AN ambitious step towards shared working practices has been developed by the Dorset Councils Partnership.

A single platform for the delivery of environmental health services across communities in Dorset has been implemented in efforts to improve customer service.

The partnership, comprising Weymouth and Portland Borough Council, West Dorset District Council and North Dorset District Council, together with Purbeck District Council carried out a shared procurement exercise for the implementation and maintenance of a single cloud-based platform.

Environmental Health is recognised for providing essential services to local businesses and residents across the county in the following areas: Food Safety, Health and Safety, Public Protection, Environmental Quality, Housing Improvement and Licensing.

The councils recognised early on that these services required a regulatory system that would improve response to customers and enable services to operate more efficiently and effectively through the provision of a solution which would include digital services as standard.

The councils sought to replace its existing legacy systems with a single cloud-based solution that could be fully managed off-premises and customised by the users.

Following a stringent procurement exercise, the contract was successfully awarded to Tascomi Ltd for the provision of the ‘Tascomi Public Protection’ platform. Tascomi has more than ten years experience creating industry-leading, cloud-based software which enables councils to break free of paper-based workflows and embrace mobile working, collaborative working and shared services.

Graham Duggan, head of community protection at the Dorset Councils Partnership and chairman of the DCP and Purbeck Project Board, commented on the successful outcome of the shared procurement exercise.

He said: "Following the tender process, we selected Tascomi as their cloud based Public Protection solution scored the highest out of all suppliers on both quality and price.

"Tascomi’s tender response was backed up by very good feedback, which we received from their existing customers. The tender response was well structured and easy to understand and gave us the information that we needed to make an informed decision.

"Tascomi have been quick in getting the implementation process underway. We are looking forward to an exciting journey working in partnership with Tascomi to implement a cloud-based solution that we feel confident will deliver the benefits of mobile computing and digital transformation."