Switch to iPads will save almost £100,000, local authority claims

In a report to Scarborough Borough Council’s audit committee, which meets today, councillors will hear a full breakdown of the costs of introducing the tablet devices, against the predicted spending relating to the previous system of laptops, printers and paper agendas. It is estimated that savings of £100,000 will have been made by March 2014.

The tablet computers will be bought for all 50 councillors at the authority. The move attracted widespread concern but was sanctioned after 42 councillors approved the plan.

Opponents of the plan questioned whether council taxpayers should be asked to provide iPads for members at a time it was making cuts.

But the move was rubber-stamped at a meeting in February when the council agreed a new budget for the year, with £2.2m in savings and 37 jobs being axed.

Last night Hilary Jones, the council’s strategic director, said: “I’m very pleased at the way councillors have embraced this new technology as we attempt to make significant budget savings.

“Adapting has not been easy for some of them, but I commend their determination and enthusiasm and as a result there was a real milestone moment at Full Council earlier this month when every councillor in attendance was using their iPad to access documents.”

The authority says its initial outlay for the 50 iPads used by councillors, as well as a case, stylus and applications, was £9,125 – less than half of the estimated £22,250 that the authority claims would have been spent in 2013 on replacement laptops and printers – potentially saving £13,125.

However, the £27,000 cost of the 3G contracts for the iPads over two years is slightly higher than the £25,500 that would have been spent on councillors’ broadband allowances over the same period.

The authority says an estimated £81,236 in further savings will have been made by March 2014 with the ending of the bulk of printed council agendas, which often run to hundreds of pages, as well as the associated staffing and postal costs.

The authority says the iPad was chosen ahead of other devices as it represented the best value for money.

Training for councillors was largely completed by the end of August and by the authority’s Full Council meeting in September, 80 per cent of councillors were exclusively using their device to access documents and did not bring printed agendas to the meeting.

The Full Council meeting on November 5 was a milestone moment, with every councillor in attendance using their tablet device to read documents.

In the future, a further significant saving is expected to be made when other features of the iPad are rolled out, such as using the electronic diary to arrange meetings, which will lead to significant savings in time taken to organise meetings, and the use of Facetime, which will allow councillors to hold remote meetings with officers, thereby reducing the cost and time of travel to the Town Hall in Scarborough.

Councillors also benefit from other advantages, including instant access to emails, council documents and the internet that can be difficult to quantify in terms of monetary savings.

The authority claims the move towards paperless council meetings has been closely watched by representatives from other local authorities, which could follow the lead of Scarborough Borough Council. It says there has even been interest from a local authority in New Zealand.