Newquay Town Council

Newquay Town Council is a relatively new local authority, established as recently as 1987. For most of its existence, the organisation has experienced steady but slow growth and was able to manage it effortlessly. In the past few years, however, things shifted dramatically as Newquay Town Council had to take on a number of new statutory duties. To handle the increasing volume of work, the staff was expanded to 47 employees.

The growth was unexpected and presented new, unique challenges that we discussed with Callum Rowley, the organisation’s IT Service Manager.

The need for a change

As the Council was expanding, the communication gap between members and constituents widened. Decisions, actions, meetings—much of the important information was announced on paper and wasn’t reaching many of Newquay’s 60,000 citizens.

It was time to try and engage them digitally.

“[In the past year], we've tried to create our digital engagement with our constituents. Our main aspect of all the technology that we've been adopting recently is to better engage and communicate more so we can be a bit more transparent.”

But external communication wasn’t the only issue. Internal communication was also a challenge because it relied on a time-consuming paper-based process. Organising a Committee Meeting, for example, meant a full day’s work for two members as well as the printing of dozens of sheets of paper. 

As you can probably imagine, this also resulted in a significant carbon footprint. As Mr Rowley said,

“We do use a few hundred thousand pieces of paper every single year which, from looking into it, equated to about 63 trees in a year. We're currently trying to review our climate strategy quite deeply and, of course, cutting down 63 trees every year just for the way the Council conducts meetings isn't sustainable. [This number] would increase in the future years with more activities and more services that we would have to provide. ”

Newquay Town Council needed the right technology to digitalise its meetings, while also opening them to the public. 

The search for a suitable solution was a bit more difficult than expected as there weren’t many options. Finally, the Council decided to go with iBabs, after taking advantage of the free trial. 

What was it like to implement iBabs?

Adoption was easy because no new hardware was necessary

Members and staff already had a wide variety of devices that were used in meetings. So, one of the main concerns was to find a solution that was compatible with all of the existing equipment and wouldn’t require the purchase of new hardware.  

Since iBabs runs on all platforms, members were able to continue working with the devices they were used to.  

The need for IT support was reduced

The IT team found that iBabs required minimal maintenance which was especially important in a diverse, fast-growing team. Members and staff didn’t require a lot of support because they found the solution intuitive. 

“It was quite simple to keep maintained and it was quite simple for members. When I approached [staff and members] with the platform, they were more than happy to try it and, as far as I'm aware, none of them have had any issues at all. It's the simplicity and the user experience which the platform offers that are quite superb.”

In fact, when the constant printing stopped, the printers within the organisation became less likely to need repairs. 

The Council Became More Flexible

iBabs allows the Town Council to run meetings in any location they choose. The app works on mobile devices as well as desktop computers and all that members need is to be logged in to iBabs.

“We literally have everything that we need at the tap of our fingertips. If we have to relocate a meeting due to, say, extreme weather in Newquay, we can do it. We can just unplug our iPads and move.”

What are the results?

Trees are being spared 

After adopting iBabs, Newquay Town Council’s meetings are all paperless. There is no need for printing because the stakeholders can see the agenda, together with all relevant files, right in the app.  

“The Council won't be printing any papers for its members. If they want papers, they have to print them themselves. Otherwise, they've got iBabs.”

It’s Finally Possible To Track Performance

Using iBabs’ Actions function, members can review any outstanding actions, at any time, without having to go through the entire report of the previous meeting. This allows Newquay Town Council to keep track of their progress and to assess the results they’ve achieved. 

“It helps our members better view what our day to day works like and support us in how we're going to be able to move forward to achieve more.”