North Ayrshire is a Council that is 'Fair for All'. Our mission is working together to improve well-being, prosperity and equity in North Ayrshire. We recognise there is strength in doing things together. We have therefore, engaged with and listened to our staff, customers, learners, visitors, businesses and communities to develop a Digital Strategy that meets our ambitions, vision and mission for the next five years.

Digital North Ayrshire - a leading innovative organisation 2023 to 2028

Why did we refresh?

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the way we work and how our services interact with customers. One of our priorities is to review the Digital Strategy in light of the learning from the pandemic.

What did we learn?

A high volume of our customers have access to online services and are happy to engage in this way. There are however, still gaps in terms of our digital offering and digital exclusion in the form of access to devices, connectivity and appropriate skills and support remains a challenge.

How will we use this learning to improve services?

We will continue to support our customers to increase levels of digital access, by providing more services online and offering more help to access these. We will endeavour to ensure that everyone has the ability and knowledge to participate in the digital world.

We recognise that there are many benefits that digital engagement can bring. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, increased customer expectations on local services, and a challenging financial climate, the Council must strive for innovation and continuous improvement.

North Ayrshire Council’s vision is 'to be a leading organisation defined by excellent and innovative services' and digital has a key role to play in enabling this.

Digital is as much about people as it is technology.

It is about how people engage with and utilise technology to enable new ways of living, learning, and doing business. We must embrace digital and reimagine the work that we do for a digital age. Many people no longer simply go online, they live online.

• customers
• colleagues
• learners
• Elected Members
• visitors
• businesses
• leaders
• partners

We believe that applying a digital approach allows us to work and learn in a smarter way. We will collaborate with our key stakeholders to ensure we deliver excellent services to all.

It is crucial that the Digital Strategy reflects the needs and ambitions for the whole of North Ayrshire. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of our engagements have been successfully completed online and where possible face to face group sessions.

North Ayrshire Council:

• Elected Members
• Executive Leadership Team
• Heads of Service
• colleagues
• Modern Apprentices
• customers
• Community Planning Partners
• Scottish Government and Partners
• Tenants' Participation Team
• community groups (that is library groups, Connecting Scotland Participants and so on)
• Youth Cabinet Live

Crucially, our engagement work will continue beyond the launch of the strategy. The strategy is only the start of the journey - we must bring everyone along with us if we are to truly transform as an organisation.

622 responses:

• overall, 95% of all respondents have access to email or the internet, 95% indicated they have access at home
• 66% have access via mobile phone
• 33% have access through work
• 11% access via local library

Digital is the preferred method to receive information (46%)

The Connecting Scotland Programme got 60,000 digitally excluded households online at the end of 2021. North Ayrshire Council has made successful bids for devices during all programme phases to ensure our customers have digital access and support. Over 2,000 devices were provided throughout North Ayrshire and details of some of the other organisations in receipt of these are detailed below.

Organisations:

• Alzheimer Scotland
• Children 1st
• CEIS Ayrshire
• NHS Ayrshire & Arran
• Lennox Partnership
• The Salvation Army

The Scottish Government published its new Digital Strategy 'A Changing Nation: How Scotland will Thrive in a Digital World' in April 2021. The strategy is jointly owned by local and national government, the principles are the backbone of the strategy and will support a digital nation applicable to Government, but also to People, Place, and the Economy. North Ayrshire has incorporated these principles within our digital strategy.

• inclusive, ethical and user focussed
• digital leadership and culture
• collaborative
• data-driven
• technology enabled
• innovative and sustainable
• a skilled digital workforce
• secure by design

See the Scottish National Digital Strategy.

We have identified the following priority areas as being key to a digital North Ayrshire. Our priorities will determine what we focus on and what outcomes we will deliver.

We will support our customers to become more digital, designing services that are quick and easy to use making digital the preferred choice.

We will support businesses to improve productivity by adopting, optimising new and resilient digital technology and investing in digital skills for the future.

We will use digital technology to build innovative and creative teaching approaches that will raise attainment across all schools and centres.

We will promote North Ayrshire as a tourist destination through digital marketing and communication.

We will develop our workforce to ensure it is empowered, enabled and inspired to realise the benefits of digital.

We will work with our communities to nurture the use of digital technologies and improve digital skills across North Ayrshire.

Our principles underpin the work that we do and guide how we deliver in our priority areas.

Our Services will be designed with our people and customers, encouraging and supporting them to use digital as their preferred choice of engagement.

Our technology will support our people and communities and will take into account the emerging digital solutions.

We recognise that there are many threats to privacy and will ensure the Council's digital services are secure by design.

