Blog posts about News

Surrey County Council has switched to using SocietyWorks’ FixMyStreet Pro solution for managing street and highway fault reports from residents. 

SocietyWorks is pleased to be working in collaboration with Surrey County Council to provide a dedicated installation of FixMyStreet Pro, which replaces the Council’s existing online reporting system for problems such as potholes, grass cutting and blocked drains. 

Surrey’s FixMyStreet Pro is integrated with Boomi, the system used by the Council to link together its various backend management systems, such as Confirm, used for asset management, and Zendesk, the CRM system. Connected via an API, FixMyStreet Pro facilitates a two-way flow of communication between report-makers and the Council, making it easier to keep people informed on report progress. 

As a map-based reporting solution, FixMyStreet Pro displays individual assets such as street lights and drains to increase the accuracy of reports. Assets for Surrey are shared with FixMyStreet Pro directly from the Council’s map server.

Members of the public are able to view existing reports on the map and can subscribe to updates on any which are of interest. Jobs raised internally by council staff are also displayed on the map via the API integration with Boomi.

Additionally, FixMyStreet Pro suggests potential duplicates to users at the point of making a report and encourages them to subscribe to the existing report to help reduce unnecessary contact.  

Through its connection to the national FixMyStreet service, run by SocietyWorks’ parent charity mySociety, Surrey County Council’s FixMyStreet Pro is able to automatically divert reports of issues that are the responsibility of another neighbouring authority.

Matt Furniss, Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Economic Growth, said: “We’re very aware that well-maintained roads are highly important to our residents. This is why here in Surrey, we’re investing nearly £300m in repairing and improving Surrey’s roads and pavements by 2028.

Introducing the ‘FixMyStreet’ platform is another example of our continued investment in our vital highways service. This new reporting platform will make it easier for people to report potholes and other defects, and to check the progress of all repairs in their local area.

Keeping Surrey’s busy road network moving and investing in improving our roads continue to be top priorities for Surrey County Council.”

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “It’s great to welcome Surrey County Council into our lively community of FixMyStreet Pro users. This solution is, and always has been developed in partnership with the councils using it, and we look forward to including Surrey’s voice when shaping its future.”

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The technology behind FixMyStreet Pro has been helping councils and other public bodies to transform fault reporting and rebuild trust with citizens for over 17 years now.  Find out more about how it could work for you.

Merton Council is the latest in a growing number of local authorities to use WasteWorks for providing self-service online access to residential waste services.

SocietyWorks has launched a brand new installation of WasteWorks for Merton Council, including integration into three of the Council’s systems to enable a seamless flow of data and ensure residents can access up-to-date information on-demand.

Branded to complement Merton Council’s existing online environment, WasteWorks enables residents to self-serve information about the waste services associated with their property, including checking their bin days, monitoring the status of their collections and reporting problems such as missed collections or damage once the collection round is completed.

Users can also request new or extra containers, request assisted collections and book, subscribe to and pay for green and bulky waste collections using the service.

Data on collections is surfaced for users via integration with the Selected Interventions Echo in-cab system, used by the Council’s waste services provider Veolia. The service is also integrated into the Council’s own CRM system, powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365, to enable council staff to manage all reports and requests from a central system. Meanwhile, payments for one-off or subscription services are handled through integration with Adelante SmartPay.

WasteWorks was launched in 2021 and designed in collaboration with Bromley Council, where it produced a 40% drop in unnecessary contact within the first few months of launching and a continual rise in subscriptions to waste services. Shortlisted for the Public/Private Partnership award at the LGC Awards 2022, the solution aims to reduce avoidable contact and simplify access to waste services.

SocietyWorks is already partnered with Merton Council for the provision of its street, highway and environment reporting service, which has been powered by FixMyStreet Pro since 2021. 

Maureen McKean, Customer Access Point Team Leader at Merton Council, said: “The transition to WasteWorks was pretty much seamless and the level of support during the go live period superb. Any issues were rapidly dealt with. Users have been able to adapt to the new process well.”

