Brentwood Borough Council has announced it has selected Placecube to provide it with Digital Place, an open digital platform designed to simplify how councils make and re-use local services online.
Brentwood sought a new digital platform to support its ambition to redesign services around its users, providing more intuitive and intelligent online experiences for its customers and for its workforce. Initial work will focus on improving their web presence and online self-service, alongside the development of a Customer Contact Management application. The council expects to improve the customer experience and realise savings.
Jonathan Stephenson, Chief Executive, at Brentwood Borough Council, said: “The Digital Place product allows Brentwood to benefit from the prior investment of other local authorities by reusing the digital services that they have co-designed with Placecube. It also provides a foundation for us to build new and more accessible services using our highly capable inhouse skills, alongside our new partners. We see this as an opportunity to grow our reputation as a council that builds and shares well designed systems for the people of Brentwood, and nationally, and to move closer to delivering the Council’s ambition of a Connected Brentwood.”
Tim Huggins, IT Manager, for the Council, added: ” We are excited to be joining the growing number of councils using the Digital Place product and how we might contribute to and benefit from this more open and collaborative approach. Our initial focus is to provide an enhanced and more accessible customer experience through the launch of a new corporate website in 2021. We chose Digital Place because we want the flexibility to build services inhouse, to share our development nationally, and of course to benefit from the work of other councils. We have an ambitious agenda over the next few years and are excited at the opportunity this new partnership offers.”
Jason Fahy, Placecube Chief Executive, commented: “We’re delighted to be working with Brentwood Borough Council. The skills, experiences, and ambitions of our combined teams, and that of the other Digital Place customers gives real momentum to the pace of change. Placecube and its local authority customers are bringing to life the Local Digital Declaration through our open source development and re-use with other councils.”
Placecube builds open digital platforms that make transformation simpler through reusable code (Cubes), so digital services are easier, faster, and better connected. Its open digital platform, Digital Place, makes it easier to connect systems and personalise user experiences, helping government and business simplify and re-use well-designed digital services and extend collaboration across organisations, communities, and places.
Established in 2003, rebranded and relaunched in 2019, Placecube has co-developed open digital platforms with a variety of central and local government clients including Bristol City Council, London Borough of Camden, the Police ICT Company, the Scottish Improvement Service and NATO.
Placecube is listed on several government frameworks including G-Cloud, DOS and it is also one of the few suppliers named on the Crown Commercial Service’s Dynamic Purchasing System for Disruptive Innovation, SPARK.
