Purpose

Councillors are required to respond to a wide range of resident enquiries and community issues. The Councillor Application Pilot will provide secure access to approved council information through a simple web and mobile interface, enabling councillors to access information more quickly and effectively. The pilot will initially focus on highways-related information and will establish a reusable platform capable of supporting future applications and services. The proposal supports the Council's wider ambition to improve access to information, increase self-service capabilities and make better use of existing data. Expected Benefits The application is expected to make it easier for councillors to access information needed to respond to resident enquiries, reducing delays and improving responsiveness to residents. The project is also expected to reduce some of the routine requests currently handled by council services, creating efficiency benefits through reduced officer effort and reduced duplication of activity. Whilst these efficiencies are expected to generate operational benefits, any financial savings are currently indicative and will be assessed and validated following completion of the pilot. The platform created through this investment is also intended to support future applications, reducing the need to build separate environments for subsequent solutions and enabling greater reuse of technology investments over time.

There are several future applications being considered for example: · Education Health Care Plan drafting: This application will provide AI assistance to the creation of EHCP reports, potentially reducing the time to produce a report from an average of 1.5 days to 3 hours. · Home to School Transport: This application will provide early visibility of transport needs (reducing high cost late booking), AI assisted reporting and forecasting, and AI assisted route optimisation. The environment is being built to support up to ten individual applications but could be extended if more capacity is required. Financial Considerations The approved expenditure will be funded as follows: · £159,983 relating to application development will be funded from the Information Technology Capital Programme. · £185,353 relating to the application platform and hosting environment during 2026/27 will be funded from the Information Technology Product Teams revenue budget.

Decision

To approve the award of a Statement of Work with Version 1 for the delivery of the Councillor Application Pilot at a total cost of £345,336 excluding VAT.

Alternative options considered

Do Nothing This option was rejected as councillors would continue to rely on existing processes and officer support to obtain information, limiting the Council's ability to improve responsiveness and increase self-service access to information. Delay the Project This option was rejected as it would delay the opportunity to test the pilot, evaluate its benefits and establish the wider platform required to support future applications.