Wolverhampton City Council is hosting online forums
where people can suggest to council officers how services should be
improved.
The council hopes the forums will reduce its expenditure on
consultation by providing a cheap method for getting the public's
views. The forums are open to anyone who lives, works or socialises
in Wolverhampton.
People who post on the forums - a group that the council calls
its e-panel - are able to write about any of the public services
delivered in the city.
The council is part of a local service partnership, so citizens
can also use the forums to share information about services
delivered by the local primary care trust, the police, Jobcentre
Plus, the college and the University of Wolverhampton.
The council hopes to save money by reducing the amount of
duplication during its consultations. People are now posting their
views on the forums rather than responding to each consultation
published by the council or one of its public sector partners
individually.
Wolverhampton received funding for its e-forums project from the
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's Local E-Democracy national
project. The project funding followed an earlier trial paid for by
the European Union.
The e-forums also enable people working in different public
sector agencies to collaborate on projects and share
information.
Wolverhampton City Council's IT projects
- Wolverhampton City Council is reviewing the asset management
software it uses to maintain the city's highways. The applications
used to maintain the assets - estimated by the council to have a
replacement value of £700m - are unsupportable going forward and
are to be replaced by a packaged system.
- The systems used by the council's waste management services are
changing following a decision to contract out the function earlier
this year.
- The council's IT department is developing an electronic
single-assessment process for social services departments and local
NHS trusts.
- Wolverhampton City Council is one of 12 local authorities using
a customer relationship management application developed by the
London Borough of Newham. It uses Microsoft's Biztalk Server 2004
to integrate functions.
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