Download as PDF: Kent County Council – Knowledge Hub Case Study

Over the last two years Kent County Council has been developing a number of meaningful digital techniques including social monitoring, communities of practice, an internal microblogging pilot, Twitter and Facebook pages and a data sharing mashup platform with some specific local applications. Service units have to obtain a social media licence and staff undertake training to use social media on behalf of the Council. The level of knowledge sharing across the authority has increased and connections have been made to new external business groups. However Kent County Council has found that the use of social media does mean that the culture of the organisation has to continually evolve and be comfortable with the external challenge that comes with using these new communication tools.

Background to Knowledge Hub and use of social media in Local Government

Social media allows users to share information and opinions and to interact online in a many-to-many model of communication. Social media applications involve the building of online communities to encourage participation. A number of new media applications have emerged in the last five years including social networking sites such Facebook and Twitter and content sharing websites such as YouTube. Usage has grown very rapidly. To exploit these new opportunities for communication and interaction Local Authorities are increasingly using social media tools with one third now using Twitter (35%) and RSS news feeds (32%) and one sixth using Facebook (17%) and YouTube (16%).

To further develop their online learning facilities IDeA proposes to develop a Knowledge Hub that builds of the success of IDeA’s Communities of Practice which have 50,000 members. The Knowledge Hub will allow local government to produce and capture its own knowledge more directly and bring together more relevant content sources including blogs and twitter feeds.

Kent County Council’s use of digital technology

Over two years ago, Kent County Council formed a unit which examined strategic issues where digital technologies and innovation could assist in improving community outcomes. The general philosophy of the unit has been to start small and to avoid over-hyping the potential of innovative solutions.

One of the team’s first projects was to pilot the development of Communities of Practice at Kent County Council. With about 25 Communities of Practice across 700 staff, these have now grown to become an established part of their internal toolkit.

Kent County Council completed an internal micro-blogging pilot with 400 to 500 staff using Yammer, an enterprise version of Twitter. As a more dynamic tool this has been well used and the pilot a success. With over 600 users usage is continuing to grow but the principles of the pilot remain: allow people to use it if it is helpful for them alongside other channels. The content is very much driven by the users and not corporately led.

Corporately Kent County Council use Twitter actively and it has some 1,250 followers. Twitter has proven to be very useful for communication during emergencies such as snow disruptions and school closures. Via the licensing arrangements, other units with specific audiences have also created their own Twitter feeds, which link to and from the main Kent County Council Twitter feed (e.g. www.twitter.com/explorekent).

As an organisation, Kent County Council does not have a Facebook presence. The Council has considered this type of platform but after research and trial usage they concluded that people tend not to be ‘fans’ of a local council. However Facebook has been used for specific initiatives such as promoting the Kent Freedom Pass to school children which allows unlimited county-wide public bus travel for £50 per year. However, Kent County Council will continue to seek out specific projects or events where Facebook can be a useful tool.

Kent County Council has also been using social media to find local digital media innovators and companies to meet and collaborate with online and offline.

Kent County Council received £50,000 from Communities and Local Government (CLG) to develop a mashup platform. Known as “Pic and Mix” the site draws together content from many different sources including the increasing amount of data that is available openly. A number of different but very specific applications have been developed including websites about haunted places in Kent, tracking local Green Belt issues and how to identify where potholes need to be fixed. This initiative has given a deeper insight into what users want from local information.

Kent County Council now considers social media channels as part of their overarching communication strategies alongside other, more traditional channels.

What have the impacts been?

Kent has found that people are sharing knowledge much better across boundaries and at all levels. This has started to reduce duplication and enable users to make better sense of a wider range of information from hard data to conversations. New communities of interest for joint working have been identified. For example Kent County Council has been able to connect to groups of local creative freelancers, IT professional and entrepreneurs. As a result a deeper range of business interests have been engaged and Kent has been able to work with local digital innovators on ideas and prototypes.

Twitter has also allowed residents to ask questions and raise issues directly. Twitter offers a new channel to communicate with what can seem an enormous and impenetrable organisation.

What have been the barriers and challenges in using social media?

To address the skills requirements of using social media Kent County Council undertakes monthly training for staff and members (Councillors). The events are successful and always oversubscribed. The sessions aim to give a thorough overview of social media tools and to understand how local government and community campaigners use social media for innovation, engagement and improvement. They also outline the basis for building a social media strategy for a local government project and know how social media complements and supports the work of Kent County Council. Delegates are all asked to fill in a questionnaire to assess their knowledge of social media.

