Angus Council’s war on potholes, dog fouling, litter and graffiti is going digital.
The council has plans to develop an online “report-it” system as part of its overall digital strategy.
The digital process redesign – which is expected to go live in the next few months – has been identified as a key enabler to meet the challenge of reduced resources while making improvements to services.
Monifieth and Sidlaw Lib Dem councillor Ben Lawrie is confident the new digital reporting system – which is still in the works – will be more efficient and cut costs.
Mr Lawrie said residents will be able to report things like potholes, dog fouling, litter and graffiti.
“This will be easily accessible on smartphones and tablets and use location information so that it is easy to report problems on the go as you come across them,” he said.
“This will be on the council website rather than through an app.
“One advantage of this is that you can access it through the internet on your phone and don’t need to go through the trouble of downloading an app on your phone.
“Angus Council’s website renders well on mobile phones and this saves people the frustration of having to wait for the app to download if they don’t already have it when they come across something and want to report it straight away.
“All that will be required is a quick Google search of Angus Council’s report-it service and then a few easy to follow steps.”
Mr Lawrie said the case has successfully been made to kick off the project and “this is something that will be happening soon”.
He continued: “This will save the council money in the long-term as it cuts out much of the manual costs of the reporting process.
“The system uses geopositioning to tell where your phone is when you report a problem.
“For instance if you report a pothole it helps to determine its location and it will also be possible to upload a photo of the pothole whilst reporting it.
“Gathering all this relevant information in the initial contact means that the reporting process will be more efficient and cut costs rather than having to get back in touch with people for more information.
“Angus Council is currently going through a time of evolution, modernising in to a council fit for the 21st century.
“As part of this it’s exciting to see the war on potholes, dog fouling, litter and graffiti go digital.”
Councils can be left facing a large compensation bill from motorists whose cars have been damaged as a result of pitted surfaces if potholes aren’t dealt with quickly.
A spokesman for Angus Council said: “We are currently working on a new digital function which will enable our customers to report a number of issues online to us, including potholes.
“At present, people can report a damaged road or pavement via our website.”
