted and integrated version of the service, enable you to assign a status to each report you receive that is visible to the public and reflects the issue’s journey to resolution. 

With all reports displayed on the map, this report status adds an extra layer of transparency for councils and other public sector organisations using the service, allowing citizens to see not only what problems have already been reported, but also what’s being done about them.

A tool for transparency

When used properly, report statuses help to build trust and increase transparency, while also deterring duplicate reports and failure demand, which pushes report-makers back onto the phone to your customer contact centre in search of clarification or more information.

Councils and other public sector FixMyStreet Pro customers can choose from a number of statuses, designed to help you accurately share where a report is up to within your internal processes in a way that is easy for citizens to understand. 

The standard report states on FixMyStreet are currently as follows:

• Open

Report is open and confirmed (automatically applied to all new reports once report-maker has verified their email [if not signed in at the time of reporting])

• Action scheduled 

Report has been reviewed and action has been scheduled

• For triage

Report is awaiting internal review or re-categorisation

• In progress

Report’s resolution is in progress/action is being carried out

• Investigating

Report is under investigation

• Planned

Report’s resolution has been planned/scheduled as part of a wider maintenance project

• Closed

Report has been closed for one of a number of reasons (this is a generic status only to be used if another cannot be assigned, such as ‘fixed’, ‘not responsible’ or ‘no further action’ – reasons for closure can and should be included within the response template, which can be done manually or automatically via integration)

• Duplicate 

Report is about an issue that’s already been reported

• Internal referral

Report has been referred to another team within the council/public body

• Not responsible

Report is about an issue that is the responsibility of another council/public body/private organisation

• No further action

Report’s issue cannot be fixed/issue does not meet intervention criteria

• Fixed

Report’s issue has been fixed

Best practice

We leave it up to you to decide which statuses best suit your internal processes – report status names can be modified across the FixMyStreet platform (this includes the national, free-to-use FixMyStreet.com site) to better reflect those used by your customer service and inspection teams, and terms used within your integrated back-end systems. 

You can also make use of hardcoded statuses, which are named differently on the front and back end to make them easier to understand for citizens on one side and staff on the other.

Equally, additional statuses can be added if required, or you can restrict those which you do not want to be visible to the public.

However, we do recommend that, when changing the status of a report, you make use of FixMyStreet’s ability to provide a tailored, explanatory response update that will be attached to the report and emailed to all subscribers, giving more context about what the status means to help manage expectations. 

For example, when marking a report as ‘no further action’, it’s important to say why this is to help the report-maker and anyone else who’s interested understand your reasoning.

Similarly, when marking a report as ‘action scheduled’ it is worth explaining your service level agreements to set expectations for when the action should be carried out.

You can also use automatic templates that can be added to the FixMyStreet Pro front-end workflow based on back-end codes. For example, multiple codes used in your asset management or CRM system can be attached to different ‘action scheduled’ responses. 

Or if you’re using FixMyStreet Pro as your case management system, you can create your own templates and simply select the most relevant as you go.  

Avoiding confusion

Whichever way you organise your report statuses, our golden rule is to ensure that reports are not marked as ‘fixed’ until the problem has actually been resolved, or assigning one of the closed statuses (eg. ‘closed’, ‘no further action’, ‘not responsible’) without providing an explanation as to why and what this means to you.

For example, ‘closed’ to you could mean ‘action scheduled’, but to the report-maker ‘closed’ could be interpreted to mean that the issue has been fixed, so when they see that the problem is still there, it may provoke them to call you or try to reopen or duplicate the report.

Sometimes this occurs because your customer contact centre hasn’t been provided with enough guidance on what each status means in relation to your processes or how to use the response templates. Other times it’s because your front-end status mapping isn’t quite matched up to your back-end (asset management and/or CRM) status mapping.

We can help with training sessions or report status mapping, so please speak to your account manager if this is something you’d like to explore.

Want to know more about FixMyStreet or FixMyStreet Pro?

Take a look on our website, or why not request a short demo with our team?

Managing the end-to-end process of Freedom of Information requests can be a challenge for public authorities. For that reason, there are some things you should be making sure your FOI service is doing to make that process as smooth as possible for you, and for citizens.

 

1. A simple form for citizens

To help maximise the chances that FOI requests will be well-formed by the time they reach you, always offer citizens a simple form to complete, and definitely don’t ask them to send an email.

