Top marks for Caerphilly Council in IT survey

Caerphilly county borough council clearly understands the importance of top rate IT security, especially in today's climate of increasing cyber crime and high profile cases of data being lost or stolen.

Council staff recently told an independent body called the Society of IT Management (SOCITM) that they have easy access to information they needed to carry out their jobs. In 34 survey questions the council scored in the top 10% seventeen times and only fell under the top quartile in two areas.

This survey grading covers over 100 different local authorities across the UK. The council's IT team also got top marks for fixing problems and for enabling modernization of delivery of services. This was qualified further with staff telling SOCITM they were given innovative solutions responding to their changing business needs.

Cllr Colin Mann, Deputy Leader & Cabinet Member for Resources and Sustainability said "This is excellent news, as we approach the most difficult time for local authorities it is important that the back room services are fit for purpose and this survey certainly gives us a big tick in that box"

During May and June of this year the IT service again participated in SOCITM's Benchmarking User Satisfaction exercise. This was the fifth time the service has participated in this particular benchmarking exercise, the previous user satisfaction survey being undertaken in 2006.

The user satisfaction survey seeks responses to numerous questions about the IT service from a randomly selected sample of officers and members. The organisation provided 279 responses from users – a 30% larger response rate size than previously achieved and a significant sample to ensure any analysis would accurately reflect the views of the organisation.

The survey provides a detailed analysis of user views on many aspects of the IT service. The results focus not only on the user perception of the quality of the service, but also on the importance users place on those aspects of the service.