Subscription service for customers to receive email and SMS alerts of council information

Andrew Bennett, e-Government Officer

As part of the e-Government agenda we required the ability to send email updates of fast changing information to customers. The Local Alert product is produced by Tagish Ltd as part of its NonStopGov suite of products.  All Shropshire Councils are already using NonStopGov to deliver electronic forms through our websites.

In late 2004, Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council, in partnership with Bridgnorth District Council and South Shropshire District Council, decided to implement Local Alert.
The service is hosted by Tagish on their servers, on behalf of the three councils.

 

Alert types are set up as a series of categories, these currently are:

Customers can opt to receive alerts on any or all of these categories. The sign up process asks the customer to specify their address, which then enables them to choose to receives alerts of planning applications within 500m of their address. We are also working on delivering alerts based on other geographic attributes such as Ward or Parish.

Local Alert went live in early 2005.
Alerts are being sent out daily and a number of customers have subscribed to the service.
We are working on increasing the range of alerts available.
At the election of May 2005, Local Alert was used to transmit the results of the parliamentary and county elections by email and text message. The alerts were sent out to subscribers within a few minutes of the results being declared.

Technology Briefing - Election Results System