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “The implementation of WasteWorks marks a new chapter in our partnership with Merton, and as a small, not-for-profit supplier we are delighted to have Merton’s trust in supporting them with another service area transition. We look forward to seeing the impact WasteWorks has in the borough.”

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Find out more about WasteWorks.

We’re delighted to be providing the London Borough of Bexley with a dedicated installation of WasteWorks, our integrated front-end residential waste portal.

We are working in partnership with Bexley using agile methodologies to provide a phased roll out of WasteWorks.

The first phase of this project delivers the initial functionality of the service, including an API integration into the Council’s in-cab system, which is provided by Whitespace Work Software. This enables residents to check their bin days on-demand, and report missed collections within specified timeframes (e.g. only after the waste crew has completed its round).

Following this, future phases of the project will introduce functionality including bulky and green garden waste subscriptions, new container and assisted collection requests, clinical waste collections and more. 

WasteWorks is the second SocietyWorks solution chosen by Bexley, where FixMyStreet Pro has been providing an easy way for residents to report local street, highway and environment problems since 2019. The two services will sit alongside each other, sharing the same accessible and user-friendly design.

Rob Flicker, Project Lead and Digital Manager at London Borough of Bexley, said: “Bexley were looking for a new Waste solution to improve our resident journey, providing an easy-to-use reporting tool and full integration with our Waste Management system. We evaluated several different options and selected WasteWorks as the best fit for Bexley.

“The first phase of the project delivered by SocietyWorks was to provide residents with a Bin Collection Day look up together with the ability to report Missed Bins as part of the new functionality. The SocietyWorks team have delivered an excellent product that provides Bexley’s residents with an easy-to-use reporting tool and displays clear real-time status updates for this service.

“I would like to take the opportunity to thank the SocietyWorks Team for getting the WasteWorks solution live on-time and on-budget. I am looking forward to working with them to implement the Garden Waste and Replacement Containers services for the next phase of this project implementation.”

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “Providing simple, self-service digital access to residential waste services is essential for local authorities looking to improve service delivery while keeping costs down. We’re so pleased to be working with the team at Bexley on this project, and look forward to seeing the impact WasteWorks makes.”

Mike Nicholls, Chief Commercial Officer at Whitespace Work Software, said: “Whitespace Work Software plays a crucial role in our mission to modernise waste management services for the London Borough of Bexley. Through API integration into the WasteWorks portal, residents will benefit from seamless access to vital information regarding bin days and reporting missed collections.”

About WasteWorks

WasteWorks launched in 2021 and was co-designed with the London Borough of Bromley, where its intelligent features have helped the Council to achieve a 40% drop in avoidable customer contacts about waste services.

Shortlisted for the Public/Private Partnership Award at the LGC Awards 2022, WasteWorks is designed as a Progressive Web App (PWA). This means it functions beautifully on any device, and can be downloaded to mobile devices to be used as an app, without the need to maintain a separate app codebase.

Find out more about WasteWorks here.

We are delighted to have appointed two new members to our board of directors: Anna Scott and Alastair Tibbitt.

Both Anna and Alastair join us as non-executive directors, each bringing a wealth of experience and insight that will help us to ensure we are providing the highest level of support to our public sector clients. 

Anna and Alastair have also taken seats as trustees on the board of our parent charity mySociety.

Meet Anna

Anna is a content, brand and User Centred Design specialist with a background in data and human rights. She directed content and brand strategy at Open Data Institute, 360Giving and clients across data ethics and civic tech, and cut her teeth as a Guardian journalist.

Anna currently designs digital public services as a Senior Content Designer at Defra. She has a Masters in Human Rights from UCL. Outside work, Anna spends time chasing her toddler around and working on an electronic music project.

Meet Alastair

Alastair is a journalist and digital audience specialist with decades of experience in digital media and developing new models for public interest news.

Alastair currently works at The Conversation, and has previously worked with broadcaster STV, along with a number of other non-profit news projects. He is a founding co-director of Scottish investigative journalism co-operative, The Ferret. He also provides training and mentoring to journalists and campaigners on how to make the most of their information rights.

