The comprehensive self-assessment enables any health, fitness, leisure or sports facility to rigorously gauge whether they are correctly following Covid-19 guidance and industry best practice, as well as measure the suitability of processes and procedures put in place for welcoming customers. 

Technology partner and process digitalisation platform, Tillr, is hosting the evaluation platform, giving operators instant access on any device. Local authorities and leisure operators can use the platform to self assess and upload evidence of how their facilities and activities comply with the necessary Covid-safe guidelines (including videos and written evidence). Once completed, operators can apply to their local authority for an independent review of their submission, and receive a ‘Fit For Business’ certificate to display at the facility for customers to see. 

Westminster Council is already using the service and Eugene Minogue, Head of Physical Activity, Leisure and Sport at Westminster City Council says:

“We have been utilising the Tillr platform for many years to great effect in monitoring our leisure contract, so when Tillr announced they had partnered with Right Directions to launch the ‘Fit for Business’ certification we knew it would be quick, easy and seamless to implement. 

“As Right Directions is the leading name in Quality Assurance for our sector, having an independently audited certificate from them lets our residents, communities and employees know we’re taking our response to the pandemic, and their safety, very seriously. The leisure sector has been given permission to reopen the doors, and we wouldn’t want to do that without confirmation we have met the national standards for being COVID-secure.”

Eugene Minogue, Head of Physical Activity, Leisure and Sport at Westminster City Council

The self-assessment, which covers off everything a health club or leisure centre should have in place ahead of reopening, is broken down into five, easy-to-follow sections:

1. Planning – including processes around government guidance and industry best practice, as well as risk assessments and action plans

2. Customer Management – covering areas such as communication plans, booking systems, signage and customer education around new processes

3. Building Management – including everything from cleaning regimes and fire checks to staff, contractors and visitor processes

4. Team Management – covering areas such as health checks and staff illness procedures, consultation and communication, working from home and training

5. Leisure Activity Management – including risk assessments, control measures and sanitisation across all areas of a health club or leisure centre.

Gill Twell is Head of Development at Right Directions, which also delivers ukactive’s Code of Practice, the Activity Alliance’s IFI Mark and accreditation for the Swim England’s Learn to Swim Pathway.  She says: 

“This tool does not replace Sport England’s Quest scheme, it enhances it, and will help prepare centres for their Quest assessments, as it gives operators the ability to step back and fully understand what they should have in place and whether they have considered all areas of the business from both a customer and their staff’s point of view.  It also gives stakeholders the confidence the organisations managing their facilities are following Covid-safe guidelines and are ‘fit for business’.”

Gill Twell, Head of Development, Right Directions

Paul Romer-Ormiston, founder of Tillr says: 

“We are already assisting councils across the country with a unified approach to managing their response to pandemics, so this new capability from Right Directions for their sports and leisure departments simply adds to that portfolio.

“Whilst there are some lightweight checklists available from the government, the rigour of the approach taken to reopening via Right Directions’ Fit For Business assessment will truly give both staff and customers confidence to return to their leisure centre.”

Paul Romer-Ormiston, Founder of Tillr

Tillr is already being used by a number of councils across the country to carry out general inspections of their leisure centres.  The platform enables photographs and videos of any issues to be uploaded onto the platform, which are sent out as a task for centre managers to complete and close off, whilst managers and stakeholders have access to in-depth reporting capabilities.

Please email hello@tillr.io or call us on 020 7992 5858 for more details or get in touch with Right Directions directly.

The post Right Directions takes Fit For Business tool online to make it easier for local authorities to reopen leisure facilities with confidence first appeared on Tillr.

The post Right Directions takes Fit For Business tool online to make it easier for local authorities to reopen leisure facilities with confidence appeared first on Tillr.

According to Gartner, low-code and no-code application development is set to be responsible for over 65% of app development by the year 2024. If such a striking prediction rings true, the coming decade will mark substantial change for what it means to be a developer. Software is easier than ever to develop, so it’s time for companies to get ahead and prepare for the imminent wave of in-house software development. 

Low-code/no-code refers to the ability for organisations to develop and configure IT solutions without writing any, or much, code at all. While the terms are often used interchangeably, there is important distinctions that need to be made between them. 

Low-code development platforms tend to be most often used by skilled developers as a rapid application development (RAD) tool. This enables the developers to streamline and simplify their workloads, delivering projects in speedier times than they were historically able to. 

On the other hand, no-code platforms are most often adopted by so-called “citizen developers”. The latter tend not to be armed with an arsenal of coding skills, however equipped with a no-code platform they’re able to produce the systems they need quickly and easily by using visual drag and drop programmes.

