Credit: Ian Dick/CC BY 2.0

Glasgow City Council has taken another step towards realising its digital strategy by rolling out an online contact system across all its schools.

ParentsPortal, which has been piloted in schools in the north east of the city, enables parents and carers to have access to their child’s school 24 hours a day.

The online system, which will be rolled out to all primary and secondary schools in the local authority area from today, enables parents to update personal information, fill in permission slips and consent forms and view school calendars. Online report cards, timetables and the ability to make placing requests will be added in due course.

Chair of Digital Glasgow Angus Millar said: “The ParentsPortal is a great example of how digital technology can improve people’s lives, in this case providing an easy-to-use link that gives the latest information on school activities and how children are progressing. This is a very useful addition to the range of communication channels open between parent, carers and schools.”

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The digital system is already used in other local authorities including Aberdeenshire, East Renfrewshire and North Lanarkshire.

Glasgow City Council launched its Digital Glasgow strategy in November 2018, detailing its vision of becoming “a world class city with a thriving digital economy and community, where everyone can flourish and benefit from the best digital connectivity and skills, where technology is used to improve everyone’s quality of life, drive businesses’ innovation and service design and improve our city, its neighbourhoods and its success”.

At the time of the launch, Millar said it represented “an ambitious vision for a city where digital drives inclusive economic growth, transforms our public services and improves our citizens’ quality of life”.

As part of the overall plan, the council unveiled a digital housing strategy earlier this year that has the ultimate aim of ensuring the city’s entire population has access to the internet.

Having worked alongside landlords, the local authority found that 65% of households living in the city’s social rented sector were digitally excluded due to not having a broadband connection.

Kenny McLean, convener of the council’s neighbourhoods, housing and public realm committee, said at the time that between now and 2028 the authority would work with housing and other partners to help deliver more affordable broadband which would in turn improve housing services because they could be delivered digitally.