Try to avoid using generic form builders, and instead opt for one that’s been specifically designed around making FOI requests straightforward to submit, and which provides citizens with contextual help at each stage. Not only does this save you time by helping you to avoid poorly-grounded requests and diverting Subject Access Requests, it also builds trust in your willingness to be receptive to citizens’ FOI requests and make it easy for them to exercise their rights.

 

2. Reducing duplicate requests

Responding to FOI requests can be time-consuming, especially when citizens are requesting the same information. You can actively minimise the risk of receiving duplicate requests by using a suggestion system that leverages already published information by redirecting citizens to existing material before they make a request.

This could be a custom link curated by you, or a copy of a response you’ve already provided within your disclosure log. Either way, it saves you time, and means that the requester might be able to get the answer they’re looking for immediately, instead of waiting for up to 20 days.

 

3. Integration with your case management system

Of course, to be able to automatically divert citizens to potentially relevant responses already published within the disclosure log of your case management system, your FOI service needs to be integrated with it. Getting your systems to speak to each other fluently, from frontend to backend, will allow you to offer a much more intelligent service to citizens.

End-to-end integration will also save you from having to do any manual data entry, because requests will go straight through to your case management system, and a case number will be allocated to the citizen immediately.

 

4. Built-in analytics

If your FOI service isn’t helping you to gain an overview of what citizens are requesting the most, which suggestions are most popular and which are helping to reduce the number of new requests, then you’re always going to be on the back foot when it comes to responding to FOI requests.

A service that provides you with analytics will help you to better understand how you can reduce request volume or divert duplicate requests by populating your website with the relevant, in-demand information.

 

5. Increasing the value of your responses

We’ve already talked about why it’s a good idea to ensure your FOI service uses previously published responses to FOI requests or curated links to help reduce duplicates, but there’s another reason why this is a powerful tool for you to have; it increases the value of your responses.

When your Information Officers have gathered all the information required in response to a FOI request that may well be asked again by someone else, it seems a shame to let that response go to waste. If your FOI service can intelligently resurface relevant past responses within your disclosure log for citizens, then each response starts to work harder. Plus, if you have that end-to-end integration sorted, it means no more copying and pasting responses, because it will all happen automatically – a good thing for you and for the citizen.

 

6. Accessible to everyone

Anyone can make a Freedom of Information request, so it’s crucial that your FOI service meets the WCAG AA Government standard and is easy to use for everyone, no matter what adjustments they may need you to make.

From being able to enlarge the font size or change the contrast to being screen reader-friendly, it’s essential that whoever wants to make a FOI request to you, can do so without a hitch.

 

Need some help bringing your FOI service up to scratch?

Our user-centred, fully-integrated FOI Works service will help you to deliver all of the above FOI service essentials, tailored to your organisations’ needs.

Request a demo

 

If you want to learn more about FOI Works, click here.

Image: Bernard Hermant on Unsplash

Whether you’re a council or a citizen, potholes are an all-round pain in the bum(per), aren’t they? 

When it comes to citizen reports made on our FixMyStreet service, potholes are always up there among the most frequently reported problems. In fact, in 2020, despite lockdowns and less frequent travel, more potholes were reported through FixMyStreet than ever before. 

For councils, dealing with pothole reports has never been a bigger challenge. Aside from being expensive to fix (and no sooner have you fixed one than another appears), staff shortages caused by COVID-19 as workers are required to isolate have made coordinating pothole fixes a much longer, more complicated process. 

Be that as it may, at a time when most road travel is being carried out by key workers, it’s more important than ever to make the process of reporting potholes and responding to such reports as easy and as fast as possible.

This being the case, we thought we’d highlight all the ways in which FixMyStreet Pro can and does make dealing with pothole reports easier, cheaper and much less bumpy for councils and their residents. 

• Cut the cost of your pothole reports

Now more than ever, councils need to save money wherever they can. Investing in a channel shift to FixMyStreet Pro for the management of your streets and highways reports could help you save up to 98.69% per report, just like it did for Buckinghamshire Council. 

• Reduce duplicate reports 

As well as needing to save money, councils and their customer service teams also need to save time – especially time wasted on dealing with duplicate reports. FixMyStreet’s transparent approach to reporting helps to dissuade duplicate reports by allowing citizens to view reports that have already been made nearby and subscribe to updates from the council as the issue is resolved. 