No-code is a great way for start-ups to develop and deploy their ideas without the need for a dedicated development team. 

It is worth acknowledging that whilst the two approaches differ, low-code and no-code share a common goal – to increase agility by reducing the amount of development time it takes to build applications. Most businesses will therefore choose to implement both low-code and no-code applications to achieve various project goals. As well as this, they both use visual development environments where no hand coding is needed, and they both automate a lot of manual processes. The main difference is the extent to which developers can themselves edit the code, low-code being desirable to developers hoping to edit pre-existing code.  

Have no doubt that the no-code trend will gather momentum in the coming decade as more and more companies recognise it as a critical component of their digital transformation strategies. Vendors must in turn try to capitalise on the trend by offering no-code functionality where possible, decreasing development and deployment times, and ultimately offering cost-savings for the client. 

In the era of digital transformation – where every IT vendor and solutions provider is keen to show you the extent to which their offering will transform the organisation – low-code has become an important differentiator. Low-code allows organisations to rapidly develop low-cost, specialised solutions that support their teams and their organisation’s goals. In spite of this, make no mistake: No-code is a great tool for start-ups and smaller operations, however bespoke development cannot be beaten when scaling up your operations. Certain projects undoubtedly require professionals to consult, deliver detail, and maintain security that out-the-box no-code platforms simply cannot. 

The post To code, or not to code? first appeared on Tillr.

The post To code, or not to code? appeared first on Tillr.

Digitisation and digitalisation. Both words sound the same, but do they mean the same thing? Nope. Not at all. Hopefully this article will shed some light on the key differences between the often mistakenly synonymised words. 

Digitisation is the process of converting analogue data into digital data. For example, take any business process, such as a health and safety inspection, that was once typically done on pen and paper. The process is long and cumbersome, and processing the data to build reports is a mammoth task. Now, take that process, and instead use software to input and manage the data. The data that was once lost at the bottom of a towering pile of paper is now on a computer system and can be stored, managed, and processed far easier than in its previous analogue form. 

Digitalisation is the process of taking the aforementioned digitised data and leveraging it to improve business processes. An example being using a platform like Tillr. Tillr takes digitised data and hosts it in the cloud so that everyone on the team can readily access it wherever and whenever they like, on whatever device they like. Not only is data safer, more compliant, and easily obtainable, reporting and processing that data in ways previously unachievable is now possible at the click of a button. Tillr turns digitised data into something more with the likes of real-time reporting and automated task allocation. It will streamline multiple processes into few and make business efficiency soar, transforming once one-dimensional data into a host of possibilities.

Digitally transform with Tillr. 

Tillr’s digital transformation platform both digitises and digitalises a business’s processes. So, whether you need to digitise an analogue process, or need to digitalise an existing digital process, we have you covered – our highly configurable cloud-hosted platform is specifically tailored to your business process needs. Our platform acts as a bit of a digital toolbox in which we offer the likes of automation, real-time reporting, task management, systems integration, and much, much more. To learn more about Tillr, please contact us now. 

The post Digitisation vs Digitalisation first appeared on Tillr.

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Contract management in the public sector is vital to ensuring that services are consistently delivered to a high standard and that public money is well spent. There are some key considerations when it comes to managing contracts:

• Do you have a clear overview of the health of your current contract?
• Are you able to easily compare the service over the course of weeks, months, years and if applicable, to past incumbents?
• Are defined service level agreements written into the contract?
• Are you happy with rectification periods?
• Is the contractor evidencing the resolution of issues to your satisfaction?

If you answered ‘no’ to any of the above, a monitoring platform may be able to provide the answers.

We find that a huge amount of time is wasted following up issues related to service delivery. By reviewing your current approach and looking at which areas of your process can be automated using an online tool, efforts can be focussed on analysing the data that would have otherwise been lost on paper, in spreadsheets, in emails etc.

Over time, vast amounts of insightful data can be built up in a centralised platform that allows local authorities to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of a service or services, allowing informed decisions to be made as to where to allocate time and resource.

We have a number of different case studies, which we’d be willing to share. Please feel free to call us on 07915 617276 or enquire by email to find out more. We are also a pre-approved public sector supplier on the Digital Marketplace (G-Cloud), you can view our listed services here.

The post Optimising Your Leisure Partnerships first appeared on Tillr.

The post Optimising Your Leisure Partnerships appeared first on Tillr.

As their technology provider, Tillr will now be involved with the design, build and support of software on behalf of PCPI, which gives any size of business in the UK, online tools to assist in their ambition to prevent crime before it happens.