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As a not-for-profit organisation wholly owned by a charity, our board members give their time and expertise voluntarily. We’re grateful to each of them for their guidance. Get to know the rest of our board or get in touch to ask us a question. 

We are pleased to announce that SocietyWorks has been accepted onto the Crown Commercial Service’s (CSS) Low Value Purchase System (LVPS).

The LVPS is specifically for low cost and uncomplicated goods and services. Our SaaS products can be purchased through the LVPS either through direct award or via what’s known as a mini competition. 

As a not-for-profit SME, being accepted onto the LVPS opens up a vital new route to market, while giving our customers another Public Contracts Regulations 2015 compliant and pre-approved way to procure our solutions.

Our acceptance onto the framework is also testament to our belief that pricing should always be transparent and costs should always be kept to a minimum, even when the impact is high. Visit the CCS website for more information on how the LVPS works.

Our products and services are also available on G-Cloud and Digital Outcomes.

If you have any questions about procuring SocietyWorks’ solutions, please get in touch and we’ll be happy to help. 

We are delighted to share that SocietyWorks has been awarded a Cyber Essentials Plus certification, along with our parent charity mySociety.

The Cyber Essentials Plus audited certification follows our existing Cyber Essentials certification, which we have been awarded yearly since 2019.

As a supplier of digital products and services to local authorities and the public sector, we know that cyber security is of the utmost importance to our customers.

Achieving the Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation reflects our continued commitment to cyber security, with robust policies and technical controls in place to defend against the most common cyber threats. 

You can find more information about Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus on the National Cyber Security Centre website.

Or you might like to read more about our approach to security and secure hosting for our digital solutions.

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Image: Image by Freepik

Two new installations of FixMyStreet Pro have been launched for North Northamptonshire Council and West Northamptonshire Council, respectively. 

Residents can use both services to report local street, highway and environment problems, such as potholes, fly-tipping and blocked drains, to the two councils. 

Report-makers are kept informed on the status of their reports thanks to an Open311 API integration with the councils’ backend systems, which are managed by their highways contractor Kier.

Existing reports are shown on the map, and potential duplicates are suggested to users within the reporting workflow. If the problem is the same, they can subscribe to the existing report instead of re-reporting. 

Getting reports to the right place

FixMyStreet Pro is a map-based system, which triages reports based on the location data and category selected within a report. 

Helpfully, because FixMyStreet Pro is built upon the national FixMyStreet platform, the two versions of the service are able to triage reports between North and West Northamptonshire automatically, as well as nationally to other councils and to National Highways. 

[FixMyStreet Pro] will allow us to manage our customer expectations in a much more streamlined approach and enables us to move into a new way of working.  We would like to thank SocietyWorks for their help and support in achieving this.

– Michelle Johnson, Senior Business Improvement Officer at West Northamptonshire Council

For reports of issues not handled by Kier, FixMyStreet Pro will direct these to internal teams within each council, who can manage responses and updates from the FixMyStreet Pro administration dashboard. 

Meanwhile, reports of abandoned vehicles will be sent to Northamptonshire Police.

This functionality helps to prevent unnecessary contact and failure demand, while improving the reporting experience for members of the public.

Easy to use for everyone

FixMyStreet Pro is designed as a Progressive Web App (PWA), which means each council benefits from a web service that functions beautifully on any device, and can be downloaded to mobile devices to be used as an app without needing to maintain two codebases.

Being a PWA also means the service provides offline functionality, enabling people to start reports while offline, save them as drafts and complete them when connected to the internet again. 

This is ideal for North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire, where a large proportion of the areas covered by the councils are very rural. 

This will also benefit on-the-ground inspector staff, who will be able to use FixMyStreet Pro’s administration features while out and about, such as viewing a shortlist of reports, inspecting problems and updating reports.

Supporting Northamptonshire’s unitary transition

FixMyStreet Pro was first introduced in the county of Northamptonshire by the former Northamptonshire County Council and Kier in 2019.

In 2021, a unitary split turned Northamptonshire County Council into North Northamptonshire Council and West Northamptonshire Council. 

The new councils each absorbed responsibility for Northamptonshire’s district councils, with different issues now going to a different council based on location and category. 