A key barrier has been the perception of risk and the normal model of communication control used in many authorities (e.g. control of press contact and the sign off procedures). In response Kent County Council’s Communication and Media Unit has developed social media guidance and a social media licence on a service area basis. The licence is granted when a unit has completed training and has identified a clear business need for their social networking activities. Most of the social media tools used by Kent have been free so offer good value for money. The licensing process allows some governance of social media use on behalf of the Council to ensure what is provided makes sense to their audiences. Kent County Council accept that there are risks in using social media but recognise and plan for those risks rather than let the fear of the risks stop innovation.

The culture of the organisation does need to continue to develop with an increased use of social media. Social media does result in increased levels of challenge and requires an organisation and their staff to be more open to challenge. For example, the Technology, Research and Transformation Team has found that they need to be more modest when engaging with their stakeholders and spend more time listening rather than broadcasting messages even when using these channels. Kent County Council try to ensure that the uses are authentic and meaningful and assist with improving local outcomes.

How is learning and sharing of good practice undertaken?

Alongside formal training Kent County Council are in the process of setting up open social media surgeries. Anyone will be able to attend if they have questions or ideas about how to make their services ‘social’. Various units have also organised outside speakers and facilitators to run workshops focussed on specific issues.

Online Yammer is a key knowledge sharing tool for those involved and a new online staff suggestion scheme (known as “My KCC idea” and provided by Talk Freely) will allow colleagues to create and comment on ideas, further sharing knowledge and experiences.

The Future: How the Knowledge Hub could help Kent County Council

One result of Kent County Council developing a number of different approaches to using social media is that staff now have to go to each individual social website or tool. The future challenges for the Knowledge Hub is to bring together data, information and social conversations from many sources to show how specific services are being designed and delivered successfully in local government. There is a need to be able to search intuitively and have different visualisations of the data and information provided. This has to apply across Kent County Councils 45,000 staff (including those 15,000 in schools) and their 300 services.

The Knowledge Hub should look at building on the learning from what already exists in local government and elsewhere. Many government funded projects that focus on knowledge and digital media require the sponsored Council to ensure that the technologies developed can be used by other local authorities. Applications developed through these projects could be built upon where suitable to complement the Knowledge Hub.

To be successful the Knowledge Hub has to be useful and authoritative enough for Chief Executive Officers to understand and use it. As the approach aims to offer a new way of sharing knowledge the benefits from uploading content have to be clear and help to change the way Local Authorities see each other. Addressing the cultural issues that affect the sharing of knowledge is likely to be a far more important challenge than the technology constraints.

The Knowledge Hub should start small and then scale up rather than trying to build a perfect model. This would, for example, involve providing a way to stay up to date about the changing legislation affecting children and family support. Any approach should allow quick reflective learning and accommodate ‘smart failures’.

Kent are currently working with a local university to explore the potential of social gaming as another way of improving interaction and influencing behaviour between the council and its users, in this case students around recycling.

During its two year pilot Kent TV delivered a wide range of services for the community and enabled Kent County Council to reach those who traditionally have limited interaction with the Council. The channel was able to use video media to emphasise messages, for example the Hollywould…series, which highlighted to young people the dangers of Chlamydia, staying safe on the internet and drinks spiking. Whilst the decision was taken not to award the Kent TV contract, Kent is still pursuing the digital agenda to engage with citizens. The wealth of content generated during the pilot will now be available through the Kent.gov website under the banner of Digital Kent.
 
Digital Kent will enable Kent residents to access video content which will contain information about local services and attractions, allow them to find out ‘How to’ and give them new opportunities to engage with local democracy. The small in-house team are working on a number of initiatives including allowing Council Members to upload their own Video blogs to keep constituents up to date with issues in their local area. As well as engaging younger people, by facilitating a video website made by them for them, giving them a creative outlet for the work they are producing in their schools and youth groups.
 
Digital Kent also allows content to be embedded on to other relevant sites to ensure that the content is available where the citizens are already accessing information.

Further Information

Noel Hatch

T: 01622 696830

E: noel.hatch2@kent.gov.uk

Kent County Council website
Kent CC on Twitter with links such as explore kent
Freedom Travel Pass on Facebook
IDeA’s Communities of Practice
Yammer
Talk Freely
Pick and mix
Knowledge Hub