South Cambridgeshire District Council - Consultation Platform Software

Soft Market Testing - South Cambridgeshire District Council (SCDC) is looking for suitable software to design, develop, and implement an innovative and user-friendly consultation platform. This platform will facilitate engagement between local government and its residents, enabling effective communication, feedback collection, and participatory decision-making.

The key functionality of the software should include features that would allow us to increase engagement with residents and to provide a comprehensive online platform where residents can track consultations from beginning to end. The platform should also contain a secure login option for residents to keep track of their engagement and so that we can contact residents when new consultations and opportunities for engagement are posted.

The consultation platform must be GDPR and accessibility compliant, with an intuitive and user-friendly interface for residents. The system should have flexible feedback collection tools, including question branching, polls and interactive maps as well as the ability to easily design and change templates to incorporate our branding. Training and support must be available for using and designing the platform. The platform must also provide a single access point for visibility of all current and historic consultations.

The platform should be able to provide us tools to geographically target consultations so that only residents of a certain geography can answer. We would also want the platform to include single sign-on functionality through our existing IEG4 portal and seamless integration with our existing Council website, with the potential for further integration with other platforms/tools if needed.

The platform should provide tools for efficient analysis and data collection. This includes aspects such as AI driven sentiment analysis, trend identification and free text categorisation, as well as interactive dashboards to present findings. It should also be easy to export data if needed.

Platforms that include AI and machine learning, community panels/forums, user profiles and activity tracking, anonymity options, offline capabilities and multi-channel communications would also be welcome.

We would welcome expressions of interest in relation to systems that are suitable for a range of local authority consultations, including those that can be proven to meet the specific requirement of detailed Planning consultations.

Please contact kevin.ledger@scambs.gov.uk by no later than 5pm on 23/08/24.