Auld Reekie – How Edinburgh Saves £40 per council tax payer with more efficient IT

Auld Reekie is neither an insult nor a profanity. It is a traditional epithet for Edinburgh and refers to what you used to see of the city from the surrounding hills during the era of wood and coal fires, with the plumes of smoke over the city seen as a sign of prosperity for the citizens of Edinburgh. The coal fires are now long gone so there is no clearly visible indicator of how the citizens of Edinburgh are prospering.

Although not a visible indicator, one measure of prosperity where IT is making a big difference to the citizens of Edinburgh is council tax. Throughout Scotland, council tax has been frozen for the current year by the Scottish Government. In addition, as I discovered when I was visiting the City of Edinburgh Council recently, more efficient IT is helping to save the equivalent of £40 from the council tax bill of every citizen of Edinburgh.

This amounts to a whopping £9 million in IT efficiency savings, which has been realised through the City of Edinburgh’s Smart City business transformation programme that they are implementing in partnership with BT and Microsoft to deliver more effective public services to citizens.

Take a look for yourself at the City of Edinburgh Council Smart City vision video and read the in-depth case study here

Posted by Ian