[ Leading Cork to Take Its Place as a World Class City ]
projects. The City Council’s ICT Department looked at every opportunity to maintain and enhance the digital and on-line services provided to the internal business organisation as well as the businesses and citizens of the city including support to ten new depots, three libraries and new area offices in Blarney, Glanmire, Ballincollig and Douglas which serve an additional 85,000 customers. These developments led to the onboarding of multiple datasets, ICT systems and services across the business areas. Desktop and application environments were configured to ensure that key business applications in use across the organisation could be accessed and business processes maintained. There was a two-pronged approach to enable staff access to the Council network and systems which
initially through the hosting of briefings for the councillors but subsequently full council, Local Area Committee and Strategic Policy Committee meetings. The deployment of these applications, the optimising of the underlying architecture and the security considerations addressed allowed over 20,000 on-line meetings to take place over the period, some over which have been streamed to the wider public. This technology was also used to ensure that key corporate deliverables such as the preparation of the City Development Plan, and the requirement for public consultation were met effectively.
The restrictions around access to public offices resulted in new methods were required to continue the business of the council. On-
required the provision of corporate laptops and VPN access and the establishment of a Virtual Desktop Environment.
line forms were made available on the council website, allowing the processing of over 30,000 applications and payments, using a flexible cloud based Software as a Service solution and new payment channel.
The Community Response initiative was key in the council’s support of residents,
in particular vulnerable individuals and families.
As the situation evolved, new and innovative ways of supporting service delivery across all domains of the organisation were enabled. The Community Response initiative was key in the council’s support of residents, in particular vulnerable individuals and families. There was deployment of a cloud call centre solution which enabled remote hosting and management of the Customer Service Unit, both out of hours and during the weekend periods. GIS support for the initiative was made available to ensure that a clear picture of the support areas was accessible through a dashboard with information on the calls, areas of responsibility and resources required. Effective communication was critical during the initial phase of the community response. Microsoft Teams played a key role in ensuring that departments, directorates, project teams and business processes could function effectively. This was also extended to support the democratic mandate of the council,
These forms and applications range from Parking Permits to Community Grants. Engaging with the public was a significant factor in the development of a number of the forms. For example, builders on-site using their mobile devices helped the development of forms such as hoarding and scaffolding licence applications. Significant changes were made to business processes, governance, and reconciliation requirements. The Council’s suite of websites played a key role in ensuring that community initiatives and public events could continue during the year. New sites were developed for Heritage Week, Culture Night and Centenary Commemoration which were rich in video and interactive content. A new cloud based Major Emergency Information Management solution was deployed across the region with significant input in the design and testing from the City Council, to support the Major Emergency Management Inter Agency
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