Leading Yorkshire Council

One of England’s largest rural councils sits at the heart of public service decision-making, managing consultations and engagement initiatives across diverse communities. Tasked with ensuring efficiency, transparency, and compliance, the council’s Insight Team faced growing challenges.

Transitioning from manual processes and fragmented tools, they turned to SmartSurvey to modernize their approach. With the platform, the council embraced a more streamlined, data-driven workflow, enabling them to uphold their commitment to delivering insights that shape impactful public policies.

The challenge

Tackling inefficiencies in collaboration and data collection

The council’s Insight Team faced challenges typical of a public sector organization managing diverse consultation and engagement needs. Their goals required precise data collection, adherence to best practices, and centralized workflows—all within the constraints of taxpayer accountability and GDPR compliance. Key challenges included:

• Disparate workflows: Collaboration across part-time staff, job shares, and multiple accounts created inefficiencies. "On Fridays, I often received requests I could resolve in minutes," noted a consultation manager, "but I couldn't access the necessary survey, leading to delays."
• Complex survey needs: The team needed flexible survey tools to handle varied consultations, such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) assessments and sensitive safeguarding reviews. "Replacing spreadsheets with secure forms in SmartSurvey gave us compliance and efficiency," shared another manager.
• Limited stakeholder engagement tools: The lack of an integrated hub to display live surveys, publish results, and gather feedback hindered transparency and citizen engagement.
• Time-intensive processes: Redundant handovers between users and difficulties accessing shared accounts delayed responses and increased workloads.

As the council’s centralized consultation team, maintaining neutrality and delivering data-driven insights was essential to ensuring robust decision-making for public services.

The solution

Streamline the survey creation and engagement process

SmartSurvey provided the council with a flexible, user-friendly platform that enabled them to streamline their consultation and engagement processes. Key features and functionalities included:

• Centralized survey management: Superuser access enabled collaboration among team members, ensuring that surveys could be built, modified, and finalized efficiently. The ability to set permissions for sub-users maintained quality control while empowering departments to contribute. "We basically work as one," remarked the team lead, describing the seamless collaboration enabled by SmartSurvey.
• Advanced survey design tools: Features such as carry-forward responses and dynamic piping allowed for seamless survey experiences, improving data quality and user engagement. These tools reduced the need for additional survey pages and ensured respondents had a clear, personalized journey. "Carry-forward responses make surveys more engaging and professional," said a consultation manager. "It also feels more personal to respondents, improving their experience."
• Real-time reporting and dashboards: The team used dashboards to visualize NPS results, track open-ended responses with sentiment analysis, and share insights directly with stakeholders. The ability to pin specific survey results to dashboards provided a consolidated view of data. "The dashboards allow us to present data dynamically and adapt to different stakeholders’ needs," the team lead shared.
• Customizable engagement: While SmartSurvey facilitated robust consultation workflows, it also enabled non-traditional uses, such as secure data collection for safeguarding initiatives. For example, replacing spreadsheets with secure forms ensured compliance while maintaining efficiency.

Transformative Outcomes

Empowering efficiency, insights, and transparency

The adoption of SmartSurvey had a transformative impact on the council’s Insight Team:

• Improved collaboration and efficiency: With centralized access and flexible permissions, team members could seamlessly take over tasks, reducing delays caused by handovers and access restrictions. "On Fridays, when I'm the only one on duty, SmartSurvey's accessibility ensures I can resolve issues quickly," explained a consultation manager.
• Higher quality insights: Advanced survey design features helped reduce bias and improve respondent engagement. Carry-forward responses were particularly valued for creating tailored, user-friendly surveys: "It feels more personal to [the respondent] and looks more professional," said a consultation manager.
• Enhanced transparency: By combining dashboards and result-sharing tools, the team improved stakeholder communication. This capability was crucial for public consultations, such as a high-profile regional development survey, ensuring both accessibility and accountability. "We can now display data dynamically and even include sentiment analysis, which is great for reporting to our stakeholders," noted the team lead.
• Time savings: Automation and streamlined workflows cut down on manual effort, freeing the team to focus on strategic insights rather than operational tasks. "SmartSurvey allows us to move faster without compromising on quality," shared the team lead.

Flexibility, empowerment, and compliance

What sets SmartSurvey apart is its ability to adapt to complex organizational needs while maintaining an intuitive, user-friendly interface. For this council, this meant:

• Flexibility for diverse use cases: From public consultations to secure safeguarding forms, SmartSurvey’s tools supported a wide range of applications, outperforming alternatives like Microsoft Forms.
• User empowerment: By enabling both centralized control and localized customization, the platform balanced team-wide collaboration with department-specific autonomy.
• Actionable insights: Features such as sentiment analysis and dynamic dashboards allowed the team to extract meaningful, actionable data quickly and efficiently.
• Commitment to compliance: As a GDPR-compliant solution, SmartSurvey provided the necessary data security and privacy standards essential for public sector organizations.

A partnership driving public sector innovation

SmartSurvey empowered this leading rural council’s Insight Team to overcome their challenges and deliver data-driven consultations and engagements with confidence. By streamlining workflows, enhancing survey capabilities, and enabling impactful reporting, SmartSurvey proved itself as a valuable partner for public sector innovation. As the team lead summarized, “We act as a neutral, unbiased central hub… SmartSurvey helps us work collaboratively and efficiently.”