Coronavirus: Shropshire Council harnesses the power of technology and data in county’s fight against coronavirus
Shropshire Council is using technology and data in its response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Tools such as digital dashboards present live data about the county’s situation in relation to COVID-19, enabling senior managers and key decision makers to strategically respond to the virus.
Andy Begley, Shropshire Council’s joint interim acting chief executive, said:
“Using data, and particularly service specific dashboards, for decision-making, is something that many services at Shropshire Council have benefited from for several years. When the threat of the coronavirus presented itself, we were clear that we needed accurate and readily available information on the situation to enable us to manage the rapidly developing situation.
The dashboards developed as part of this work clearly show our current situation in terms of staffing, areas with emerging issues and a range of other key topics that are helping us respond to this unprecedented situation.”
Dashboards produced to date for the coronavirus crisis include solutions to manage building and site closures, workforce absent management, shielded individuals, and staff skills for redeployment.
Staff absences dashboard. nb: The majority of the data has been removed from this dashboard, before being used to illustrate this.
The data for the dashboards is gathered using a variety of tools, such as online forms and collaboration technologies such as Microsoft Teams and SharePoint. It is also taken from key systems.
An example of these solutions in action has been Shropshire’s approach to redeployment, which is the process of identifying areas that need more staff and matching appropriate staff. The council surveyed staff several weeks ago to identify key skills that are now used in their current role, that could be utilised elsewhere.
Karen Bradshaw, Shropshire Council’s joint acting interim chief executive, said:
“Our managers are providing us with a constant stream of data to help us understand how their services are coping with current staffing levels and emerging issues. We use this information to redeploy staff in collaboration with those individuals and their managers.
Staff have already been redeployed within teams to support other services, such as one of the newly-formed Community Reassurance Teams that are supporting the local community. We are also working with our partners in the NHS, and partner organisations, to see how we can support them by sharing staff resources through these unprecedented times to support Shropshire as a whole.
The technology gives us the oversight needed to manage our staffing needs and we monitor it closely. This allows us to rapidly organise support for our core services; an absolute necessity right now.”
Lee Chapman, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for organisational transformation and digital infrastructure, said:
“As part of the council’s Digital Transformation Programme that started in late 2016, key systems, services and processes were digitised and transformed. This transformation programme has been the basis for the technology being delivered in response to coronavirus, as it has given them the tools needed to respond quickly.
“The dashboards have also been hugely helpful for councillors, and we have been working to deliver a series of specific datasets to enable myself and my councillor colleagues to support those we serve.
“The Digital Transformation Programme has delivered a number of changes to the way the council operates. For residents and businesses, these involve advances in how the council communicates, with improved online services and tools such as webchat; all this alongside significant benefits in terms of service provision, to make the council more sustainable.”
The majority of tools used are Microsoft offerings: these include PowerBI, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft SharePoint, and Microsoft Forms.
Further information
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Please do encourage your family and friends to sign up to the updates too. This will help us keep everyone up to date with the rapidly-evolving crisis.
