Blog posts about Insights

Among FixMyStreet Pro’s key benefits is its ability to allow councils and other public authorities to incorporate into each installation fault reporting for multiple service areas, flexing around individual needs and creating a consistent reporting experience for users. 

An example of this is the way in which some councils using FixMyStreet Pro have chosen to enable reporting of housing-related issues via their instances of the service to help reduce misreporting and failure demand.

Meanwhile, housing associations themselves can also use the technology as their own, running a reporting service that works in synchronisation with neighbouring councils, triaging reports between them.

As is often the case with FixMyStreet Pro, this functionality can work in different ways, depending on an authority’s individual processes and relationships with housing associations and contractors.

Internal triaging 

Where housing estates are managed by a particular team within the council that is different from the team which set up its FixMyStreet Pro service, reports can be triaged to that team using an asset layer, if the data is available.

Take Brent Council’s FixMyStreet Pro as an example, which enables users to select ‘Council Estate Grounds’ as a category, and then displays on the map an asset layer to make clear where such issues can be reported. 

 

 

Should a user make a report within this category, with the map pin placed over the layer, the report will go to Brent’s dedicated estates team directly. As well as helping the council triage reports, this also helps to educate report-makers on who’s responsible for what.

It is also possible to do this without displaying the asset layer, if you would prefer. In these cases, upon selecting a particular report category and dropping the map pin in a certain place, the report will be triaged accordingly, but without the user knowing this is what is happening.  

Signposting

Where it is not possible to directly triage a report to another system or team, FixMyStreet Pro makes it easy to signpost users to the correct place to make their report. 

In such instances, councils can display a message to the user explaining why their report can’t be made via FixMyStreet Pro and where to make it instead. 

 

 

Messages can be displayed at various points within the reporting workflow, based on either an asset layer (if available), the location of the map pin or the category or subcategory selected. 

 

 

Housing associations using FixMyStreet Pro

As well as enabling councils to incorporate housing-related reports into their services, FixMyStreet Pro can also be used by said housing associations directly, acting as their own reporting service.

The Peabody Housing Association uses FixMyStreet Pro to manage fault reports within Thamesmead, making it easy for local people to report environmental issues such as fly-tipping, pest control, public lighting and problems in or around the canals and lakes — all managed by Peabody.

 

 

FixMyStreet Pro’s ability to triage reports nationally means housing associations benefit from being able to manage reports for issues that are their responsibility, while all other reports are automatically triaged to the correct authority. 

With Peabody and its two closest borough councils, Bexley and Greenwich, as well as Transport for London, all using FixMyStreet Pro, the four bodies can work in synchronisation, making it easy for residents to successfully report problems and care for their local community.

 

 

For example, in the areas of Thamesmead which sit within the boundary of Greenwich, housing-related issues which are the responsibility of Peabody Housing Association are automatically triaged from the Royal Borough of Greenwich’s FixMyStreet Pro service. The report will not enter Greenwich’s workflow, instead going directly to the correct team at Peabody for response, with no interruption to the workflow for the report-maker.

 

Categories for caretakers

Additionally, in using the technology for themselves, housing associations can allow their caretakers to use the service to report issues via the same, simple user interface, just like Peabody have done. 

“Caretakers can now make and monitor their reports at the touch of a button, taking ownership of when reports can be closed, or when others need to be chased”

 

 

Tom Broad, Head of Environmental Services at Peabody, explains more:

“Just as we had done for residents, we wanted to make it easier for our team of 80+ caretakers that look after the 5,000+ homes in Thamesmead to be able to report the defects they find without having to go via the call centre.

“Working with the team at SocietyWorks, we explored how we could use FixMyStreet Pro to give caretakers a quick and simple way to make reports online, and to stay updated on their progress. The result was to incorporate into the existing service some new, private categories and block asset layers, only visible to caretaker staff when logged in to our FixMyStreet Pro service. Like residents, caretakers can upload photos of the issue and provide as much detail as possible within their reports.

“It’s been a real success; caretakers can now make and monitor their reports at the touch of a button, taking ownership of when reports can be closed, or when others need to be chased. With all reports visible on the map, this new functionality has helped us to plug knowledge gaps whenever a member of staff is off sick or on annual leave, making sure reports are not duplicated and updates accessible to everyone.”

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For more information about FixMyStreet Pro, please send a message to our team.

This blog post was written for techUK’s Social Value Week campaign in April 2025. 

