The Performance and Finance Scrutiny Sub-Committee of Harrow Council met on Monday 22 March 2021 to discuss channel migration and the Universal Credit Commission. The committee heard that significant progress has been made in shifting council services online, with a substantial increase in digital transactions over the past five years. Discussions also focused on the ongoing challenge of digital exclusion and the need for a comprehensive digital inclusion strategy.

Channel Migration and Digital Services

The committee received a presentation on the council's progress in channel migration, which aims to ensure all services have a comprehensive, easy-to-use digital offering. The presentation highlighted a seismic shift towards digital services, with a significant decrease in phone calls and emails, and a corresponding increase in web form submissions and My Harrow account logins. Over the last five years, the council has seen an additional quarter of a million web forms submitted annually and nearly 300,000 fewer calls.

Improvements to the digital offering include the planned introduction of web chat to assist residents struggling on the website, and the ongoing modernisation of back-office systems to enable better integration with online services. The council uses the Silktide index to monitor and score its digital platforms on content, accessibility, user experience, and compliance. A digital ethics review was also undertaken to ensure transparency in data collection and usage.

Resident involvement is a key part of the digital service design, with user groups and a database of residents who have agreed to test new services. Feedback mechanisms, including website tabs and post-form surveys, are used to gather resident input, which is then reviewed monthly by officers to identify common themes and develop action plans.

Looking ahead, the council plans to introduce greater levels of personalisation to the website, creating a tailored homepage for each resident based on their usage. This will include surfacing relevant information, such as council tax payment dates or housing benefit payment due dates, directly on the user's account. A business portal is also planned to improve the digital experience for businesses in Harrow. The roadmap for digital services over the next 18 months includes enhancing the My Harrow account, introducing progress chasing for applications, and expanding the alerts function to push updates directly to residents.

The council acknowledged the existence of a digital divide, affecting residents due to deprivation, financial issues, lack of confidence or skills, age, and language barriers. While acknowledging this is a significant challenge, the council stated it does not leave these individuals behind, providing face-to-face and telephone support where appropriate, and offering adult learning courses for IT skills. The rollout of 5G across the borough was also mentioned as a potential opportunity to provide devices and Wi-Fi to households.

A significant discussion point was the Your Place, Your Space app, which allows residents to report issues like fly-tipping. It was clarified that the app is only available on iPhones, and while the functionality is being replicated on the council's website, some councillors expressed surprise and disappointment at the app's limited platform. The council stated that the website's reporting functionality is now more efficient as it integrates directly with back-office systems, and that the app's future will be reviewed over the summer. Research indicated that most residents prefer using the mobile-optimised website over downloading a dedicated council app.

Universal Credit Commission and Digital Exclusion

The committee also discussed the Universal Credit Commission report, noting that recommendations were agreed in November 2019. While some recommendations, such as improving operational links with Job Centre Plus and making adjustments to Council Tax Support to help with the five-week Universal Credit waiting period, have been implemented, the strategic response to digital exclusion remains a significant challenge.

The report highlighted that Universal Credit was rolled out as digital by default, necessitating a focus on those without digital access. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has starkly exposed and exacerbated the digital divide. While the council has taken tactical steps, such as providing laptops for children needing digital access for education, the broader issue of digital exclusion is described as a bigger, more knotty, wicked issue that has not yet been fully resolved by any authority globally.

The council does not currently have a dedicated digital inclusion strategy to upskill and develop the population of Harrow. While work has been done through the advice network to provide targeted support to individuals struggling with online use, and operational communication links with voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations have been established, specific training programmes for VCS organisations have not yet been brought forward.

The committee was assured that the digital exclusion agenda is now central to the council's recovery position post-COVID-19. This issue has been brought to the forefront by the pandemic, highlighting existing inequities and societal challenges. The council aims to take a leading role as a community leader in addressing these issues, with digital inclusion forming a central plank of its recovery strategy. The committee requested to be kept updated on progress in developing a digital inclusion strategy.