South Tyneside Council has won the prestigious Local Government Exemplar Award for ‘Best Business Process Transformation’, thanks in no small part to web enabling software from Astun Technology. The award recognises the steps which the Council has taken to improve its frontline service provision facilitated largely by the continual evolution of its public facing website.

South Tyneside Council has been an Astun Technology customer since 2004. The iShare solution pulls Council held information from backend systems re-purposes it and makes it available to citizens via the Council’s website based upon their location. The ‘My South Tyneside’ section of the website is a model of simplicity. A site visitor simply enters part of their address to find their home. The result is personalised information centred on the property, planning applications in the vicinity, events, and details of councillors. A ‘My Nearest’ facility enables the visitor to search for anything from a Doctor’s surgery to a Recycling point, with maps available to see the precise location.  Lastly there is ‘My Alerts’ a unique email update service which lets people know about, local events, new or changed planning applications, changed bin collection days, new road works and a host of other council information which is being added to all the time.

iShare is now in use with over 20 Local Authorities providing cutting edge access to information, and encouraging the use of e-services. Once deployed it is entirely automated, logging any issues and sending email notifications to system administrators as they occur. Based on PostGIS/PostgreSQL and Map Server Open Source software iShare provides an excellent return on investment and the potential for considerable savings through ‘Avoidable Contact’.

“We are absolutely delighted to win this award and have no hesitation in praising the efforts of Mike Saunt and his team at Astun Technology for providing us with the software and expertise that has enabled us to deliver a class leading website for use by the people of South Tyneside,” Said David Bowman, Assistant Head of Policy at South Tyneside Council.

Download the Case Study now

 See My South Tyneside in action

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