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The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 initiated valuable shifts towards integrative procurement processes within Local Government. It encouraged purchasing decisions to be taken from a strategic perspective to deliver as much real value as possible to communities.

When approached purposefully and with the genuine alignment of values, partnerships between the public and private sectors can deliver value well beyond the specific product or service being contracted. Over time, such partnerships can increasingly generate impact across economic, social and environmental priorities.

However, generally speaking, there is still work to do to improve the implementation of social value procurement practices within Local Government to facilitate fairness, extend impact and ensure rigid, quantitative procurement processes do not lock local authorities out of the most socially responsible and valuable opportunities.

Social value as standard, not as an afterthought

As an SME belonging to the long-running civic technology charity mySociety, whose mission is to deliver technology for the public good, we hold a unique position in our understanding and delivery of social value.

From the charity’s perspective, we deliver technology (TheyWorkForYou; WhatDoTheyKnow; Council Climate Action Scorecards; Local Intelligence Hub, FixMyStreet etc.) to empower more people so that collaboratively we can build a fairer, safer future.

Meanwhile, from the commercial perspective, SocietyWorks builds on over 20 years of experience to deliver fairly-priced SaaS products (FixMyStreet Pro, WasteWorks, ApplyWorks, etc.) designed to help build trust between local authorities and residents, a crucial component of civic engagement and flourishing communities. Any profits made are reinvested into the charity to support the ongoing delivery of our charitable services.

In essence, social value is embedded in all that we do, and local authorities and other public sector organisations that choose to work with us unlock unique opportunities to play their part in supporting wider civic improvements across the UK, and even internationally.

On paper, we are exactly the kind of supplier any forward-thinking, technology-driven and socially conscious authority would want to partner with.

The impact of social value and the value of social impact

Despite delivering social value for longer than the Act itself has been in effect, and despite offering support for local economies through initiatives that harness the vast array of skills and specialised knowledge within our organisation, we often find that our internal definition of social value does not match up with that of local authority procurement teams.

Procurement frameworks often prioritise tangible, place-specific outcomes measured strictly in monetary terms, rather than considering broader societal impacts.

While local authorities appreciate working with us due to our values-based approach and our mission-driven ethos, rigid definitions within procurement processes occasionally categorise our charitable initiatives as ‘social impact’, limiting their recognition in formal evaluation criteria.

Another challenge we face as a fully-remote SME belonging to a not-for-profit group, is that we encounter procurement assessments primarily designed for significantly larger, locally-embedded suppliers, where the total absolute value quantified in sterling is the only lens through which social value is scored.

Set up in this way, procurement frameworks only measure social value in monetary terms, excluding the rich qualitative data that would illuminate true social value.

Getting better value for local authorities

By integrating qualitative assessments into procurement evaluations, local authorities could better recognise and reward innovative solutions that deliver significant societal benefits extending beyond immediate geographical boundaries.

Recognising the qualitative impact delivered by social enterprises like ours would ensure greater sustainability and effectiveness of community outcomes.

Ultimately, enhancing procurement frameworks to acknowledge the interconnected nature of social value can lead to stronger partnerships between local authorities and mission-led suppliers, maximising long-term societal benefits.

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Connect with Angela on LinkedIn or drop us a message to talk more about the social value we deliver.

We live in an era in which many of us reach for our smartphones first to find the answer to a question like “when is my bin being collected?” or “how do I report a pothole?”. 

Local governments and other public sector organisations face the challenge of ensuring they keep up with expectations to provide easy and intuitive digital access to their services, and to do so in an accessible and cost-effective way. 

Dedicated, standalone apps (ie. those that run from their own codebase) are often chosen as the perfect solution, because everyone likes an app, right?

Well, actually no. According to research we carried out with YouGov in 2022, only 22% of citizens want to use an app they have to download to contact their local authority.

In our two decades of experience providing high-traffic digital services for members of the public, we believe that Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) present a more efficient and inclusive alternative.

What are PWAs?

PWAs are websites that have been designed with ‘app like’ qualities. 

They look and act like an app and they can be downloaded to a mobile’s home screen like an app, but they run from the same codebase as your website, removing barriers to access and enabling you to provide exactly the same experience to users across your online environment at no extra cost.

Why are PWAs a good choice for the public sector?

Accessibility for all

PWAs work on any device with a web browser, eliminating the need for users to download and install an app in order to access a service. This is particularly important in the public sector, where digital services must be accessible to everyone, regardless of their device type or storage limitations.