We will use our data appropriately to drive change and innovation, improve service delivery, make informed decisions and improve outcomes for our customers.

We will work together with our partner organisations to raise awareness of new technologies, adopt digital and champion innovation.

To shape sustainable technology development and innovations, we will actively pursue digital solutions, whilst taking into consideration the changing landscape and challenges of sustainability.

We will streamline our digital services and strive to capture a single view of our customer contact to ensure customers can access the appropriate Council services.

We will collaborate to ensure we maximise the benefits and outcomes digitisation delivers for our customers, people and communities.

Our vision: Digital services so good that they are the preferred choice for all

We have both external customers (our residents, learners, businesses and visitors) and internal customers (our workforce). We will put our customers at the heart of the organisation, designing and building our processes and services around them. With increasing demand and a challenging financial climate, our digital services need to be secure, easy to use and accessible to all.

• design, develop and test new digital approaches with our customers to ensure they are user-friendly and meet their needs
• providing easy to access information about Council Services
• building a single view of our customers allowing us to offer more efficient and customer friendlyservices
• engaging with our customers to build an understanding of how we propose to use their data to improve the services we deliver to them, whilst ensuring that it is kept secure and that we process that data lawfully
• continue to embed better use of technology to help reduce travel and carbon emissions
• listening, understanding, and working with our customers; responding to their needs and keeping them informed; making it easy for them to interact and access our services and to actively encourage them to be participants in what we do
• ensuring our customers are given the right advice at the right time, whilst maximising benefit entitlements and supporting better outcomes.

North Ayrshire Council is currently working on Accessing Our Council Programme which will support the following principles:

• single point of contact
• streamlined customer journey
• one assessment for means tested benefits
• income maximisation for customers
• centralised debt advice and support

Our vision: Productive, technology-enabled businesses with the digital skills required to innovate and thrive.

We will support businesses to improve productivity by adopting, optimising new and resilient digital technology and investing in digital skills for the future.

• work with partners to support businesses to understand and adopt new digital technologies
• support businesses to develop a culture and leadership that cultivates innovation, maximising the benefit of digital technologies
• work with partners and support businesses to invest in digital skills for the future
• support businesses to create new and additional employment to support business growth generated through digital opportunities
• support businesses to understand the necessity for lawful processing of data, the economic value of their data and protect against cyber security risk
• aligning our work with National Strategy for Economic Transition and "A Changing Nation" Digital strategy and the Council’s Economic Covid Recovery Investment Plan
• play a leading role in the Ayrshire Growth Deal to ensure that digital infrastructure, skills and ambition help to drive future growth.

As part of the Council's new Green Deal we will support businesses and community organisations to adopt new innovative practices, models and technologies to reduce their carbon footprint.

Completion of Business Advisor training which focused on eight digital themes:

• process digitalisation
• data analytics
• marketing ecommerce
• green technologies
• cyber security
• digital skills
• innovation
• digital leadership and culture.

Actively working with 13 partners on digital activities, some of our partners include:

• Digital Boost
• Scottish Enterprise
• Business Gateway
• The Data Lab
• Ayrshire College
• University of the West of Scotland
• Strathclyde University etc.

The Ayrshire Growth Deal will deliver £14M worth of investment to support world class digital infrastructure across Ayrshire.

• 350 digital interventions and support provided
• 50 digital transformation talks completed
• 102 digital grants supported, leveraging private sector investment

Our vision: To be sector leading, providing innovative digital education to prepare our learning communities for the challenge of a rapidly developing and changing technological world.

We will use digital technology to build innovative and creative teaching approaches that will raise attainment across all schools and centres. Our staff will have a positive attitude towards digital and a clear understanding of how digital can be used to improve learning.

• to develop the skills, fluency and confidence of staff, parents, and community educators in the appropriate use of digital technologies and to support the development of digital skills
• to provide a future focussed curriculum by improving the use of technology in learning
• to provide the required digital technologies which are aligned to and fully supports high quality digital learning and teaching that will lead to raised attainment
• to continue to gain the Digital Schools Award Scotland accreditation and embed this practice in all our education establishments
• to work alongside the Secondary Technicians and IT Service teams to develop systems and processes that will support the above areas of focus.

A significant investment has been made by the Council on digital devices:

• 2021 to 2022 - £1.234m for in-school devices with investment of £752k in subsequent years
• an additional recurring investment of £250k to improve access to digital technology for home-based devices.

Digital Schools Awards is a national awards scheme to promote, recognise and encourage a whole school approach to the use of digital technology in schools. 12 of our schools have been awarded Digital School status with a further 35 currently being registered for the award.

