Bringing your Services closer to your Citizens

Local Councils deal with high volumes of enquiries from citizens on a daily basis. In order to improve customer service and boost operational efficiency, more and more councils are looking to put services online. But to truly realise this efficiency, online services must be accessible, easy for citizens to use and capable of integration with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and other front-office systems.

Now, thanks to a new pilot initiative by Northern Ireland Local Government Association (NILGA), local authorities in Northern Ireland are providing local service information in an innovative and very cost effective way.  Through LocalViewNI multiple local authorities across Northern Ireland are now able to improve their services for citizens, by making a vast catalogue of local information available on the Internet.  ESRI Ireland has been appointed to develop and host this shared, online public information portal, which is based on our LocalView product.

Under the terms of the agreement, ESRI Ireland, in collaboration with North Down Borough Council, has built a location-based inventory of local assets and services across Northern Ireland.  This catalogue includes information on central government services, local authority services, educational facilities, visitor attractions, health services, places of  worship, accommodation, hospitality, recreation, leisure facilities and recycling centres.  ESRI Ireland has made this information available via LocalView, a browser-based geographic information solution that enables citizens to search for and find their nearest services using a map. 

The project is being part funded through the e-Government initiative and supports the Government’s drive towards shared services.  Rather than creating twenty six different applications for each of the twenty six local authorities in Northern Ireland, ESRI Ireland has created, maintained and hosted a single LocalView infrastructure and database at a central location.  Each local authority are able to customise the look of its own portal and integrate the solution into its own existing council web site, enabling significant economies of scale from shared use of a centralised solution. 

LocalView is already being used successfully by North Down Borough Council in Northern Ireland, where it has received an enthusiastic response from citizens, businesses and local representatives in the region. North Down Borough Council is closely involved in the LocalViewNI initiative and is working towards developing into a Centre of Excellence for the deployment of location-based information for their citizens in Northern Ireland.