Cost-effective development and maintenance

Building and maintaining separate iOS and Android apps is expensive and resource-intensive. PWAs streamline development by using a single codebase that works across platforms, reducing costs and simplifying updates.

No app store barriers

Because PWAs run from the same codebase as your web service and can be saved to home screens directly instead of downloaded via an app store, you can ensure faster deployment and updates whenever you need to make a change. 

Increased visibility

Another benefit of using PWAs is that your service will appear in search engine results, making it easier for members of the public to find what they need when starting from an online search. 

Offline functionality and performance

PWAs permit offline capability to your website, by downloading a bit of JavaScript (called a service worker) to your device. This means people can, for example, start reports on-the-go without internet connection, and finish them later when back online. This is particularly beneficial for remote communities or frontline contractors who need to access services even in low-connectivity environments.

Security and compliance

Where a digital public service handles potentially sensitive data, PWAs leverage HTTPS protocols for secure communications, reducing risks associated with app store vulnerabilities while maintaining compliance with security standards.

The future of public sector digital services

By adopting PWAs, local governments and other public sector organisations can provide fast, reliable and cost-effective digital services to a broader audience. 

As governments strive for digital inclusivity and efficiency, PWAs offer a forward-thinking solution that prioritises accessibility, security and seamless user experiences.

For local governments and the wider public sector, embracing PWAs is a strategic move towards a more accessible and efficient public service landscape.

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All of SocietyWorks’ solutions are designed as PWAs . Get in touch to find out more. 

Our front-end designer Lucas Cumsille Montesinos highlights some of the work he’s been doing recently to make FixMyStreet and all integrated co-branded versions of the service running on FixMyStreet Pro more accessible.

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Over the past year we have been collaborating with users of FixMyStreet and FixMyStreet Pro to enhance the solution’s accessibility, making improvements to the user experience for people using assistive devices. 

One of our clients, Transport for London (TfL), shared an accessibility audit of their installation of FixMyStreet Pro with us. The document listed issues detailing information regarding the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and some improvements that could be applied.

Here are some of the points they shared with us:

• Description of the issue.
• Level success criteria using the WCAG standard: Level A (lowest), AA, and AAA (highest).
• A link to the page and location of the component where the issue can be found, along with instructions for replicating the problem if necessary.
• Status of the issue: Pass, Pass with comments, N/A, Fail.
• They also provided recommendations made by the auditor.

What improvements did we make?

The report from TfL allowed us to work on different areas of improvement, for example:

• Meaningful Sequence: We focused on making the order in which assistive devices present the information match the order in which the page is visually presented.
• Non-text Content: We hid purely decorative elements from screen readers, reducing unnecessary clutter for users when navigating the site.
• Info and Relationships: We improved and updated the role and attributes of some HTML elements so assistive devices can better understand the context and how to use those elements.
• Focus Order: When someone is tabbing through a website (using their keyboard instead of a mouse), everything should flow naturally and make sense. It’s making sure that when you hop from one thing to the next, the order matches how you’d understand the content – no jumping around to random spots that leave you scratching your head.

What did we learn?

• Include the WCAG conformance level (from A to AAA), where level A is the minimum. Ideally, you would like the website you are working on to comply with all Level AA success criteria. Using the conformance level makes it easier for you to prioritise which issues should be tackled first and which ones can be done later.
• Some issues won’t require a lot of time to fix. This can be your second factor when it comes to prioritising which improvements to make first. For example, easy fixes like adding aria-labels or increasing the contrast between the text and the background colour can be done in little time and greatly improves the user experience of your website.
• If you find an accessibility issue, always try to provide as much detail as possible, especially if someone else will be doing the work to fix it. The TfL document made solving the issues much faster and minimised any back-and-forth. Even sharing which browser you were using when experiencing the error can make a difference.
• One of the most interesting experiences was solving issues that didn’t seem like an issue (at the time), but once you deprive yourself of literally looking at the screen and using an assistive device, then the problem starts making sense. For example, the action of a button can make sense when you are looking at the screen and the elements that are surrounding it, but if you can’t see the context, the elements around the button, then the button might not make much sense. Adding further instructions like an aria-label that provide the context that the eyes are missing can help users understand where they are and what they can do much better.
• Finally, it is a great exercise to be more conscious when designing a website. Yes, a certain text, link, or button colour can look great, but can it be read easily? What about colourblind users? You can install plugins in your browser to help you see the page the way they would see it.

