Stockport Council wins LGC Digital Impact Award

Last night at the annual Local Government Chronicle (LGC) Awards, Stockport Council took home the 'Digital Impact' Award after demonstrating a data-driven culture that has been established at the local authority, underpinning its digital transformation.

"This award is great news for Stockport Council and residents," says Councillor Mark Hunter, Leader of Stockport Council. "A key priority of our Borough Plan is to be a radically digital borough. We are proud of our innovative use of data to support our digital ambitions. Data is helping us meet local government's challenges and transform our services, resulting in better outcomes for residents."

Stockport Council’s entry highlighted the council’s goal to put data at the heart of everything they do, as shown by examples of recent successful data tools and projects:

• Family Context Tool – an open-source digital tool to support social worker decision-making and improve outcomes for families
• Open data platform – an online open data portal to share datasets with partners and the voluntary sector, supporting collaboration and innovation to achieve better resident outcomes
• Open-source mapping tool – developed to help residents report faulty streetlights, blocked drains and floods and shared with wider colleagues and partners
• Use of data during Covid-19 response – to target Covid vaccines, focusing on inequalities, helping us to achieve the best vaccination rates across Greater Manchester

The judges announced the winner and commented on Stockport Council's "Impressive technical data platform infrastructure, enabling remarkable projects with very clear impacts, and helping drive real change." The award recognises "A standout, corporate-wide initiative to put data at the heart of the organisation. A worthy winner."

Children’s services social workers who use the Family Context tool daily, offered real-life examples of the impact it makes:

“Time, time, time. It’s absolutely amazing to be able to bring everything together very quickly. We’re so busy that being able to do something in 20 minutes rather than 2 hours makes such a difference to us.”

“I’d never have had that information had I not seen it on there. I just wouldn’t have asked. It helped inform what the intervention was going to be for that family.”

Stockport Council announced its Radically Digital Stockport Strategy in March this year. It aims to keep Stockport at the forefront digitally, maximising the opportunities of the digital era and ensuring that everyone is digitally included. To follow our progress please visit the Digital Stockport website.