Digital Impact

This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a partnership of councils, or a council-owned company. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself.

This award will go to the council that can best show how its farsighted use of digital technology is significantly improving outcomes for its residents and/or place. It is not primarily for a council that can show it has systematically transformed its approach to technology, or has devised as solution for a specific area of its work, but it is for a council that can demonstrate how its digital acumen is transforming its local area, for instance with regards to the effectiveness of key services and how they support residents. Among the attributes you may seek to showcase in your entry are the benefits of data sharing; how your organisation is ensuring it supports people before they fall into crisis; and how ground-breaking collaboration between local partners has had a significant impact on your local population.

 Submissions should focus on:

• A description of your digital vision;
• An account of how you have embedded the use of technology across the authority;
• An assessment of how this technology has helped achieve your organisational vision and has improved outcomes, for instance in several priority services or across your place as a whole;
• A detailed explanation of how collaborators were involved in the transformation process
• A description of how the role of digital in creating real impact was realised across the authority and enabled your organisation’s vision or strategy.

Award entries will be judged upon:

• First and foremost, evidence that digital has created a tangible business change to facilitate improved outcomes, for instance for service users, staff, a directorate in the council and your place as a whole;
• Evidence senior managers have a clear understanding of the role digital plays in the future delivery of their services and the function of their directorate as well as the future of council which is well-articulated and understood across the organisation;
• The level of innovation and ambition in using technology to reform ways of working across a range of services;
• Evidence of how digital was used to drive reforms and initiatives;
• Examples where your technology agenda can be linked to improved outcomes for service users, staff and better collaboration between stakeholders.