Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
Laying the foundations for the local public services of the future
This project, led by Rugby Borough Council, will develop a new and flexible digital waste service that integrates front end resident user requests with back office delivery functions.
More information, including outputs and working-in-the-open activities, will be published on this page as the project progresses. In the meantime, you can read the project application (Microsoft Word Doc) to find out more.
The project is awarded £350,000 of funding through Round 5 of the Local Digital Fund to conduct a beta phase.
The project shared a number of updates and blogs posts on their website:
The project team has just completed their second sprint and presented their achievements during a Show and Tell on Tuesday 1 March. Read more about their progress and watch a recording of the Show and Tell in this blog post.
During the second sprint, the team has focused on:
Their Technical Architect is leading work to define low-code enhancements and has completed the definition of user stories for the Case Management configuration’s Graphical User Interface (GUI).
On Wednesday 9 March, Mike Connell and Dr Gavin Beckett presented at Public Sector Insight Week. In the session, they gave an overview of how the Beta phase builds on earlier work and is exploring the use of an open-source digital platform — with low code configurable components — to develop user-centred digital waste services.
On Tuesday 10 May the project team held their Sprint 7 Show and Tell, during which they presented:
The partner councils have agreed that some of the current project underspend will be used to fund two additional sprints of work. The additional sprints (8 and 9) will run from Wednesday 11 May to Tuesday 7 June.
During Sprint 8, the project team will continue to discuss and agree on the proposal for their application for continuous funding, alongside the completion of their Theory of Change document.
As part of Digital Leaders Week 2022, Mike Connell (Chief Officer — Digital and Communications, Rugby Borough Council) is hosting a talk to tell the story of how the partners have come together to solve a shared problem.
In May, the team held a Show and Tell session to present their achievements from Sprint 8 of the project’s beta phase. Watch the recording.
This sprint, the team has been focussing on building front-end forms and continuing integration work with the Echo Waste Management System.
The project team held their Sprint 9 Show and Tell on Tuesday 14 June, during which they shared a demonstration of the fly-tipping form and modifications to the ‘subscribe to a garden waste collection’ form.
Councils will be able to easily configure these low code forms to meet both the specific delivery needs of their local services, as well as their current waste management system requirements. Existing PlaceCube customers will have access to the Lowcode Digital Waste Service forms through the Form Manager, and PlaceCube will be available for support and/or training.
Alternatively, the code can also be downloaded from BitBucket and configured to work with a council’s implementation of LifeRay.
During Sprint 10, which will last three weeks, the team plan to focus on:
Project lead, Mike Connell (Chief Officer — Digital and Communications, Rugby Borough Council) presented a talk on ‘Finding resources when you haven’t any — a funding story’, during Digital Leaders Week 2022. Mike shared his thoughts and experiences of being able to achieve more by collaborating with others to identify and solve shared problems. If you missed it the first time round, you can still sign up to watch a recording of the session.
On Friday 15 July, the project team held their rescheduled Sprint 10 Show and Tell session. During this three-week sprint the project team focussed on:
Meanwhile, the team has begun drafting the service adoption playbook and the beta Phase One report. Phase One wrap-up activities have been taking place over the last few weeks and there will be one more Show and Tell at the end of the phase, during which the team will showcase everything that has been built.
In the final sprint of this first phase, the Placecube development and QA (Quality Assurance) teams completed the build and testing of the last waste service form, as well as 3 of 4 integration connectors.
Work continued on documentation, with the updated ‘User Research Review & UX Insights Report’ circulated for review and feedback by the LA partners.
The date/time of the team’s final Show & Tell session will be confirmed shortly. Follow the project on Twitter for updates.
The project team plans to hold their final Show and Tell session on Tuesday 11 October at 2pm. This session will be used to demonstrate the full functionality available for the Low Code Digital Waste Service.