Xpressions App - is a service providing parents with an app to receive messages from the school

Glow - is Scotland's national digital learning platform provided by Scottish Government and managed by Education Scotland.

Satchel:one - is a simple online homework calendar your child can use to keep up to date and on top of all their homework.

Seesaw - is a platform for student / teacher engagement and enables the sharing of successes from school with home. The teacher creates an online classroom where they can post home tasks, reminders or updates on events online for all the children and parents in that class to see.

Our vision: Our visitors will have easy access to digital information about our destination.

We will promote North Ayrshire as a visitor destination through digital marketing and communication.

• to work with businesses / organisations to create a digitally accessible platform which advises what is available in North Ayrshire
• develop a refresh of North Ayrshire's tourism strategic priorities, following completion of Making Waves programme and Regional Visitor Economy Strategy
• consider options to support digital infrastructure through Ayrshire Growth Deal project development

An example of digitisation in 2022 was the creation of a digital interactive website with link to a ticket booking platform for July 2022 Making Waves Festival.

You can download our libraries' app and access the Heritage Trails app. Follow the trail on the move from a mobile phone or tablet.

While visiting North Ayrshire's visitor attractions our visitors will be given a great digital experience, for example, at Eglinton Country Park we have embraced the use of digital technology to enhance our visitor experience, through the use of QR codes to:

• allow visitors to download maps at various points throughout the park
• download orienteering courses and maps which can be held digitally for future use

Our vision: Colleagues who are empowered, enabled and inspired to realise the benefits of digital.

Our workforce shows a real commitment to continuous improvement and we are recognised as a progressive, forward thinking and innovative Council. Our ambition for our people is to create a culture where innovation and excellence thrives, in a North Ayrshire that is 'Fair for All'. It is only through our people, that we will realise this ambition.

• gain a better understanding of the level of digital skills within our workforce. We will plan, supportand increase these skills through our digital leads within our services
• encourage our colleagues to seek new, smarter ways of working using technology to improveour services
• having a leadership team that embraces digital technology and leads by example
• formalising our approach to how and where we work to ensure we have a more resilient and adaptable workforce
• continue to use our technology effectively to support our colleagues to work remotely where necessary, which will have a positive environmental impact through less travel
• reuse, recycle and procure technologies to support a greener environment

Utilising technology and expanding our remote access infrastructure, the Council has continued to deliver essential services to our customers and our office based staff have now adopted hybrid working.

Our vision: Communities who use digital technology confidently and have good connectivity.

The Council recognises the crucial role digital will play to support a place-based approach and investments. We recognise that having access to a device or using digital services is an important part of daily living and there are clear links between social isolation, poverty and digital exclusion. Digital participation covers more than just access to the internet, it is about the skills to use it safely and the confidence to do so. By providing support we will endeavour to ensure that everyone is able to participate digitally, and we will provide free public wifi in council buildings, digital infrastructure and resources in schools, support community groups and offer lifelong learning activities which will increase digital participation further.

• working with partners to improve digital access and remove barriers to digital inclusion across North Ayrshire
• developing the digital skills of our customers through training opportunities and mentoring
• ensuring we have community leaders who are able to assist those who need help using digital devices and accessing services
• promoting the many benefits of being digitally active, especially when it's addressing issues of poverty and health
• aligning our work with other relevant strategies where we can enhance learning and digital access
• continue to invest in our public wifi and devices to support our customers to get online
• providing access to employability interventions to develop digital skills for future employment
• investigate ways to use digital technologies to enhance place-based investment addressing local priorities, support changes within communities and contribute to a vibrant and inclusive economy

• 100 Chromebooks and 18 months of wifi has been allocated to young people in North Ayrshire
• a digital champion has been recruited to support young people to engage with services through digital devices and channels

• 57,750 hours of wifi was accessed
• 24,121 eBooks and 17,263 audiobooks borrowed
• 93,464 digital magazines borrowed

92,106 users of wifi across 17 wifi sites in 2021 to 2022.

This Digital Strategy sets out our vision for North Ayrshire Council to continue to be an innovative leading organisation. The last few years has dramatically changed the way the Council works and how our services interact with our customers. This has given us the opportunity to rapidly progress digital transformation.

A large volume of our customers are happy to transact with us online, but we also recognise the social and economic impact of those who are digitally excluded, therefore this will be a key priority for the Council.

Our strategy sets out our key priorities, principles and actions that will allow us to fulfil our vision and progress in a digital world. The following actions will support and accelerate our journey towards a digital North Ayrshire that is inclusive, accessible, sustainable and fair for all.

North Ayrshire Council supports:

• our customers
• our businesses
• our learners
• our visitors
• our people
• our communities

Making digital your preferred choice.