Working with NNC and WNC and SocietyWorks has been a pleasure throughout, and we hope to continue to expand upon the functionality provided.

– Dhugal Leverett, Senior Software Developer at Kier Transportation

FixMyStreet Pro continued to provide a combined reporting service for the two new councils to ensure there was no interruption for residents wanting to report a problem and minimise confusion around which council was now responsible for what.

That was a great interim solution to help each council navigate their internal changes while keeping things simple for residents on the front end until each was in a position to be able to roll out their own branded service.

Fixing streets in Northamptonshire

The launch of FixMyStreet Pro for North Northamptonshire Council and West Northamptonshire Council has been a collaborative effort between SocietyWorks, the two councils and Kier.

Philip Beecroft, Head of Highways at North Northamptonshire Council, said: “We are delighted to have secured our own independent FixMyStreet system by working with SocietyWorks. 

“The separation of the former County-wide system to provide North and West Northamptonshire each with a standalone service allows us to move forward with our customer journey in a much more efficient way and will allow our Highways Service Provider, Kier, to expand on the existing integration between their Works Management system and FixMyStreet. This will allow us to make any necessary changes to ensure that our customers receive the best service.”

Speaking on behalf of West Northamptonshire Council, Michelle Johnson, Senior Business Improvement Officer, said: “We are delighted to have split the system between us and North Northamptonshire Council. 

“The split will allow us to manage our customer expectations in a much more streamlined approach and enables us to move into a new way of working.  We would like to thank SocietyWorks for their help and support in achieving this.”

Dhugal Leverett, Senior Software Developer at Kier Transportation, added: “Kier are pleased to be able to expand on the existing integration between our Works Management system and FixMyStreet.

“Working with NNC and WNC and SocietyWorks has been a pleasure throughout, and we hope to continue to expand upon the functionality provided.”

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “I’m really proud of how we’ve been able to support North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire throughout this project.

“It’s wonderful to see our technology being used to its full potential by local authorities, to see how it supports authorities through times of change and uncertainty while transitioning to unitary, and always while keeping residents at the front and centre.”

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Want to learn more about FixMyStreet Pro? Get in touch and we’ll be happy to answer your questions.

A new integration has been completed between FixMyStreet Pro and Microsoft Entra ID (formerly known as Azure Active Directory) for Transport for London (TfL).

Using an OpenID Connect-compliant endpoint, the integration enables TfL staff user accounts on FixMyStreet Pro to be securely linked to TfL’s Entra ID. 

This makes it easier and faster for authorised staff to log in to the FixMyStreet Pro administration dashboard, from which they can access different features depending on their account type permissions. 

It also means that roles are automatically synced between the two systems, with a user’s assigned role and account access on Entra ID automatically reflected in FixMyStreet Pro. This increases security and decreases the administrative burden for authorities who provide access to large teams. 

FixMyStreet Pro’s administration features include:

1. Viewing all reports
2. Editing or updating reports
3. Making reports on behalf of members of the public who call or email the contact centre
4. Assigning reports to inspectors
5. Creating and editing response templates
6. Viewing and exporting report data for analysis

Helping care for London’s streets

TfL’s FixMyStreet Pro service, known as Streetcare, allows members of the public to report problems such as potholes, faulty street lights and damaged bus shelters on London’s roads straight to the highway authority. 

Through FixMyStreet Pro’s connection to the national FixMyStreet service, it is capable of triaging reports of problems that are not the responsibility of TfL to the correct borough council or, in some areas, the responsible housing association. 

Users who don’t realise the problem they want to report via Streetcare cannot be addressed by TfL will be diverted to the national FixMyStreet site. Meanwhile, reports of abandoned hire bikes and scooters are sent directly to the correct operator. 

FixMyStreet Pro works this out on behalf of report-makers according to the location and category of the problem, mitigating against the creation of failure demand. This is particularly helpful in places like London where a vast number of authorities are responsible for overlapping issues. 

