Title

Town halls' willingness to embrace ‘iPhone'-style technologies boosted the sector's productivity by £230m last year, Smith Square has revealed. Figures published by the Local Government Association on 4 September show that council-linked mobile phone applications boomed in 2009/10. Popular ‘apps' included one that allows local residents to point their phone at a pub, restaurant or take-away and receive its hygiene rating in response. An ‘app' allowing residents to sent in pictures of fly-tipping and vandalism also proved popular, as did a programme allowing locals to buy parking tickets from home. The majority of the increased productivity came from ‘location-based technologies' – such as more accurate meals on wheels, planning, or refuse services – that allowed councils to reduce waste by improving the accuracy of their data and sharing it across departments to reduce costs. The LGA's research also found that use of other technologies, such as web-mapping, grew rapidly last year, and concludes that – at current growth rates – councils' productivity ‘savings' could reach £372m by 2014/15. Cllr David Parsons, chair of the LGA's improvement board, said: ‘Whether its bin men working smarter, fewer calls to inquiry centres, freeing up staff from time-consuming checks or reducing parking ticket machine maintenance costs, making the most of modern technology and data sharing has seen huge cash savings across the country.' Cllr Parsons said any direct savings that emerge from using technologies could now be ploughed back into frontline services. He added: [But] as well as financial savings, tapping into gadgetry has led to better communication with all members of society, you and old, and raised awareness of he services councils offer and how to get the most from them.'

Title

WHITEHALL

Phone app boom ringing in savings

SUBSCRIBE TO CONTINUE READING