Our accessibility improvements were rolled out to the national FixMyStreet site and all co-branded FixMyStreet Pro sites. However it is worth noting that FixMyStreet Pro is designed to accommodate the branding and styling of each authority that uses it, which can mean that some of our accessible default settings are overridden. This is why we always recommend that authorities carry out an accessibility audit on their own services.

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Thanks for sharing, Lucas!

Read more about how we design accessible digital services, or browse more posts from the SocietyWorks team.

At SocietyWorks we believe in transparency. One of the ways we live this value is by working in the open, and giving our team members space on our blog to write about what they’re working on, something they’re interested in or even perhaps a mistake or challenge they’ve learned from.

In this blog post our Head of Development, Matthew Somerville, writes about a new waste container generator for our WasteWorks solution which uses CSS to make it easier to generate waste images tailored to individual councils’ branding and bin types.

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WasteWorks is in use by a number of different councils, all of which have their own types of bin, in various colours and sizes (you can see a large array of photos of bins in use by local councils at the lovely govbins.uk site). An image of each type of bin associated with a property is displayed to residents from the WasteWorks homepage.

Our designer Lucas came up with some nice simple iconography for us to use on bin day pages, including domestic wheelie bins, communal bins, sacks and boxes. When we’ve had a new client, whose bins are differently coloured to any previous council, Lucas has been providing us with new PNG images to match the bins the council uses, exported from the source vector images. As well as the right colours, each PNG had to be provided at two different sizes, to work with high-resolution displays, and so we’ve built up a small collection of such bin images over the years.

These pictures only vary by colour (and the presence of a recycling logo), so I wondered if there was a better way we could generate these images. SVGs are vector graphics – they scale to any resolution, and importantly for this can be styled with CSS, the same mechanism used to style a web page. CSS also has “variables”, where you can define e.g. a variable to be a particular colour, and then use that variable in a different part of the document (or SVG image).

Lucas and I worked together to come up with SVGs for the various containers, which instead of specifying any fill colours directly, used one or more CSS variables to specify the colours. For the recycling logo, we set a variable for the opacity of the logo – defaulting to 0, so invisible, but we can set it to 1 to have it appear.

We’ve added a page to our user manual where you can play around with the colour of our new bin images in real time:
https://www.societyworks.org/manuals/wasteworks/container-picture-generator/ :-)

More technical details

The header of our domestic wheelie bin SVG looks something like this:

<svg class="waste-service-image">
 <style>
  .wheel { fill: #333333; }
  .main { fill: var(--primary-color, var(--default-color)); }
  .lid { fill: var(--lid-color, var(--primary-color, var(--default-color))); }
  .recycling-logo { fill: #ffffff; opacity: var(--recycling-logo, 0); }
 </style>
 ...

See that the CSS uses the var() fallback parameter so that the lid colour will e.g. default to the primary colour if not specified.

We used CSS mix-blend-modes in order to have shadows and highlights that would work regardless of the colour they were placed on top of; here’s an example shadow:

<g style="mix-blend-mode:multiply" opacity="0.12">
  <path fill="black" d="M95.1227 90.7581L120.495 681.301H79.3654L50.9626 90.7581H95.1227Z">
</g>

Then when we embed an SVG in someone’s bin day page, the web page itself, outside the image, can specify what colour to use by setting the corresponding CSS variable, and the picture will then appear in the right colours. When we have a new bin colour, we don’t need to create a new image, only set the right colour.

Here’s the outline of an SVG on a bin day page, for a grey bin with a blue lid, showing the recycling logo:

<span style="--primary-color: #767472; --lid-color: #00A6D2; --recycling-logo: 1;">
 <svg class="waste-service-image">
  <style>
   [... style as above ...]
  </style>
  [...]
 </svg>
</span>

As an organisation we talk a lot about how our civic tech products are able to flex around individual authorities’ needs. This is not something we say because it sounds good; it is a commitment from us.

Take our residential waste management portal WasteWorks as an example. 

A waste service that works for everyone

WasteWorks is a front-end SaaS product which integrates with in-cab systems to simplify online access to all waste services associated with a property’s address, such as checking your bin days, ordering a new container or reporting a problem with a collection.

We built the core WasteWorks service in 2021 in collaboration with the London Borough of Bromley, who wanted to reduce the amount of unnecessary contact they were receiving about residential waste services caused by their existing processes. 

