As 2024 draws to a close, we are taking stock of our impact over the last 12 months as we strive to help local authorities and other public sector organisations better serve citizens through effective, intuitive and integrated digital solutions.
Angela Dixon
Managing Director
As you read through this report, I hope you will understand why I am once again bursting with pride to reflect on how SocietyWorks has created such impact and value for our clients this year.
In spite of being a smaller team, and in another challenging year for the public sector, we have remained steadfast in our role of helping councils implement digital transitions that deliver transformational outcomes.
The complex forces that govern public services necessitate exceptional service, flexibility of thinking and strong partnerships. Our unique approach enables us to strive for this, always, while also advocating for citizen users to create public sector services that work for everyone.
This year, we have been reflecting on our roots and origin story. You may already know that SocietyWorks is part of the not-for-profit mySociety group, which has a rich history spanning two decades of delivering societal impact through pro-democracy digital services.
SocietyWorks was born in response to the recognition that even greater societal impact could be had from focusing the skills, knowledge and determination of the mySociety team towards improving interactions and relationships between councils and their residents.
We care about councils and their residents. We implement digital solutions that release pressure from overburdened workflows and overstretched council teams. We design our services to build and embed trust between councils and their residents.
The below report contains just some of the incredible examples of impactful work we have done in collaboration with our clients throughout 2024.
We approach 2025 with reinforced hope and resolve that through effective collaboration with our council partners, together we can continue to make a difference.
Mandy Merron
Chair
It’s been another tough year for councils. Increasing demand, budgetary constraints, and political pressures have left resident-focused teams working tirelessly in the midst of complex challenges. The operating environment remains uncertain, leaving teams on the front line having to swiftly respond to policy change, often with depleted resources.
With the expectation of more change to come, it is crucial that the public, third, and private sectors work collaboratively towards shared goals in order to deliver effective solutions.
At SocietyWorks, we want to make life a bit easier for our council partners and their residents. Experience has shown us that intuitive-to-use front end digital services are essential. Customised integrations for triaging reports directly to the teams responsible for solving them and automated feedback loops for effective communication drive significant efficiencies and value creation across public sector workflows, and importantly, help build trust between councils and their residents.
As the subsidiary of mySociety, a charity working for the public good, it really matters to us that our services enable effective interaction and communication between our council partners and their residents; foundation stones for building a relationship of trust.
SocietyWorks is the wholly owned subsidiary of civic technology charity mySociety.
We use our 20+ years of experience developing integrated, open source technology to support authorities in improving interactions with citizens, building trust in the public sector and aiding digital transformation across a variety of service areas.
using our solutions to bridge gaps between themselves and members of the public.
sent via FixMyStreet and FixMyStreet Pro in 2024.
completed this year between our solutions and those of our customers
within 4 months of launching FixMyStreet Pro for Gloucestershire County Council.
of our solutions launched for councils across the UK throughout this year.
milestone surpassed on LinkedIn (thank you!)
These photos were taken just one day apart. I reported this fly tipping on the @fixmystreet app and @DundeeCouncil cleared it swiftly. Community reporting apps such as this are a great way for communities to see change in their local area and improve the environment! pic.twitter.com/FYasSWGj9e
— Laura Young (@LessWasteLaura) November 8, 2024
Love @fixmystreet
Gets stuff done for v little reporting effort
(Also thanks @OxfordshireCC 🙏) pic.twitter.com/N85cDEWeDp
— Cllr Anna Railton 🌹 is on 🦋 (@rail_guns) August 9, 2024
Came across this damaged kerb on a walk around #Minchinhampton at the weekend. Took 20 secs to report it with the @fixmystreet app, & just heard that @GlosCC are on the case with a repair. Quick & easy & helps council teams who can’t be everywhere at once 👍 #FixMyStreet pic.twitter.com/vxekkbCt30
— Cllr Chloe Turner🌿 (@MinchChloe) February 6, 2024
I reported a pothole, and the council fixed it! Feels like I’ve unlocked a superpower. (Thanks to FixMyStreet @mysociety.org obviously)
— Jeni Tennison (@jenitennison.com) November 13, 2024 at 5:12 PM
Had a very close call with a huge pothole on Vauxhall Bridge recently – went to report it on FixMyStreet and not only is it reported, it’s also reported as fixed by the council (within 48 hrs). This is amazing. Remember the value of a good interface, and making “whose problem is this?” go away
— Paul Clarke (@paulclarke.com) November 21, 2024 at 9:53 AM
“We used FixMyStreet Pro as a catalyst for change.”
Back in February, we hosted another of our fabulous FixMyStreet Pro user groups at which we were treated to a case study from Gloucestershire County Council.
At the time, the Council was only 4 months into using FixMyStreet Pro, which the team there had chosen to make Gloucestershire’s digital front door to highways defect reporting more user friendly, more efficient and more transparent.
We were, therefore, absolutely thrilled to hear about how much of an impact the solution had already started to have from the get-go.
Being part of mySociety, we have been advocating for interoperable, open source civic services for two decades.
For example, we have offered a free Open311 API for FixMyStreet since 2011, enabling councils across the UK and abroad to connect FixMyStreet to their own systems and receive reports to the right place in the right system.
More generally, open standards underpin many of the digital services we use on a daily basis — from journey planning, to emoji, to the protection of your online payments — and are recommended by the government as a way to reduce the overall cost of a service.
In October, we collaborated with UKAuthority to ask why, then, are they still not used as standard when it comes to local government fault reporting?
We are committed to ensuring our SaaS products always reflect user requirements. We take a problem-solving approach to product development and make all new features and functionality available to our network by default.
Here are some of the features we added this year:
One of the first new features to launch this year was an exciting and long-desired one: the ability to search for a category using a search bar on FixMyStreet, instead of selecting from a list.
