Digital Plan introduction

The internet and digital technologies have revolutionised the way people live, work and connect. The change has been rapid and is continuing at pace as technology and ideas evolve.   

As a council we want to be ready for the future; embracing digital for the benefit of Plymouth’s residents, businesses, students and visitors, and for our own workforce.  

In the internet age, people want to be able to transact and find information online, and expect the experience to be straightforward, convenient and seamless. How residents and service users interact with the council should be no different.  

Our staff too, have similar expectations for a seamless digital experience; so it’s vital that we provide our workforce with the right digital skills and tools to help them work in more efficient and cost-effective ways.    

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for the council to operate differently and with added resilience. At the beginning of the first lockdown we changed many of our services almost overnight in order to make sure they could continue to run. Digital technology enabled this rapid change, allowing our staff to work safely and flexibly, and ensuring residents and businesses could get the help and information needed despite the need to socially distance. 

We were able to respond so quickly and effectively because some of the foundations were already in place and we could accelerate the shift to a digital ways of operating. We now need to build on these foundations and take a consistent digital approach to designing, delivering and operating our services; an approach which will enable us to do more for less, and offer more resilience in light of an uncertain future.    

However, our digital ambition needs to extend beyond the council if we want our city to thrive in the modern world. We aim to collaborate and align our digital ambition with partners across the city, and co-ordinate our approach so we can use digital technologies and data to provide better outcomes for the people who live, work and study in Plymouth. 

We want Plymouth to become an attractive proposition for business and innovation.  High speed internet access is now often seen as the fourth utility and is an important factor for residents and businesses when considering living, working or investing in the city. We need to work with internet service providers and unlock investment opportunities to improve both fibre and mobile connectivity across Plymouth. We also need to ensure our residents have the skills to access the jobs of the future, to be able to take advantage of opportunities in a growing digital, data and technology industry.   

In addition to having the right digital work skills, we want all our residents to have digital life skills. Being online can save time and money, provide opportunities for learning, help us manage our health, access government services, and connect to others. COVID-19 highlighted the drawbacks of being digitally excluded; those who had previously thought they had no need to be online became isolated, with no access to online tools such as video calling, shopping and banking.  

COVID-19 also highlighted the issue of digital and data poverty. For those who couldn’t afford home broadband or had no or limited mobile contract and relied on free internet access in schools, libraries, community centres or cafes, were suddenly locked out.  

We need to work with partners across the city to tackle digital exclusion whether the barriers are access, skills, motivation or confidence. We’re committed to making sure that those who need help in the city know where to find it.  

We also recognise that digital is harder for some people and we will make sure that those who don't have the access or skills to make the most of digital aren't left behind.   

As a council we’re already well underway building new capability to deliver our ambition:   

• a digital programme has been initiated to deliver on the outcomes in this plan
• our employees are equipped with the right technology to be able to work flexibly and productively to deliver services 
• with our public sector partners and IT providers we are delivering a full fibre network and 5G capability across the city  
• we’re creating a service design team who will apply Government Digital Service methods to redesign services focussing on user needs and ease of access  
• we’re creating a citywide network of organisations to tackle digital exclusion  
• we’ve signed the Local Digital Declaration along with hundreds of other local authorities; a shared ambition for the future of local public services  

We’re committed to working in the open and will report regularly on these pages.