• Simplify how all of your existing systems connect with each other

We know how annoying, nevermind expensive, it can be when your backend IT systems aren’t quite getting along the way you’d like them to. With FixMyStreet Pro, we promise to integrate into whichever systems you’re using to facilitate a smooth user workflow for everyone. See how this worked for Oxfordshire County Council, who, by switching to FixMyStreet Pro, were able to make immediate workflow improvements and savings by removing layers of legacy software.

• Customise your reporting forms

No one council is the same as another; you have different needs, different priorities and different ways of doing things. We take all of this into account when we’re setting up your version of FixMyStreet Pro, building it around yours and your residents’ needs. As an example, when it came to potentially hazardous reports (such as dangerous potholes), Island Roads, the company that handles highway maintenance on the Isle of Wight, requested to implement emergency categories to their version of FixMyStreet Pro to help safeguard against accidents and allow them to deal with problems faster.

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Want to get started making your pothole reports easier to navigate? Get in touch with us.

 

Image: Editor5807 (CC BY 3.0)

So we’ve pressed the button and your shiny new FixMyStreet Pro installation is now live on your website. Fantastic… now how are you going to make sure your residents know about it?

In these cash-strapped times, huge marketing campaigns are most likely not an option, so here are some ideas for low-cost coverage.

Cross promotion

What other services do you offer your users online? Whether residents are applying for parking permits or commenting on planning applications, there’s generally a ‘thanks’ or ‘success’ page at the end of the process.

This can be an ideal place to promote new services: after all, your users have pretty much self-identified as local residents, and also as people who like to complete tasks online.

Get some free local coverage

Your local paper will probably be happy to cover the story of your launch, but you can ensure continued regular coverage too, by sending out press releases based on stats.

FixMyStreet Pro’s dashboard allows you to run off statistics and create stories such as how many faults in a specific category are reported — and fixed — monthly; or to compare this year’s results with previous years.

There are many stories just waiting to be told, and local papers always like an easy angle.

Social media

Facebook, Twitter and even Snapchat or Instagram can be great places to make sure people know about your service, and for free.

You might consider running a small contest for retweeting or sharing your message, which would ensure that it reaches people beyond your own followers.  Or ask your staff to get creative and photograph themselves at every stage of a fault report, making a compelling visual journey that allows your residents to see just what happens to their reports once they click ‘submit’.

Find your local champions

Once you’ve been up and running for a few months, check in the admin interface to see whether there are residents who are making more reports than the average user.

These are likely to be the people who will recommend the service to others, especially if they’ve had success with getting their issues fixed.

They’ll often be happy to be interviewed for your newsletter, or photographed for other promotional activity. You could even identify them as a group of ‘super users’ and ask them to mention your service on social media, or to drop leaflets and posters at their habitual haunts such as coffee shops or their place of work.

Unexpected places

Once you start thinking, there are all sorts of places where a service can be promoted:

• Email signatures: ask any staff who deal with external emails to add a small link to their sign-offs.
• Postmarks: Some franking machines include the ability to customise your postmark: what a great way to get your message right into residents’ homes.
• Street furniture: What could be more ideal in terms of positioning than a message on assets such as bins, public benches, bus shelters or streetlights?

Leaflets and posters

A leaflet through every door is a costly exercise, but it’s much cheaper to deliver a stack of posters or flyers to local hubs such as libraries, job centres, gyms, playgroups and schools.

Or get creative and consider the organisations and groups most likely to use FixMyStreet: clean-up volunteers for your waterways or parks; civic societies or local history clubs, whose members tend to care about their surroundings; or perhaps there’s a local Britain in Bloom group or similar, who have a stake in keeping the area clean and tidy.

 

Those are our top ideas for cheap promotion: let us know if you have any more!

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Image: Francesco Casalino on Unsplash

Anyone in Highways Maintenance management will know the importance of tracking their team’s performance. It’s only by looking at the stats that you can clearly understand where improvements can be made.

That’s why client councils get access to a useful dashboard as part of FixMyStreet Pro’s fully-featured admin back-end, showing all reports within your chosen timeframe. These can then be further filtered by ward, status (in progress, fixed, et cetera), and category. You can even check to see how many reports were made through the website, and how many on the app, giving you a good feel of your residents’ uptake of mobile.

As you’d expect, everything can be exported as a .csv file, to add to your own reporting spreadsheets.

You can see how it looks — and have a play around — on our demo site, at https://demo.fixmystreet.com/dashboard. If you have your own installation, you’ll be able to access it if logged in as a staff member with the right permissions, at your own installation URL followed by /dashboard. Then just click on ‘Stats’.

Got questions? Why not drop in to one of our regular Friday webinars?