We introduced the ability to toggle categories on FixMyStreet to make it easier and quicker for users to navigate to the reports in which they are interested on both the front and back end of the service.
A fun new bit of functionality for WasteWorks launched this year using CSS to make it easier to generate waste container images tailored to individual councils’ branding and bin types, which as you can imagine is different across the country!
Customising FixMyStreet Pro’s duplicate report radius per category allows flexibility for authorities which incorporate multiple service areas into their installation, the categories for which may benefit from a larger or smaller radius.
In May we reflected on the flexibility of WasteWorks’ functionality. From green garden waste to small item collections, each implementation of these features differs per council, adapting to their different rules, workflows and seasonal circumstances.
Throughout the year FixMyStreet Pro customers use the solution in myriad ways to manage expectations and ease the administrative burden on response teams during periods of seasonal demand.
“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.”
Rob Flicker, Project Lead and Digital Manager at London Borough of Bexley
Earlier this year we launched new installations of FixMyStreet Pro for North Northamptonshire Council and West Northamptonshire Council, respectively.
FixMyStreet Pro was first introduced in the county of Northamptonshire by the former Northamptonshire County Council and Kier in 2019.
Following the unitary split, we continued to provide a combined reporting service for the two new councils to help each navigate their internal changes while ensuring there was no interruption for residents wanting to report a problem and minimise confusion around which council was now responsible for what.
Now, each council has its own FixMyStreet Pro reporting service, with both versions able to triage reports between North and West Northamptonshire automatically, as well as nationally to other councils and to National Highways.
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.
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.
“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
In May we were absolutely delighted to learn that we had been awarded a Cyber Essentials Plus certification, along with 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.
Thank you to all the local authorities and other public sector organisations in the UK and abroad who have chosen to partner with us this year and trust us with their citizen-facing services, including…
It’s been wonderful to launch new installations of our solutions for the following authorities this year.
FixMyStreet Pro
FixMyStreet Pro
WasteWorks
WasteWorks
“Bromley have worked with SocietyWorks for several years now; they have a prompt support service and are always available to discuss the systems. We really benefit from the way that SocietyWorks share and build on experiences with other authorities to enhance their product offering and seek regular input from their clients to frame their ongoing development.”
Jonathan Richards, Technical Support & Market Manager at London Borough of Bromley
Our commitment to interoperability means that we will integrate with whatever combination of systems you require to bridge gaps between your different service areas and enable a two-way flow of data between you, your contractors and citizens.
Here are some of the new API integrations we completed this year:
Way back at the start of the year we were delighted to learn about the story of Abdellatif Belmkadem, a Moroccan civic technology enthusiast who has taken the open source FixMyStreet code to build Islah City and help reshape how citizens in Casablanca engage with their local government about local problems.
Also this year, over in Sweden the team behind FixMinGata (the Swedish version of FixMyStreet, which runs on our open source code and has been in operation since 2013) have launched their very own version of FixMyStreet Pro!
Swedish municipalities can adopt FixMinGata as their own, just as authorities in the UK can do with FixMyStreet Pro. Here’s an example from the Hylte municipality.
One of our objectives for this year was to support more purposeful events within the public sector to help share our expertise, learn from others, make new connections and strengthen existing ones.
Thanks to everyone who came to say hello to us at the following events, attended our talks and shared our love for a cheeky sticker!
Another goal for 2024 was to encourage our tremendous team to share more transparently what they’re working on, thinking about or have learnt from. Here’s an example of what we’ve been talking about this year…
Angela Dixon, Managing Director, shares some thoughts on what failure means in the civic tech space, and what we can learn from it.
Thoughts from Bekki Leaver, our Head of Product, on the potential creation of a Local Government Digital Service.
This blog post has been written by Angela Dixon, our Managing Director, who shares her thoughts on financial forecasting and decision making in uncertainty.
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.
In June we warmly welcomed two new board members: Anna Scott and Alastair Tibbitt.
Both Anna and Alastair joined 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.
As you might have seen on our blog recently, our Senior Developer Dave Arter is prototyping starting reports with an image on FixMyStreet using geotag data and camera integrations. There’s more work to be done, but we hope to be able to roll this out in the not too distant future!
We have some helpful and insightful reports and best practice guidance coming up in 2025, digging into current challenges shared by our community of public sector customers and citizen users, and exploring solutions.
A purposeful piece of upcoming functionality takes the form of an offering especially for parish councils, enabling them to take advantage of FixMyStreet’s functionality and further reinforce our joined-up community of councils, ensuring reports always go to the right people at the right authority.
On the waste side of things, we will be working in consultation with our local authority clients to scope out the incorporation of commercial waste into our WasteWorks solution – another exciting transition for the solution!
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay informed about our latest news, developments and events throughout the year.
Meanwhile, our parent charity mySociety has been as busy as ever through 2024. Here are a few of the things they’ve been working on that you might find interesting:
Launching the Local Intelligence Hub, a single place to access — and compare — a wealth of useful data about the environment at both the local and national level. Tell your colleagues who work on climate or Net Zero initiatives – they’ll find it useful!
Council Climate Action Scorecards. We’ve heard from many councils about how useful these have been to their work- read some of those stories here.
Arguing the case for better, more joined-up data from local authorities, with our report Unlocking the value of fragmented public data.
Running their Impacts of Civic Technology conference, TICTeC. Videos from the sessions are available on YouTube; and the call for proposals for TICTeC 25 is already open, so if your council has been doing anything interesting around tech and democracy, do consider submitting a session and joining us in Belgium next June.
Launching the WhoFundsThem project, working with a team of volunteers, to make data on MPs’ financial interests easier for everyone to understand and access.
