WEST Dunbartonshire Council have created a new 'Digital Strategy' to improve customer experience online.

Hoping to make the process of requesting and receiving council services online, councillors have approved the first Digital Strategy detailing the online service and how it will use new technology.

Improvements include giving residents access to a self-service website of key Council services 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This would allow residents to view Council Tax balances, make payments, report road and lightning faults and track progress of their requests.

Parents will also be able to pay for things like school meals online making it a safer for children and more convenient for adults.

Convener of Corporate Services, Councillor Kath Ryall, said: “This Digital Strategy is ambitious and sets out the way our services will transform and improve what we offer to our residents.

"We need to keep up with what local people want and expect from us. More than 80% of them have internet access at home, and six in ten residents now have smartphones.

"For many people their preference is to request and receive services online at times that suit them."

Depute Convener of Corporate Services, Councillor Thomas Rainey, said: “We now receive nearly a million visits to our website every year from people.

"That is more than twice the number of phone calls we get to the Contact Centre, and ten times the number of visitors to our One Stop Shops.

"We need to not only respond to that demand but also be able to keep up with it in coming five years."