Paul Romer-Ormiston, CPO & Founder at Tillr, said, “We’re very excited to be part of an altruistic initiative with its roots in the Home Office and Police, to provide UK businesses with contemporary and intuitive online tools to support their crime prevention activities”.

Expect to see more products and platforms being launched by PCPI over the coming months, with Tillr proudly underpinning these crucial efforts to reduce crime experienced by businesses and their customers.

The post PCPI Partnership first appeared on Tillr.

The post PCPI Partnership appeared first on Tillr.

Tillr was awarded the contract to build and host the platform, after an intense period of due diligence, given that the certification is endorsed by BSI.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) offers free advice to businesses, in collaboration with the Home Office, though until now the next step up from free advice was the quite costly ‘Cyber Essentials’ accreditation.

PDSC, as part of a nationwide Police Crime Prevention Initiative supported by every police force in the UK, felt that smaller businesses were being excluded from enhanced cybersecurity through cost,  so developed this tool with Tillr to offer a comprehensive and affordable approach to best practices.

The post New Cybersecurity Certification Product first appeared on Tillr.

The post New Cybersecurity Certification Product appeared first on Tillr.

Curiously, the context of the GDPR is also hotly debated and largely misunderstood – is it intended to protect the rights of ‘data subjects’ (people) to know how and why their data will be held by a company, or is it intended to enforce cybersecurity best practices so that data that is held securely at little to no risk of being illegally obtained? Well, both. But it is true to say that most companies outside the FTSE 250 are focusing on one or the other, rarely both.

Which one should take precedence for you? GDPR or cybersecurity?

The GDPR is legislation – to not adhere to the GDPR, is to break the law. That feels like a sensible driver to prioritise GDPR compliance.

So why, according to this article in Forbes, is it that only “30% of organisations will spend on GDPR-related consulting and implementation services through 2019”. Seemingly because GDPR spend includes amendments to marketing and sales behaviour, as well as improvements to cybersecurity, so some companies spending money on cybersecurity alone do not consider that as spend on GDPR.

Despite being a legal requirement of a business capturing personal data of subjects in the EU, the GDPR does not go as far as to legislate for the cybersecurity measures that should be taken to protect digitally stored personal data. It recommends best practices, but it is not a legal requirement to enforce specific cybersecurity practices.

For that reason, you really should consider whether your cybersecurity practices are aligned with your GDPR objectives – essentially, are you focusing cybersecurity enhancements on the areas that relate to the storage of personal data?

It is all very well that you use a secure cloud application for your business accounting (sensitive company financial data) which is only accessible using two-factor authentication and only by the CFO, but if you also have a salesperson who has downloaded a copy of the CRM database to their laptop and uses the password ‘Password’ to lock the device, your GDPR risk exposure is severely high – and the penalties for a breach could significantly impact those precious, protected balance sheets.

The GDPR doesn’t discriminate

Big or small, old or new, global or domestic………..no matter what your organisation looks like, it must follow the GDPR for the storage and usage of personal data. 

The agenda should not be driven by marketing desires nor by technology visions, your GDPR agenda should be driven by an inherent and non-negotiable view on the responsibility that comes with capturing, storing and using the data you hold about individuals in the EU.

By understanding your organisation’s obligations to those data subjects, it will become very apparent that you can’t deliver on GDPR without sharpening your focus on cybersecurity in conjunction with the blanket email, and tick box, and disclaimer, that caused your inbox to melt in Spring 2018.

The post What did you do when you heard the GDPR klaxon sound? first appeared on Tillr.

The post What did you do when you heard the GDPR klaxon sound? appeared first on Tillr.

Digital transformation: allowing companies to reimagine how they operate their business and how they interact with their customers, or just a buzz-phrase designed to make IT upgrades sound sexy? Whatever your take on it, the evidence of it on Boardroom agendas is overwhelming, and everyone in your organisation should be talking about it.

Digital Transformation in Different Industries

From governments to banks to travel giants, and everything in between, each has embraced digital transformation in their own way and on their own timeline.

Despite the obvious benefits of a digital transformation, cost and disruption are consistently cited as reasons why organisations are still living with inherent legacy problems caused by analogue processes and dated IT infrastructure.

As an example, The World Economic Forum labels governments as “the dinosaurs of the digital age: slow, lumbering and outdated” in a recent report. As such, is it surprising that technology adoption and spend on digital transformation are both below where we might expect them to be in 2019?

