Having until just earlier today been a Blogging virgin, I can now see that I should have entered the overview details in the last of the 3 video blogs, not the first.  Rather than repeat myself about who the SLG is and why we were working on some flexible working pilots, just scroll down to that bit below in the Newham entry!

Using the same process to develop a customer led solution as we did with Newham for managers, Wakefield council brought key members of their social services team down to our Technology Centre.   The goal was to work through the business challenges, develop a set of agreed outcomes and define a functional solution that met the requirement.  I’m not sure what morale was like on that mini-bus for the 5 hour trip down but everyone arrived in surprisingly good spirits and it was clear that everyone was pretty focused on getting to the crux of the issue.

I’m also glad to be able to debunk an often quoted myth about social workers too.  It’s often said that IT people get sent to work with Social Services when they have really upset the boss.  It’s said that social workers don’t “get” technology and are reluctant to change the way they work.  Well unless their was some serious pre meeting threats that I was unaware of, I can happily state that Wakefield has some very forward thinking people working in social care who were quick to adopt new IT capabilities when they could see benefit in doing so.

Having spent day 1 of our 2 day workshop explaining the process, challenges and boundaries of the work they did, we were able to develop a solution that not only met these needs but exceeded them in certain key areas.  Wakefield are doing some very interesting things across the council and this engagement was seen as being the pre-cursor for a corporate wide flexible working program, not just a departmental solution.  We therefore needed to ensure that the solution was focused on the Social Worker scenarios but also played to many of the broader strategies of the council.  The video gives some great insight into the thought process within the council but I will highlight a couple of key points:

·         Language and context are critical – we talk about efficiency and cost savings, social workers talk about efficiencies increasing visiting hours, decision making quality and customer service

·         The impact of implementing a new system must be weighted against the direct customer and corporate benefits

·         Social workers love gadgets too but not ones that slow down their day, leave them open to personal attack or just build barriers between them and their clients

Enjoy video number 2!