Shropshire set to save £36m a year through digital strategy

Shropshire Council is set to approve a new digital transformation strategy aimed at saving £36m over five years.

The council will vote tomorrow on a new programme aimed at how the council delivers its services and manages its operations.

It said that the strategy will enable more mobile working among staff and make interaction with the council easier for citizens.

Michael Wood, the council’s cabinet member for corporate and support, said: “Shropshire Council will, through implementing the recommended approach for the ICT Digital Transformation programme, reduce overall running costs, reduce the number of systems it uses, manage these centrally and improve its online services to customers, making the website the place of choice when requiring information or services from the council.”

The programme outlines the use of cloud-based technologies and an integrated platform for all operating systems.

The transformation programme will focus on social care and back-office systems, to enable Shropshire Council to transform the delivery of services.

In addition to the five-year savings, the council predicts a “considerably higher benefit” over a seven- to 10-year period.

It said that the programme has been prompted by “government-led austerity” and an outdated digital infrastructure, which has not been updated since the council was created in 2009.

It will also deliver management information and business intelligence, remove manual inputting processes and remove systems and processes that hold the same information on different platforms.