The Deputy Chief Executive submitted a report setting out for approval a draft Digital Transformation Strategy ‘Connected Reading’, together with a recommended work programme for year 1, known as the Digital Accelerator Programme.  The draft Strategy was attached to the report at Appendix 1.

The report explained that the proposed vision for the Council’s Digital Strategy was ‘Strong, connected relationships with residents, businesses and partners underpin a healthy, thriving and inclusive borough.’  The Strategy proposed five themes against which action should be pursued to turn the vision into reality: Developing Foundations, Sharing Information, Improving Skills, Connecting Communities and Enabling Investment.

The report noted the significant potential of Digital to deliver direct financial benefit to the Council, with the Medium Term Financial Strategy agreed by Council in February 2021 including £5m of annual savings to be realised by 2023/24 that had dependencies on Digital.  This included £1m of savings from the Customer Experience Strategy agreed by Policy Committee in January 2020, which identified explicit dependencies on Digital, most notably the introduction of a customer experience platform.  The Council had already taken a first enabling step through putting in place new arrangements for its core ICT services through the implementation of the Future Operating Model from April 2021. To realise the benefits of digital transformation, however, it was necessary to modernise ways of working and overcome some significant technical and business obstacles, including the need to replace a number of core business applications and a current lack of technical capacity to support change.

The report set out and recommended implementation of the Digital Accelerator Programme, with the objectives of delivering demonstrable benefit now and building people, process and technology capability to deliver further benefit in the future.  The proposed approach was to build functional and system capabilities in a cross-cutting way, for example by implementing a payment system that would ultimately be used by all parts of the business.  A review would be carried out in the autumn and a revised business case submitted to the Committee, to provide confidence that as a minimum the remaining digital-dependent MTFS savings could be realised and to inform the 2022 budget setting process. 

Resolved –

(1)      That the Connected Reading Digital Strategy as set out at Appendix 1 be approved;

(2)      That the Year 1 Digital Accelerator work programme set out in report and in the business case at Appendix 2 be agreed;

(3)      That it be noted that a report on progress and an updated business case would be brought to Policy Committee in the autumn of 2021, prior to budget-setting, together with detailed proposals for future work.