York businesses set to get to grips with Google

Google is coming to York to help small businesses from across the region learn crucial skills for the digital age.

The free ‘Getting to Grips with Google’ event will take place at the City of York Council West Offices on Thursday 23 August from 8.30am till 4.30pm.

The event is being delivered by the Digital Knowledge Exchange, part of the government backed Digital Enterprise business support programme, which helps eligible, growth focused businesses, based in the Leeds city region to scale up and achieve digital transformation through access to funding and free learning opportunities such as workshops, masterclasses, digital conferences, digital audits and one to one mentoring support.

At the ‘Getting to Grips with Google’ event, experts from Google’s Digital Garage will deliver a session on ‘Knowing your business data’ with attendees learning how to set up analytics, define business goals and discover insights through reporting.

For more information on these events and to register with the Digital Knowledge Exchange visit www.digitalenterprise.co.uk/digital-knowledge/events/ or contact the team on 0113 426 0535 or email kanta@digitalenterprise.co.uk

Council revives survey into internet use

The York Council are asking residents to tell them about how communications systems could be improved.

They say that at present many residents use the most expensive (to process) channels to communicate with the Council.

They want residents to do more “on line”

Given the lack of functionality – and unreliability – of the current “report it” system we think that the surveys timing is a but rich. They surely would have been wiser to implement and sustain improvements, before asking for feedback.

However, if anyone does have a view, they can express them by clicking this link.

Meanwhile we’ve tested the “Report It” system, now that it has been “fixed”, by reporting three issues.

Full litter bin on Beagle Ridge Drive

Plastic mats dumped on Walker Drive

Detritus on Bradley Drive snicket

Meanwhile Andrew Waller reports that the street light on Otterwood Lane has been repaired

Otterwood Lane street light repaired

Andrew has also reported problems with contaminated, missing or empty salt bins

Askham Lane salt bin almost empty

Front Street library salt bin missing

Grove Terrace litter in salt bin

York Council claims debilitating IT dispute has been settled

A report to a meeting taking place next week reveals that a long running dispute about the Councils Customer Relations Management (CRM) system has been settled.

The wrangle, with a software supplier, has prevented the development and full roll out of the “Report It” and “My Account” systems

The implementation of the “Oracle Right Now” based system was supposed to have improved “social media consolidation and proactive management and integration across a number of back office systems facilitating automation, work allocation and monitoring”.

The Council says that phase 1 of work on the new system will be complete in about 7 months time.

This contrasts sharply with the assurances given to a scrutiny meeting in March 2016 when the proportion of customers forecast to access the Council “on line” (mainly for Council Tax and Benefit interactions) was expected to increase from 5% at March 2016, to 43% in March 2017 and to as much as 80% by March 2020.

Report more “Star Wars” than enlightening

It is far cheaper for the Council to address issues raised “on line” rather than through other options (personal visits, by telephone or Email)

No updates on these project forecasts have been provided in the latest report nor is there any comment on the financial costs to the Authority of the delays.

Council leaders have been announcing the imminent arrival of the new IT system for over 4 years. The Councils Executive last extolled its virtues at a meeting which took place on 11^th February 2016

NB. The Council has told us that a glitch, which prevented some images of issues being uploaded onto their full litter bin reporting system, has been fixed.

Gremlins breeding in Council IT department?

It is not only the Council planning portal that is suffering problems.

The much vaunted – but never quite delivering – “do it online” reporting system has broken down again.

As we reported earlier in the year, anyone trying to report issues such as full litter bins will find it difficult to upload a photo of the problem. The Council actually encourages residents to provide an image of the issue being reported (to provide clarity on location and timing).

The Council site currently rejects most images offered. In turn this prevents the issue being uploaded to the Council’s Customer Relationship Management system. It is a repetition of a problem which existed when the system was first launched (and which seemed to have been fixed about a year ago)

Officials at the Council promised a fix several weeks ago but the system is still not working. Litter bin locations are, however, now shown on the site but the image upload problem persists.

Quite why the Council simply didn’t purchase “off the shelf” the well tried “Fix my Street“ system when they had the chance five years ago remains a mystery.

“On line” reporting is by far the cheapest channel of communication with the Council. It is quicker and avoids unnecessary manual intervention. It should be the preferred method of contact for routine problems.

The Council pointedly refuses to publish performance statistics on the time taken to deal with issues reported via Email to the Customer Centre (the obvious 24/7 alternative to “on line” reporting) . These are thought to be in excess of 3 days. That is simply not good enough if the alternative “on line” systems are faulty.

Rumours persist that the Councils reporting system, which was developed “in house”, has been subject to an ongoing intellectual property rights wrangle.This continues to hinder its development and roll out.

“Red Alert” as York Council confirms customer management system in trouble

Just a few days after we revealed that the Councils IT systems were at best “flaky”, there has been official confirmation of the scale of the problems

A report to the Council’s Audit Committee includes a “Red Warning” about the new digital system (CRM) on its risk register.

The project ran into serious trouble earlier in the year when a “contractual issue” ruled out “going live” on many customer management features.

Now the position has worsened with no progress on resolving the issue being reported. The Council is pinning its hopes on an “independent review” of the outstanding issues but no timescales have been agreed,

The IT change is hugely expensive for taxpayers. It is a project first mooted in 2011 but since then progress has been agonisingly slow. As a result the Council has been criticised for not buying proven “off the shelf” solutions; instead they preferred to “go it alone”.

The Executive member with responsibility for the project (Chris Steward) quit in January, leaving Council Leader David Carr to pick up the pieces.

It seems that he has had little more success in moving the project forward.

York Council urges businesses and charities to apply for Connection Vouchers before it’s too late

City of York Council is warning small businesses and registered charities that time is running out to apply for a £3,000 Connection Voucher to boost their broadband speeds.

Since the scheme launched in April 2014, over 300 York businesses and registered charities have benefitted by upgrading to high-speed broadband, but organisations are being advised to apply for a Connection Voucher as soon as possible to avoid missing out.

Funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the scheme offers grants of up to £3,000 for SMEs and registered charities seeking faster and better broadband.

Due to the thriving nationwide demand, the scheme, which has issued 200 Connection Vouchers in York since April 2015, is fast running out. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport have warned that with current demand, vouchers are expected to be fully allocated soon so organisations are advised to apply as soon as possible.
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York event to encourage businesses to ‘go digital’

Amongst the raft of information available to visitors at Middleton’s Hotel, Skeldergate from 10am-3pm will be advice on how a £3,000 Connection Voucher can rejuvenate local businesses in the city and the City Centre WiFi project.

Since April 2014 over 200 businesses and registered charities have received a Connection Voucher to speed up their broadband. Suppliers and City of York Council staff will be on hand to offer information and advice on the scheme and answer any questions attendees may have.

Special guests for this month’s event are Google Digital Garage who will be on hand to talk to small and medium sized businesses about how they can learn and benefit from new digital skills and use the internet to grow and attract more customers. Other companies at the event include: TalkTalk, Landlord Broadband, York Data Services, Agile, BT and Pinacl plus many more.
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The internet and computers – Adult Learners week from 13th June

York children gifted tablets

Pupils at Burton Green Primary School are boosting their learning thanks to 80 new Learn Pad tablets, which have been provided by The Little Society Charity and City of York Council.

Access to the Learn Pads for all children from Nursery to Year 6 will improve the pupils literacy and numeracy skills by making learning more fun and interactive, as well as helping their parents practise their own skills, as part of regular pupil-parent joint learning workshops.

A ten year old at the school, said: “I enjoyed the workshop because I was able to experience the activities on the Learnpad, and because I could play games with my Mum.”
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