Woking Borough Council Digital Action Plan

Intended outcomes

1. Residents trust our online presence, relying on consistent design and content to know they are interacting with us and only us.
2. Most of our residents choose and prefer to interact with us online (at least two thirds, not including complex case work).
3. People get what they want first time in 85% of our interactions with residents, whether for information or transactional services, without needing help.
4. Users rate our online services ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ more than 85% of the time.
5. Increase in the use of services and reporting online.
6. Users understand our website and associated information, meaning they do not have to contact us if we have put the information online.
7. Residents can easily participate in democratic processes online, including through the residents’ panel.

Progress so far

• Local Government Digital Declaration signed.
• Joined and contributing to the LocalGov Drupal community of councils.
• Comprehensive user research to understand service pain points and opportunities, particularly focused on highest volume services.
• Full website audit of content, user journeys, design systems, design patterns and accessibility across all 1,200 pages.
• Full website redesign to meet highest digital and accessibility standards (WCAG 2.2).
• Quick fixes to forms and integrations on current site.
• Begin rollout of new website from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10 beginning with high-volume, high-impact services testing, learning and continuing rollout.
• Microsites rationalised and reduced from 10 to 5.
• All payments moved online.
• Rolled out first examples of smart lookups and auto-indexing reducing staff time.
• Upskilled all customer service staff to handle highest-volume services (Council Tax and Business Rates) to deal with more queries first time.
• Reduced telephone opening hours (keeping office opening hours) to allow staff to work through backlog of queries in the afternoons, reducing user wait times.
• Online form improvements which have seen calls and emails for Council Tax debt (arrangement) queries fall 59% December 2023 to December 2024.
• Arrangement defaults have dropped 70% in the same period.
• Council Tax officers have increased cases resolved to 6.7 per hour, an increase of 34% in the same period despite increased case complexity.
• Housing Benefit processing time average is now 6 days (national average is 19 days).

2025-2026 priorities

• Ongoing website and online user journey improvements.
• Remove desk phones and roll out headset phones.
• Omnichannel programme begins to support improved user and staff experience, improved data, more consistency, better outcomes and lower costs.
• Continue to build a truly digital team with increased capacity on forms, integrations, service design, product ownership and content. 
• Use agile methods to collaborate and work in the open.