Clare County Council expect to have a publicly accessible system online by the end of next month with detail on the follow-up actions to passed motions by the Council.
Last July, a cross-party grouping of elected representatives called for the creation of “a publicly accessible CRM system to record all notices of motion, replies and follow up actions to avoid duplication, to track recurring issues and to ensure effective management of all issues raised by elected members”. An update on the status of the delivery of the system was sought by Cillian Murphy (FF) at the Council’s most recent sitting.
A customer relationship management (CRM) system is a process in which an organisation administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study large amounts of information.
Integrating CRMs had been identified as an area for business improvement within the Council. Work has commenced on a review of all customer based CRMs with a view to developing a central customer CRM system. Motions from councillors is being explored as a part of this project.
Acting senior executive officer in the corporate services of the Council, Ann Reynolds explained, “The project has been delayed during the Covid-19 Pandemic and is still in the early research stage, i.e. work has commenced on a DPIA (Data Protection Impact Assessment) and identification of initial design requirements for the Customer Service module. As an interim measure work is progressing on the design and extraction of suitable reports from the existing councillor motions CRM which will provide the information being requested in a searchable format.
“It is expected that such reports could be made available by the end of Quarter 1 2021 and be updated on a monthly basis on the Councillor Extranet,” she added.
Progress on the request was welcomed by Cllr Cillian Murphy (FF), “I understand we’re in the middle of COVID and have issues getting stuff done. I was just looking for update,” and also Cllr Gerry Flynn (IND) “I’m glad some bit of progress is happening”.