It's about helping families
who need that bit of extra support
to be able to meet the
needs of their children,
and help children in our
communities to thrive.
A key outcome for Bristol City Council
is for us to be a fair, healthy,
and inclusive sustainable city.
Social care plays a huge part
in our obligations to meet that objective.
Traditionally Children Services
have relied on referral.
So when people see that
something is happening,
they let us know that that's
happening for a child,
and we're able to step in and support.
When we do hear about a worry for a child,
what we need to be able to do is to see
a whole picture of the child,
understand who else is
involved in that family,
and make a quick assessment
of how serious these worries are.
Bristol City Council
has been on a journey of improvement
over the last five years.
We'd reached a point
where we probably couldn't
take it any further
without the developments that
Microsoft have given to us.
What was really important to us
was to be able to take
data out of the silos
and bring it together,
but link it in a unified way,
that allowed us to see single views
of the child or the adult
across all our disparate systems.
We had a number of data silos
where we had data that was
only accessible by a few
and we weren't able to make decisions
based on really, really great data.
We decided to go for Azure
for our cloud hosting environment.
The Azure solution has been revolutionary
for the Bristol City Council.
The security elements on
our E5 License Agreement
have been superb.
We are able now to see
what the decisions we take,
what outcomes that they give.
So we have one account
for all citizen activities
against the council.
If we are notified overnight for example,
that a child's had a really horrible time,
either in a family or in the community,
we're able to get that information
from the police quickly,
and we're able to share it
with others in the network,
and we're able to support that family.
Now we've got that potential to grow
and go further in our use of data,
so that together
we're able to deliver on
our vision for the city,
which is a city of hope and aspiration,
and one within which
no one is left behind,
so everybody has the opportunity
to achieve their potential.