Westminster City Council

Our recent analysis showed that Council staff and contractors from a range of different teams visited the same geographical areas repeatedly over a short time frame, unaware of what their colleagues were doing and addressing only “their” inspection or assessment duty, in a service silo. We want to develop new task allocation, mobile tools and analytics capability to underpin an altogether different model for the delivery of our front-line services. This will be based on cross-skilled staff with great local knowledge undertaking a variety of duties which are tailored to the needs of our community, whilst reducing the front line operational cost.

Discovery evidence

We researched council activity in key streets over a 7 day period. Edgware Road was attended by 94 officers, from 8 different teams, visiting 363 premesis. Wardour Street was visited by 76 officers from 5 teams – one single property was visited 16 times.

We are sure that the development of new mobile City and Neighbourhood solutions to address these challenges can be adapted and used across other local authorities. With competing priorities for local services, mobile working will significantly reduce manual intervention, helping local authorities to meet increasing demand from its residents. If phase 1 is successful, mobile working could be rolled out to other areas, including adult social care to enable case officers to manage their cases on site.