With that goal in mind, we equipped WasteWorks with the ability to not only let residents self-serve up-to-date information about their waste collections (including being able to download a live schedule to their device’s calendar), but also to ensure that reports of, for example, missed collections can only be made after the crew has completed their rounds.

Since launching for Bromley, WasteWorks has consistently achieved a 40% drop in unnecessary contact, and made the final of the LGC Awards 2022 in the Public/Private Partnership category. 

As more authorities have adopted the service, we have continued to add new functionality in alignment with the needs of our community of users, including:

• Green garden waste subscriptions – enabling residents to subscribe to and pay for green waste collections
• Bulky waste collection bookings – residents can book and pay for a one-off collection or subscribe to repeat collections if required
• Small item collections – take bookings for the collection of small items, such as batteries and textiles
• Assisted collection requests – let residents request help from your waste crew with their bin collection(s)
• New container payments – take payments for new containers when requested by residents

The implementation of these features differs per council, adapting to their different rules, workflows and seasonal circumstances. 

For example, where an authority needs to understand what and how many containers a property already has we are able to add in extra questions to gather this information.

In other instances, where an authority experiences shortages of sacks, we are able to give council staff the ability to temporarily switch off orders and communicate transparently. 

The future

Each council using WasteWorks has made it their own, with slightly different configurations to make it exactly what they need.

We can facilitate this because our software is built with local authority differences in mind. We have learned from delivering our long-running street and environment reporting service FixMyStreet Pro across over 30 authorities that even when the goal is the same, the approach can differ. We embed that flexibility into all of our products.

In terms of new developments, we will continue to be led by our users (both residents and staff) following our citizen-centred design principles. User groups enable us to bring everyone together to discuss ideas, while customers have the opportunity to log suggestions through our helpdesk service at any time. 

Waste is a service area that will be subject to much change over the coming years in response to new regulations and legislation aimed at helping us respond to climate change.  

However requirements change, we will be there to support our local authority clients along the journey.

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If you’d like a conversation about transforming online access to residential waste services with scalable open source software, get in touch.

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Image: Abel Matthew via Pexels

At SocietyWorks we describe our digital solutions as ‘citizen-centred’ – unusual wording in a world full of ‘user-centred’, ‘human-centred’ and other similarly phrased products that all essentially boil down to meaning “made with people in mind”. 

So why do we choose to call our solutions ‘citizen-centred’, and what does that mean in practice? We asked Bekki Leaver, our Head of Product, to explain.

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What makes us and our products citizen-centred?

When talking about our citizen-centred digital solutions, it’s impossible to do so without acknowledging our history and connection to our parent charity mySociety, whose goal is to help people everywhere be active citizens by engaging in civic society. 

To us, a citizen is anyone who is, or wants to be engaged in that civic space. This mission to engage can be seen throughout mySociety’s tools and services: FixMyStreet makes it easier to report local street-based problems to the correct authority, while WhatDoTheyKnow helps citizens make Freedom of Information requests and consolidates responses. 

They, among the many, many others built by mySociety over the last 20 years, were designed to make the interaction between authority and citizen easier for the citizen. This drive to make things less of a burden on the individual is what underpins our citizen-centric design and we use all the tools in our arsenal to do it. 

As the wholly owned subsidiary of mySociety, SocietyWorks extends the impact of the charity, applying that citizen-centred approach to the development of products specifically for local government and the public sector.

We apply everything we’ve learnt through running our charitable civic tech services to help us advocate for citizens in the design of authorities’ own services, to help them provide the best possible experience for their users.

Citizen-centred service design in practice

Of course, we follow standard user-centred design practices, like uncovering needs and running usability studies, when we make improvements or design new things. This is part of our alignment with the GOV.UK Service Standard and is, in our opinion, the right way to do things. 

We also build and test our solutions with accessibility in mind. Again, these are standard practices in the design and development world these days.

Where we differ is our approach to deploying these solutions. We design our products with the flexibility authorities need in order to integrate into any combination of existing systems and processes. 

Unlike cookie cutter, off the shelf products, we recognise that different clients need different things, but balance this customisable approach with a commitment to ensuring the needs of the authority never clash with those of the citizen, creating what we hope is a positive outcome for both!

In essence, we’ll ask slightly more of you (the authority) as a client, but you want us to, because you’ll have better services and happy residents as a result.

What does the future hold?

As a society, our reliance on digital solutions will only continue to increase. New products and services are being created to reduce administrative burdens on authorities, which are driving more citizens to take a self-service approach. 

