The author discusses the Digital Birmingham project and its impact on the local community while highlighting how this makes the council more efficient and effective.
Birmingham City Council’s Digital Birmingham initiative - a partnership between the council and over 30 private organisations including BT, BBC, Birmingham Post and Mail, Microsoft and the city’s three universities - has undertaken numerous projects in and around the city to push forward the council’s digital inclusion agenda, build an ‘intelligent city’ with online information working as a Science City and, with the City’s transformation programme, improve efficiency in public service delivery by, for example, capitalising on web-based communications.
By providing a focus on the digital agenda, and under the strong political leadership of deputy leader Councillor Paul Tilsley, Digital Birmingham is helping the council deliver a strong economy and a skilled workforce ready for the challenges of 21st century employment, whilst at the same time assisting the effective and efficient delivery of council services.
The digital route to economic recovery
The City Council’s priority for building economic recovery harnesses digital technologies both to boost Birmingham’s ability to attract new jobs and to upskill the population to be able to take advantage of the new employment opportunities. A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report into Digital Inclusion suggested that getting people who are currently digitally excluded online could deliver between £560 million and £1680 million of overall economic benefit to the nation.
The city plans major investment in its first ‘Digital District’ in Digbeth, home to many of Birmingham’s renowned digital, creative and hi-tech businesses. Plans would see the development of an infrastructure capable of delivering high speed next generation broadband internet to residents and businesses.
Digital Birmingham has also taken part in a ‘proof of concept’ study with Microsoft and Centro aimed at giving Birmingham the UK’s first ‘Intelligent Transport’ network. The project would combine a range of data including traffic congestion, car parking availability and bus scheduling to provide real time tracking information that’s specific to where the individual is at the point of enquiry. This could lead to quicker and ‘greener’ journeys within the city and contribute to the council’s stated objective of achieving a 60% reduction in carbon emissions by 2026.
Ensuring Birmingham has a future workforce capable of meeting the demands of knowledge-based businesses depends on closing the ‘digital divide’. Home access to a computer and the internet can improve educational performance and enable people to take advantage of employment opportunities. The e-Gov award-winning Computers in the Home programme running in Aston has gone a long way to addressing digital exclusion in one of the city’s most deprived areas and has seen some remarkable achievements in terms of widening people’s access to jobs and education. The council also achieved a record implementation using the Computers for Pupils grant which was targeted at the 10% most deprived pupils to provide laptops for use at home for nearly 2000 children.
Birmingham’s success in working with digitally excluded citizens has been recognised by the Champion for Digital Inclusion, Martha Lane Fox, who will be visiting the city this Wednesday (3rd March) to see some of Digital Birmingham’s projects for herself. This will include a visit to an Erdington tower block where council tenants have been provided with a recycled Birmingham City Council PC along with free broadband connection which has been installed as a pilot as part of the council’s ongoing programme to update all of its communal TV aerials prior to the Digital Switchover in 2011.
Many of the tenants have benefited from access to job opportunities and being able to use the internet for schoolwork, and the council is evaluating the success of the trial before considering a roll-out to all its communal aerials. The scheme means that residents don’t need to use a modem to access the internet and can save on landline or cable costs.
More efficient delivery of council services
Many Digital Birmingham projects and pilots have focused on using digital technology to maximise the effectiveness of council services.
The latest example is today’s announcements of secondary school places (1st March). Around 70 Birmingham parents were informed by SMS text message of the success or otherwise of their children getting into the school of their choice. Along with a London pilot, this is the UK’s first trial of texting for schools admissions and responds to national research showing that a majority of parents would prefer to use digital means such as SMS or email for routine access to public services rather than the telephone, face to face or written correspondence.
Pushing schools admissions content online can save significant amounts of money for councils as well as making things easier for parents, students and schools. Sending out the annual schools admissions booklet and application forms to Birmingham’s primary schools alone costs £38,000 - a figure which could be reduced by online applications and notifications of admission.
Promoting self-service, by encouraging online transactions for council services wherever possible is another way Birmingham is looking to save money and is a key plank of its 10-year Business Transformation agenda. Online transactions cost a fraction of the face-to-face equivalent - saving between £3.30 and £12.00 per transaction, according to the PwC report - and enable citizens to track their business online, saving the time and frustration of phone calls and visits to council offices.
Achieving economic growth in a time of increased pressure on public spending is a real challenge for any city, never mind the biggest local authority in Europe. But by working to support the potential of Birmingham businesses, develop the skills of its people and maximise the efficiency of public spending, through digital technologies, Digital Birmingham is helping the city face the challenges of the future in a creative and imaginative way.