Qlik and Camden Council, this week, revealed the ongoing success of their partnership to transform public services in the London borough through data-driven business intelligence across all operations.

Camden Council began their partnership with Qlik in 2012, with the aim that they could help facilitate its five-year digital transformation plan. This involved driving significant cost savings, increasing efficiencies and reimagining data usage to enhance the day-to-day lives of over 240,000 residents and the millions of visitors who pass through Camden.

According to the data analytics provider, their QlikView and Qlik Sense solutions are used by managers, staff and services in over 65 dashboard areas within the council. These applications have enabled the delivery of a Medium Term Financial Strategy that supported the council in achieving over £63 million savings between 2014 and 2017.

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At the beginning of the partnership, Qlik and Camden Council incorporated datasets gathered from different service points to achieve a 360° view of its operations and service-users’ needs. This strategy has enabled the Council to let data drive its operational and commercial decisions and fit services to the needs of residents while enhancing accountability and transparency.

Improved streamlining in areas such as adult social care, parking management, council tax administration and benefit provision have made a positive impact on everyday services for users.

Emerging patterns and problems are identified and addressed quicker as well, for example, Camden is using dashboards within housing repairs services to manage operational processes. It can also measure officer performance using a single version of the truth approach, which has led to increased efficiency and customer satisfaction. Similarly, a cross-reference of census data with council data has been applied to plan school places in the context of a growing population.

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According to the release, Camden Council has undergone a cultural change, evolving from a cluster of siloed departments to a unified system approach to services across the borough. As a result, Camden Council has seen a 45% saving in working hours in some areas, for example, they used open data sets to answer freedom of information requests.

Sudip Trivedi, Head of Data & Analytics and Connectivity, Business Partner, London Borough of Camden, said: “We are delighted with the results of our partnership with Qlik. While the cost-savings and improvements in efficiencies speak for themselves, the concept proposed by Qlik has proved effective beyond our expectation, and their offering has developed to cater for our needs on every front.”

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“In a wider sense, our transition to a data-centric organisation has been so successful that we no longer differentiate between our digital and operational strategies. Our ongoing focus is now on a building blocks approach to generating and applying better quality data. We believe that the successes we have had in Camden through data integration and sharing with other boroughs should become the template for a wider approach.”

Sean Price, EMEA Industry Solutions Director, Public Sector, Qlik, added: “The success of our work with Camden Council is a great example of the transformative impact data analytics can have in the public sector. Data has almost limitless problem-solving capabilities and our work with them has really highlighted how it can make significant cost savings and improve the day-to-day lives of everyday people. There is much that other authorities and organisations can learn from the success in Camden.”

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