In 2016, Medway Council set an ambitious goal: “To provide digital services so good that all who can use them prefer to do so.” To move to the next step, Medway looked to involve FutureGov as a digital transformation partner — a team who could support them to become the digital-first organisation they imagined.

Medway asked us to refine their vision into a set of clear principles; to upskill both staff and leadership; and to introduce a culture of digital innovation across the council. We also looked to helped them identify new ways of working and the technology needed to achieve their aims.

We created an updated future vision with design principles and specific goals; service and technical roadmaps to achieve these goals; an innovation lab exploring two practical exemplar projects; and a bespoke four-part digital training for senior leadership. To ensure that Medway had the necessary skills, we also created a final report with clear next steps plotted holistically against a digital maturity model and supported them with the recruitment of digital team members to roll out the exemplar projects.

Over three years, the proposed technical roadmap identified savings of around £2.35 million and the service roadmap identified savings of around £5 million. The digital transformation team now feels confident in using an agile approach to lead digital innovation projects, which reduces risk and increases speed to delivery.