Agenda item

Report of the Chamberlain.

The Committee received a report of the Chamberlain, concerning an update to the Data Lighthouse Project and the proof-of-concept exercise.

The Committee noted that the Head of Campaigns and Community Engagement was a new role, to create a universal model for engagement, and had expanded into areas such as marketing. This could include messages from Members to effectively reach constituents digitally, and thus was linked with the creation of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) within the Data Lighthouse Project.

The proof-of-concept exercise had been well received and would be expanded across the organisation, starting with a pilot exercise within one department. Pre-existing data held by different departments could be exported and absorbed into the new CRM system. The access controls to the system would be explored at the implementation stage of the project, acknowledging that it could contain sensitive data sets and had to adhere to the UK Data Protection Act.

It explained that activities, ranging from City Banquets to volunteer events, were being organised across different platforms. The aspiration was to create a single system which managed all individual customer experiences, which provided insight into how customers were engaging, mapping out customer journeys, and using data to identify where the City Corporation’s priorities lay with its customer engagement. The creation of a single system linked with a strand of the DITS Strategy for technology convergence, as well as being more data driven.

The business case and financial implications were in development. It was noted that there would be a level of spend with the acquisition of the software. Much of current spend was on the manual effort to gather data, and much of the direct cost savings would be on the spend for consultants or temporary staff to gather data for consultations or engagement exercises.

Members of the Committee requested that climate implications and the security implications be better articulated when reporting back on the progress of the project, noting that all software would have a carbon footprint, and access restrictions formed part of the requirements from regulations such as GDPR.

It was queried what the relationship would be between the Strategic Engagement and Events Management (SEEMS) database and the CRM. It was explained that the proof-of-concept had a one-way connection between SEEMS and CRM, but the benefits of a two-way connection could be explored. It was further explained that it was wished for all systems used at the City Corporation be interconnected, such as with the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) programme. It could further relate to the City Corporation’s responsibility to engage with its citizens with regards to elections and determine whether a relationship had been established with a business who may be eligible to vote.

RESOLVED – That the report be received, and its contents noted.