Forward thinking councils throughout the UK, such as Brent County Council, are beginning to realise that SMS can be used to help increase participation in their own local elections, as well as improve existing services, or even create new ones.

As a council, imagine being able to easily provide an update of the latest traffic in your area or sending an alert when it is time to take out the rubbish, direct to voters mobile phones. These are just two services you would be able to provide if you chose to implement an SMS Messaging solution in your area.

The list of possibilities is endless:

• Flood warnings
• Traffic Bulletins
• Council Tax reminders
• Campaign Notifications
• Notifications of Planning Applications
• Terrorist Alerts, and more...

SMS text messaging also offers an accessible and cost effective facility for the general public to communicate with the council. You could have the ability to offer a service where people can request information through a text message, such as allowing people to ‘text in’ and alert the council to such things as road damage.