Digital transformation cannot be delivered overnight, but it can create a day and night difference in how an organisation functions. Be it private or public sector,  it is unequivocal that using technology to reduce workloads, reduce error and reduce risk is desirable – so why have some industries been so slow to start their journey?

Perhaps the value has not been apparent enough, whilst the costs are portrayed as high from the off – without a strong business case and a person on the Board to champion digital adoption through transformation, projects sometimes never get off the blocks. Building the right business case to inspire your own organisation is the art.

According to an article in The Guardian, the key to successfully digitally transforming your business is to understand not only your unique selling proposition but your customer base as well, which in the case of government and local authorities is the general public. The quicker an organisation embraces digital transformation, the faster they will become successful and reap the benefits. Obvious, right?

Embracing Digital Transformation

Nike embarked upon a ongoing digital transformation journey to change its organisation. Following the transformation, the company saw an increase in stock prices from the beginning of 2017 at $52 to today nearly being $88. Perhaps not 100% attributable to the project, but certainly an outcome that was anticipated as a benefit of completing such a piece of work.

All organisations across every industry are being faced with the fact that they need to embrace digital transformation. There is no way to avoid digital transformation. Whether it is a small company or large organisation or local authority, the choice is not theirs to make anymore.

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The post What does Digital Transformation mean to you? first appeared on Tillr.

The post What does Digital Transformation mean to you? appeared first on Tillr.

In this post, we will look at the rise in councils choosing to “insource” their contracts and what impact that will have on outsourcing.

The rise of insourcing

In a BBC article written about the demise of Carillion, the closing statement posed the question “who will ultimately pick up its loss-making public contracts – another outsourced services provider or the government itself?”.  Recent research predicts that it will be the latter and we can expect to hear the term “insourcing” on a more frequent basis. 

A fascinating report published last month by the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE), who work with over 300 local authorities in the UK, states that 77% of UK councils plan on bringing services back in-house this year.  The report also calculates that between 2016 and 2018, at least 220 local government contracts have been brought back into council control.

The contributing factors

After 40 years of awarding contracts to the private sector and in today’s period of ongoing austerity, cutting costs and improving quality are driving factors behind the rise of insourcing. 

According to APSE’s report, 78% of councils believe insourcing increases flexibility.  Due to the structured way that an outsourced contract is delivered, insourcing is seen by many as a way to regain control over a service, allowing local authorities more freedom to allocate resources where they are needed and in some cases source services locally to support businesses in the area.  

ASPE’s report also states that 66% of councils said insourcing saves money, and more than 50% say it has improved the quality of the service while simplifying how it is managed.

Making the case for outsourcing

ASPE’s report on insourcing offers a bleak assessment of the future of outsourcing.  However, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that outsourcing is here to stay and from our own experience working with many councils across the UK, we are entirely in support of this view. 

“After Carillion”, an in-depth report ordered by the House of Commons to look into public sector outsourcing in the aftermath of Carillion’s fate, suggests that savings of 20% are achieved when a service is first exposed to competition.  In terms of the council’s leisure contracts, local authorities are able to include liabilities for any structural repairs to their facilities within an outsourced contract offering huge cost savings. 

Outsourcing to the private sector also creates opportunities for local authorities that they would never have had access to, such as a global pool of talent with new ideas about how services should be run or access to cutting edge technologies. Outsourcing allows local authorities to focus their human resources where they are needed most rather than spending time and money on recruiting talent.

Effective monitoring and both are here to stay

Today, we have access to cutting-edge technology making the monitoring of contracts or services easier than ever. Whether a local authority chooses to insource or outsource a service, it is the effective monitoring of that service that turns it from good to great.

The post Is the rise of insourcing the end for outsourcing? first appeared on Tillr.

The post Is the rise of insourcing the end for outsourcing? appeared first on Tillr.

What does this mean?

The ‘Digital Marketplace’ is a procurement platform set up by the Government to allow councils to procure digital services and solutions quickly and efficiently and is favoured by many local authorities in the UK. As part of the conditions of being accepted onto the framework, every supplier applying to list their services has to be vetted to meet the strict standards upheld by the Government.

Nearly 50% of local authorities in London already use Tillr, as do plenty of others around the UK. We have big plans to help even more councils benefit from adopting a digital transformation platform and by being on the Digital Marketplace we’re making Tillr as easy to adopt as possible.

We have two solutions ready to procure from the Digital Marketplace, one aimed at leisure departments within councils and the other for any other department looking to digitally transform their processes.

If you would like to find out more about the work we do in the public sector, please contact us on 07915 617276 or send us an email.

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