Overview
Thanet District Council is a non-metropolitan district council in the county of Kent, England. The Council is based at the Council Offices in Margate and also contains the towns of Broadstairs, Ramsgate and Westgate-on-Sea. Previously the district straddled two constituencies, North Thanet and South Thanet, however following a review by the Boundary Commission the Council will only have responsibility for the new East Thanet constituency.
Situation | From on-premise to the cloud
Thanet District Council had been with their previous Election Management Software (EMS) supplier for a number of years and so a decision had been made to review the EMS market following the conclusion of the May 2022 elections.
The Council’s key requirement was for a fully cloud based solution designed as a Software as a Service (SAAS) system which could work effectively with their blend of Google and Microsoft based software.
Solution | FCS Software ElectionsPro
The Council went to tender in 2022 and awarded the contract to FCS Software.
In addition to the procurement of a Cloud based solution, the Council were eager to utilise the fully integrated suite of services that the ElectionsPro solution provided as standard, including;
- Full IER functions that integrate with email, and SMS to allow for the automation of tasks such as the processing of ITR email bounce backs.
- A comprehensive annual canvass solution that provides a fully integrated data matching and data mining service, with access to real time route analysis reports and charts.
- A data governance tool to custom set and automate all data protection and GDPR compliance.
- An automated NLPG integration tool.
- Gov.Notify, email, and SMS integration across the entire ElectionsPro platform.
- A fully integrated elections module for the managing of all elections and referendums, with fully integrated staffing portal services.
- A cloud based scanning application.
- A cloud based count results and display module.
The Council were also keen to take advantage of fully integrated add-on solutions, such as CanvassPro (the tablet based canvass solution) and the automated online, telephone, and SMS canvass response service.
Results | Efficiency savings and outstanding supports
The Council have now completed a full electoral cycle having used ElectionsPro to deliver IER, the annual canvass, the May 2023 Parish and District elections, and three referendums. They also received fantastic feedback from candidates, agents, and staff, following their use of the count module to collate results, and display them in real time across multiple screens throughout the count, including a cinema size display in the central count area.
As we enter 2024, the Council are confident and ready to deliver this year's Police & Crime Commissioner elections and the forthcoming general election.
