London Borough of Harrow transforms planning with Idox Cloud

Background:
Transforming planning to deliver a resident-first strategy. 
The London Borough of Harrow is one of 32 councils within London, with a workforce of more than 2300 employees who serve over 250,000 residents. At the heart of the Council’s 2023-2026  corporate plan, ‘Restoring pride in Harrow’, are ambitions to build more homes, invest in green travel, improve neighbourhood resources, and more. Central to this strategy is investment into three corporate priorities including; putting residents first, a clean and safe Borough, and a place where those in need are supported.   

Challenge:
Outdated systems failing to provide transparency or meaningful engagement with residents.
Harrow Council recognised the opportunity to modernise their land and property case management solutions in line with evolving technology, to enhance the user experience for both their customers and staff users. One of the Council’s primary goals was to engage with residents more directly and be able to publish planning information in a way that residents and stakeholders could easily view, comment, and share their views on. By upgrading to a new system, the Council’s ambition was to ensure an optimised consultation process on planning applications, including household extensions, new homes, and major developments.

The effectiveness and transparency of planning processes has become ever more important to residents in recent years. With the legacy solution also lacking the functionality required to meet the goals of Restoring Pride in Harrow, the Council decided to prioritise the implementation of a new planning solution.

Solution:
A proven, referenceable, and viable planning system 
The decision to implement a new planning system was considered a flagship action for the Council and a public commitment to its resident-first strategy to ensure it can consult meaningfully on planning applications within the Borough.  

As part of its due diligence, the Council researched planning systems used successfully across the UK. Ben Goward, Director of ICT at Harrow Council, comments, “We were looking for a proven, referenceable, and viable system that we could migrate to. The political leadership was clear it needed to see other local authorities similar to Harrow with a live, successful system in place that we could use. We looked extensively at the capabilities of the Idox Cloud system and how it met our requirements. The portal and customer front-end design was critical but the speed of mobilisation was also key. It was vital to get the new system up and running as quickly as possible to meet the goals of the corporate plan.  It was a fast procurement, but thorough.” 

Minali Jones, Head of IT Business Management at Harrow Council, added “For us, it was crucial that the system was ready to go right out of the box, allowing us to get up and running quickly. Beyond that, it needed to be a proven and mature solution, giving us confidence that it will provide the stable foundation we need to drive change and transformation within our department.”

Upon awarding the contract to Idox, the Council embarked upon a major nine-month duration implementation programme to deploy Idox Cloud for Planning. This rapid turnaround was ambitious but also an essential foundation for the Council’s process transformation objectives. Delivering much needed efficiency and productivity improvements was fundamental to delivering on promises to citizens regarding effective and responsive planning services.

Ben adds, “Given Idox’s reputation and familiarity in the sector, we knew we were deploying a mature, robust, and credible solution. This administration was voted in on a platform of getting those operational basics in much better shape and we were confident that Idox had the solution to help us transform those processes for the better.” 

As the timeline for implementation was critical, Idox provided a plan as part of the procurement process to provide detailed insight into each stage of deployment. From upfront training to system configuration, clear and robust data migration strategy, user acceptance testing cycles and more, the Council had a clear and thorough understanding of the process.  

Outcome:
Process transformation has delivered a resident-first strategy, with overwhelmingly positive feedback from users.
With Idox Cloud, many of the previously manual and time-consuming tasks are now automated within the system, resulting in a far simpler process that has generated significant efficiency savings. For example, issuing letters to constituents is now automated via the Gov.notify solution. Also, part of the resident-first priority includes an online portal, called a My Harrow account, and the integration with Idox Cloud means users only need a single login to track applications and make comments. While residents previously had some access to documentation online, the lack of usability reduced the quality of experience. The new My Harrow solution has transformed residents’ ease of access to planning information, streamlining the process and creating a far more intuitive approach to find up to date information.

Ben continues, “One of the key benefits of Idox’s breadth of experience, especially within councils, was the best practice deployment model. Standardised configuration and workflows encouraged us to reconsider the existing structure and transform our process. People and process transformation come with its challenges, but Idox’s insight and best practice from other councils was a key benefit in driving greater efficiency and better customer outcomes.” 

Feedback from residents, community groups, planning agencies, and elected members has been overwhelmingly positive. Whereas previously it would take several minutes to download documents and plans relating to a particular application, now it takes seconds. One Harrow Council resident commented “The system is much better. Files are loading quickly, and I can expand and shrink them without having to go and make a cup of tea whilst I wait.”

Ben concludes, “It has certainly been the fastest planning system implementation that anyone in this sector has experienced or been aware of. The entire process has been tremendously successful from a front-end portal, and back-office transformation point of view and this new system has helped us deliver on our vision and resident-first strategic priority.” 

Management feedback has also been extremely positive, including recognition of the role of Idox Cloud in underpinning process change and facilitating essential restructure. These changes have enabled significant transformation in the way services have been delivered and enabled the Council to achieve far more effective allocation of resources. The result has been efficiency savings and productivity gains throughout the planning department. 

Idox Cloud is now used by the Council for planning, building control and land charges. Harrow also went live with the resident facing portal and plans to further enhance personalisation. Allowing residents to see and track nearby applications will empower all individuals within the borough to be fully engaged with the planning process, meeting a core proposition within the 2023 – 2026 corporate plan.