Bracknell Forest Borough Council

Outcome of Expression of Interest: Not shortlisted

Flexible booking solutions

Bracknell Forest Council has a wide range of services where a flexible bookings solution would add value to the customer experience. This includes the ability for customer to book from a variety of availability time slots either controlled by the customer or by the staff member, linked to Outlook calendars for both staff availability and room availability. The solution would need to be scalable from simple booking request to more complex ones. Booking activity would have to be easy for service staff to manipulate which the minimum of technical input or integrations.

We will work in partnership with any local authorities that wish to take part in this project. We have had informal conversations with other local authorities who are all at different stages of digitising forms, booking and associated payments and would like to support and collaborate with other authorities to form a common solution. We feel that a flexible booking solution would support business in other local authorities.

Any solution would also need to look and feel consistent for customers regardless of complexity and be designed to meet the needs of the customer.

Discovery evidence

We have adopted a customer experience model which is changing the way that many services are delivered, improving efficiency and effectiveness by improving processes, use of information, and technology plus empowering customers to be more digitally focussed and automated where possible. Where possible we have tested digital innovations with customers to ensure that introduction of technology enhances the customer interaction with the council.

We have identified user need and process mapped a range of services, Parks and Countryside, Libraries, Planning, Registrars, Children centres, Housing &Benefits etc. to see where commonality of process exists.

We aim to:
• Empowering citizens to be more self-reliant by booking online for services
• Changing the way we communicate and engage with residents by increasing our digital offer
• Working across internal services and breaking down organisational boundaries by providing consistency of service to customers
• Implement technology solutions which can be integrated to a variety of back office systems, prototype, build, test and rollout.
• Involve customers in designing any solutions
• Ensure scalability of any solution rollout

  • Digital leadership training (for council leaders, service managers or senior executives)
  • Digital and agile awareness
  • Introduction to delivery management
  • Agile for teams