Vice versa, it is possible for reports of problems that are the responsibility of TfL made via a council or other authority’s own instance of FixMyStreet Pro to be automatically diverted. See below an example of how this works on the London Borough of Bexley’s FixMyStreet Pro service, which allows users to make reports using Bexley’s site, but sends them to TfL:

Wherever you are in the UK, FixMyStreet Pro can help you to provide a more efficient, intuitive and streamlined reporting service. Find out more. 

Following the recent implementation of WasteWorks in the London boroughs of Kingston and Sutton, both councils’ versions of the service can now be used by residents to book bulky waste collections online.

WasteWorks was chosen by Kingston and Sutton in 2022 as part of a programme of ongoing improvements to residential waste services for both boroughs. The service is already used by residents to easily and conveniently access information about their bin days, report problems with collections, request new containers and subscribe to green waste collections.

The addition of the bulky waste collection functionality incorporates another aspect of the councils’ waste service into WasteWorks’ user-friendly interface, which was designed in collaboration with Bromley Council to simplify access to residential waste online and reduce avoidable customer contact.

For Kingston and Sutton, WasteWorks is integrated with the Selected Interventions Echo in-cab system, which is used by Veolia, the waste contractor for both councils. This integration enables a seamless two-way flow of data between residents and Veolia, sharing up-to-date information about waste collections, such as when a bin will next be collected, or why a collection was missed, and enabling residents to reserve available collection slots for bulky waste.

To allow residents to pay for their collections within the same workflow, WasteWorks is also integrated with the Capita Pay 360 payment system for Kingston, and the Barclaycard system for Sutton. 

Residents can also use WasteWorks to report a missed bulky collection and submit cancellation requests.

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “The delivery of WasteWorks for Kingston and Sutton has been a significant collaborative effort between SocietyWorks, Kingston and Sutton, Selected Interventions and Veolia. All parties share a dedication to improving waste services for residents, and we are thrilled to be able to support them with this with scalable, citizen-centred technology.” 

Find out more about WasteWorks here. 

Users of FixMyStreet can now select an appropriate category for their report using a newly added search bar.

After locating the problem they want to report, either by typing in a location or locating themselves automatically using GPS and dropping a pin on the map, users can type in the search bar to find an available category.

The search functionality will begin to suggest available categories to the user, who can either select one, continue searching or choose from a list of all available categories, the latter of which was previously the only option.

It’s important to note that categories are set by each individual council or authority to reflect the issues they can deal with. 

Improving accuracy and user experience

The category selected by a report-maker is responsible for the routing of the report and dictates any automated messaging sent to them, making it a very important thing to get right.

We carried out some independent user testing with members of the public to see if using a search bar to find a category made things easier and more accurate. 

We found that searching for a category on FixMyStreet does in fact make it not only faster for users to find the category they’re looking for by narrowing down their options, but also assists them in finding the best one to help the responsible authority respond appropriately.

For example, should a member of the public type in the word ‘sign’, FixMyStreet will display a list of available subcategories relating to problems with and adjacent to signs, helping them choose the exact problem they have found.

Next steps: local language and controlled vocabularies

A challenge we’re currently exploring solutions to is how we teach the search functionality to accommodate the fact that there can be multiple words for the same thing. For example, what the council calls a drain, might not be the same as what a member of the public calls it. 

There are also linguistic differences in terms of what something is called in one area of the UK versus another. 

To mitigate the risk of confusion and improve accessibility we are prototyping the use of controlled vocabularies to organise search terms, including attaching variants and related terms to so-called  ‘preferred’ or ‘standard’ terms. 

Whatever we do, we need to make sure the search functionality doesn’t produce an unwieldy list of potential matches. 

It’s a work in progress, and we’ll hopefully have more to share soon!

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For councils or other authorities using FixMyStreet Pro, the search functionality will be rolled out to your individual instance of the service soon. Please speak to your account manager if you have any questions.

For everyone else, here’s where you can find more information about:

• FixMyStreet – the national reporting service for local problems run by civic technology charity mySociety since 2007;
• FixMyStreet Pro – the fully integrated version of FixMyStreet, run by SocietyWorks (the wholly owned subsidiary of mySociety) and developed in collaboration with councils.