Just in time for panto season Dorset Council launched a re-designed Performance Licence Service. Oh no we didn’t, oh yes we did!
Pantomimes, fashion shoots, film productions and TV shows, anything that involves a child in a performing capacity requires a licence issued by the Local Authority. The application for the licence requires both the director of the performance or the agency for fashions shoots and the parents of the child to provide certain information.
Previously a very unfriendly paper based process, the Performance Licence Service is now a slick, paperless process, and (we believe) the first one available online for councils in the UK.
Why a first, well it is a bizarrely complex undertaking. Some performances can involve hundreds of children. The process also does not flow in a linear fashion, and children can be added and removed from the performance in the period leading up to the licence being issued/required. We had to stretch our technology beyond our previous use.
During discovery we spoke to directors, agency staff and parents. Directors told us they wanted to go paperless – they were fed up filling in paperwork all the time for each child, there was a lot of duplication, filling in the same information on each form. Directors had to chase parents. Parents found it laborious and frequently provided incorrect ID.
The paper forms (based on the standard statutory form, where the wording was very legalese and council focused) were not in plain English. Dance schools felt some of the questions weren’t relevant to their performances. Parents found questions confusing. And children frequently lost the paper form.
The new service is very flexible, directors can track the progress of each child’s application and each performance, they can add more children to a performance at any point and best of all the form cannot get eaten by the dog!
Here’s some of the feedback we’ve received:
“I thought it was great, I’m really impressed”
“It took me less than ten minutes to fill in, I flew through it”
“Really easy to use”
Emma Powell – Business Partner Digital & Change
