Andrew Anderson, Senior Manager (Programmes)
“You could be a CIO. You could be a project manager, or the person responsible for data migration. Whatever your role happens to be, there’ll probably come a time when you’re not quite sure about the best way forwards. So who do you turn to for advice if no-one around you is sure, either?
“Shared experiences go a long way in local government, particularly when it comes to systems implementation. While every authority is unique, there are certain commonalities that tend to unite them. Because of that, there tend to be commonalities between the systems they use, too. So even if you run up against a challenge that you’ve never faced before, there’s a good chance that someone at another authority has.
“That’s something we learned first hand here at BetterGov. The majority of our team members have direct experience of working within local government and social care themselves. In fact, many of them were our customers before they joined us. And of all the things they liked about working with BetterGov, the opportunity to talk to their peers about their challenges was one of the main ones.
“We’ve been co-producing social care systems with Local Authorities and other organisations for almost a decade now. During that time, we’ve been fortunate enough to establish close relationships with many of the people we’ve worked with—relationships that have continued even as those people have moved on to different roles.
“The benefit of that network is that it gives our new and existing customers the opportunity to talk through their challenges. If someone has a question about part of their system, for example, we’ll often be able to put them in touch with two or three other people who have direct experience of that same situation.
“That’s important, because it doesn’t just provide answers to questions. It can help people to think differently, and make decisions more effectively too. By speaking to one of their peers, our customers might find out that a certain idea they had didn’t quite pan out when it was implemented at a different authority. Alternatively, they might learn about a brand new way to approach a challenge.
“More than anything, it turns what can be an extremely isolating experience into a shared one. Because, no matter how big the challenges might be, the chances are that someone has already conquered them.”