With this increase in responsibility on citizens, we, as creators, need to continue putting them at the centre of that creation and persist in collaborating with authorities to find what works best for everyone.

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Find out more about SocietyWorks, or subscribe to our monthly newsletter to have updates come to you.

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Image: Centre For Ageing Better

As you are probably aware, W3C recently published an updated version of its Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Government Digital Service (GDS) will start to monitor for compliance with the new guidelines in October 2024. 

However, we’re pleased to say that SocietyWorks solutions already meet them, thanks to the way our design and development team build accessibility into our products as standard. 

What is WCAG 2.2?

WCAG 2.2 outlines the latest essential standards for making web content on desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile devices more accessible to a wider range of users. 

The guidelines incorporate a number of different accommodations and alternative interactions which enable people with disabilities of all kinds to simply and successfully access digital content and services.

Due to the scope of web content covered by the guidelines, there may be some which don’t apply to every solution.

Upon testing our products against the relevant aspects of the new success criteria, we’re delighted to say that our digital solutions are already 2.2 compliant.

What makes SocietyWorks’ solutions so accessible?

As a supplier of citizen-facing digital solutions to the public sector, we know our solutions need to cater to a broad audience with a wide variety of accessibility needs. SocietyWorks is heavily influenced by the GOV.UK Service Manual and strives to meet if not exceed the WCAG AA standards. 

Accessibility is built into our products as standard throughout the development and design process, which means we already meet the 2.2 level accommodations that apply to us. 

For example, all of the buttons and other pointer targets have a clickable area of at least 24x24px. We also ensure that text follows the contrast levels required by 2.2, and that content is arranged under clear heading hierarchies to make pages easier for users of screen readers and text-to-voice software.

For more information about how we make out solutions accessible, you can find out more here. 

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Image: abdoudz

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

While we pride ourselves on building digital solutions that make it easier for citizens to interact with local authorities, we also want our products to be just as easy to use for the staff members at those authorities. In this blog post, Bekki Leaver, our Head of Product, talks about how we’re currently working on enhancing the admin user experience of SocietyWorks’ digital solutions.

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An often neglected facet of designing digital services and the tools that enable them is the experience of the staff user. In SocietyWorks’ case, staff users of our products would be the council staff and sometimes external contractors who use both the administration interface and the front end of our solutions. 

Giving equal priority to the admin user experience alongside that of the end user is something I’ve got a keen interest in, because during the course of my professional career I have seen the remarkable benefits to organisations that well thought out staff interfaces and tools can have.

Why is the staff admin user experience important?

When you’re on the phone to a contact centre and they’re apologising for their slow or unresponsive system, that’s poor customer and staff user experience. When an employee is having to copy and paste fields from a spreadsheet into another tool, that’s poor staff user experience. When you have to know the foibles of a piece of software on top of your area of expertise, that’s poor staff user experience.

For many years the expectations staff have of the tools and software they are required to use in their roles have been low. Using archaic HR platforms to request leave was just something you put up with, but as the workforce changes, and staff become more digitally literate, doing complex, previously unachievable things online every day, their expectations are higher and their tolerance for bad experiences is lower.

The value of good staff user experience parallels that of good customer experience; lower barriers to entry, higher satisfaction, improved relationship. There are also the benefits of better efficiency where intuitive, easy to use interfaces speed up interactions while also involving less training.

What we’re doing

Improving the user experience for a product is never a finished task, with expectations changing all the time. Here at SocietyWorks, there’s a lot we would like to do to enhance the staff user experience of our products, which have advanced at a fast rate over the last few years.

Take FixMyStreet Pro for example, which now provides staff users with greater access to more controls and options through its administration interface.

As we continue to grow and expand the administration features and functionality of our products, we are keen to make sure that any improvements we make for the benefit of staff users are guided by those users themselves.

We’ve reached out to a group of authorities that use our solutions to participate in some research involving the staff users of the tool(s), exploring their roles, how our technology fits into their responsibilities and how they use the solution(s) on a day-to-day basis. I’ll be talking to them about their daily tasks, what other tools they might use and where things could be made better for them.

The results of that research will then inform our decisions on improving our products, not just in the case of what it can do, but where information and controls are and how staff users can interact with them. We’ll then set about designing new features, experiences and interactions, with regular testing and feedback opportunities before a phased implementation.

I’m expecting some pretty significant design changes, so watch this space!

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Image: Will H McMahan on Unsplash