Lancaster City Council chose Simpson Associates & Phoenix to be their partners and critical friends

Designing and delivering their Power BI Cabinet Dashboard and Project Management Insights

Simpson Associates, the go-to data analytics consultancy for many local authorities, were introduced to Lancaster City Council by their strategic partner, Phoenix Software. With the support of Simpson Associates, Lancaster are designing and delivering a Cabinet Dashboard and Project Management Insights solution, using Microsoft Power BI. The new Cabinet Dashboard will deliver a 360-degree view of the Council’s KPI performance across all 4 priorities and 24 council outcomes. The Project Management Office (PMO) Dashboard will provide senior leadership with a summary view and RAG (red/amber/green) status of all projects in flight, with the capability to drill down to see underlying causes where issues occur.

Jez Bebbington, Executive Support Manager at Lancaster City Council says:

“As a sector, we’re all now starting to see the benefits of joining up data and insight, internally and with our partners across boroughs and regions. The Cabinet Dashboard and PMO Dashboard are two important projects on Lancaster’s journey to embracing the opportunity data provides, whilst ensuring it is well managed and governed. Our partnership with Simpsons & Phoenix means we’re on track to deliver some fantastic products in the future.”

Tom Hughes, Business Development Manager at Simpson Associates comments:

“It has been a pleasure working with the Lancaster team as they develop their Power BI Cabinet Dashboard. They’re well skilled, focused and have a clear vision, whilst Simpsons have been able to offer experience and lessons learned from 30 years of delivering these projects to appropriately challenge and ensure Lancaster’s success. I look forward to supporting Lancaster on their journey.”

The engagement has centred around a number of formal consultative workshops and regular check-ins as the projects have progressed through scoping, design, development and soon into testing and roll-out. Artefacts from Simpson Associates Cabinet Dashboard solution have also helped Lancaster accelerate aspects of requirements gathering and structuring.

Lancaster have a number of highly skilled data and insight professionals, supported by a clear vision and leadership, however they recognised that they had modest experience in designing and delivering solutions in the latest Microsoft Azure technology suite. Lancaster also saw the benefit of leveraging the experience and designs used to support other Local Authorities with similar requirements. Lancaster selected Simpson Associates, a Phoenix partner, to act as a critical friend as they progressed through their projects, to help review, critique and offer recommendations. The first panes of the Cabinet Dashboard have already been delivered and the project is running to schedule.

About Simpson Associates

Simpson Associates is a leading Data Analytics Consultancy and Managed Services Provider, empowering forward-thinking Local Authorities to understand and resolve some of the most complex and common data challenges. They specialise in supporting local authorities to address their critical service delivery and citizen objectives through trusted data and insights, and their capabilities range from Strategy and Consultancy, to Data Quality, to Data Platform and Single View of Citizen. With over 30 years in data, Simpsons offer vast experience and a wealth of knowledge, combined with their extensive partner network.

About Lancaster City Council

Lancaster City Council is the administrative authority for the city of Lancaster. The local government in the Lancaster district is made up of 3 tiers. These include Lancashire County Council, Lancaster City Council and Parish and town councils. They are responsible for delivering a wide range of neighbourhood services as well as making important decisions on behalf of local people, including the responsibilities of budget setting, performance monitoring and strategic decision-making.

About Phoenix Software

Phoenix enables digital transformation in the workplace, empowering UK organisations to innovate and transform with cloud technology, data, AI, security, and collaboration tools. By understanding the individual goals of its customers, Phoenix delivers remarkable, outcome focused IT solutions and services that allow UK organisations to make a difference to the lives of their employees, service users, and communities.
Phoenix is a signatory on the Race at Work Charter, and a Disability Confident Committed and Living Wage employer. The company is also actively involved in Women in IT Network, set up to encourage more women into the IT industry.