Powys Council mobilises fieldwork

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Welsh unitary authority Powys County Council has said it is rolling out mobile technology systems across its departments to increase efficiency and reduce costs.

Like many local authorities, Powys first replaced paper-based process with mobile systems for managing repairs to housing stock. Now it plans to extend its mobile capabilities to a diverse number of council areas or management, including civic building repairs and inspections, legionella testing and clinical waste management.

The new mobile systems have been designed to help field staff work more effectively and reduce the time and mileage involved in each working day, by receiving job details direct to their PDAs and sending feedback to the office in real time.

And, where the feedback highlights an issue – such as a failed risk assessment – the system will deliver automatic alerts to the manager that action needs to be taken, enabling faster and better informed decision-making processes as well.

The council is also providing web portal-based access to its database information to the managers of all its buildings, from schools to leisure centres, offering them a complete view of the services and maintenance delivered to their specific building for the first time.

Access to the portal is controlled to make only relevant information available to each user. And, because users view information through a web browser, there are no application licences to be bought and no skills that need to be learned.

The systems are based on forms technology provided by Southampton-based mobile technology company 1st Touch, integrated with back-office job costing software from ROCC.

Selecting a form-based system offered Powys the advantage of flexibility, providing room for evolution and growth, according to council spokesman John Jones. “Business changes fast and we wanted to be able to change forms and develop new solutions for a growing number of users for ourselves,” he said.

Jones added that the council is planning to extend its mobile application technology further: “We have achieved a lot, but we don’t intend to stop. We bought this product to move on, not to stand still.”

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