Lancaster and Wyre councils share a Head of ICT and have a vision to share IT services. The current pandemic has highlighted the need to share software and processes between the two authorities..
The solution
The team is looking to use Teams Live Events as the platform for their virtual council meetings as it coincides with the core Teams software replacing their telephony system, and found it covered the core functions it wanted to deliver:
- provides live video feed of meetings (over 10 speakers are viewable on this platform to the producer)
- ability for public to attend (over 250 attendees)
- Q&A capability
- ability to vote on decisions (the team will develop an interactive form to send to councillors in order to record votes with results published in the channel function for attendees)
The team has also explored using Webex and GoToWebinar as they also both provide the core functionality that is required and will be proposed as a backup.
The public will be able to join the meeting through the dial in option to participate in the session. The team will, at the minimum, adhere to the regulations by allowing the public to hear proceedings and contribute as they happen.
Structures within the councils also contain service super users so the organisation has built in resilience if they need to draw in additional resource for processes.
How is the new approach being sustained?
The team is planning to continue stress testing of the platform and processes daily in the lead up to the first live event to ensure roles and step by step procedures are understood and resilient.
It will also ensure those running the technical side of the platform understand everything they need to in order to ensure the proceedings are as smooth as possible and are able to do this independently.
The team has also been meeting with its regional technology partners from Microsoft who are offering additional support to streamline this project.
Lessons learned
- Your team needs to be adaptable and ready for anything – able to deliver what’s necessary in time pressured situations.
- Engaging with regional stakeholders is also important as requirements cover other councils in a similar situation to you. Networking and sharing learning is a crucial aspect to adopting new practices.
- Continued testing is essential.
Contact
Steve Simpson, Head of ICT for both Lancaster City Council and Wyre Council [email protected]