Leeds City Council joins the Govtech community

After an extremely thorough due diligence process, including hours spent speaking with existing Govtech customers such as Salford City Council, Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council and Plymouth City Council, we’re delighted that Leeds City Council, the second largest local authority in the UK, has selected Govtech to deliver end-to-end automation in Revenues for up to 4 years under G-Cloud.

Leeds is our second Capita site that will utilise automation in the everyday processing of Revenues transactions along with a new suite of online digital forms; this will provide its citizens with an improved digital journey, and free up team resource to focus their specialist skills on complex cases.

“After an extremely thorough evaluation, we have chosen Govtech to support the delivery of end-to-end automation of Council Tax transactions. End-to-end automation will improve customer experience when accessing Council Tax services online, reducing response times and facilitating quicker response rates. Using automation to free up Council Tax Service resources means we will be able to focus on more complex cases and assist the collection rate by quicker, more accurate billing.”

Mark Amson, Head of Revenues, Leeds City Council

This is another key partnership for Govtech. It showcases that there is a proven, alternative, end-to-end automation solution for Capita R&B users that delivers the vital productivity and customer service benefits and savings that councils need in order to be better able to target the increasingly limited resources that they have on complex cases. It is no longer necessary for these councils to make do with less than full end-to-end automation.

Leeds’ evaluation went deep into actual automation capabilities

There were four options Leeds City Council explored in detail: Do nothing; Upgrade what we have; Develop in-house; deploy Govtech. Only Govtech demonstrated – and its customers subsequently verified – that it can fully automate and complete processing of the full spectrum of high-volume, day-to-day transactions in Revenues, without manual intervention; everything from simple Direct Debits to the most complex Moves Within involving household splits. Automation covers the entire process, from receipt of web forms submitted by citizens, students, and landlords, through to fully completed processing, including post-dated checks to facilitate auto-generation of refunds & credit transfers and verification against student lists.

Automation is fully controlled by business rules, which are configurable and maintained by the council. Business rules complete and archive all transactions, other than those for which the council opts to subject to expert determination and for which automation primes the Revenues system and indexed work queues. Officers look only at things which require their expertise and the reason for intervention is explained. It really is that simple.

Resetting aspirations for, and expectations of, Automation in R&B

There are currently thirteen councils in the UK with a population in excess of 400,000. Including Leeds, only five of those thirteen councils have looked seriously at alternatives to their core system vendor’s digital forms with ‘automation’ solution. All five councils chose Govtech.

“We are delighted that Leeds City Council has selected Govtech to automate the capture, processing, and completion of all day-to-day Council Tax service requests, moves and changes. It was refreshing for us to engage with a Revenues Service which was so open; firstly, in admitting that they had never before even contemplated an alternative to their core system vendor; secondly, in their willingness to set aside a ‘this is how we do it’ mindset in order to understand how end-to-end automation works and fully embrace the benefits it delivers.”

Andrew Melvin, Managing Director, Govtech Solutions

Thank you, Leeds. And, although we’re delighted to be working with so many large authorities across the United Kingdom, we are just as proud to be partnering with small councils, such as North Hertfordshire, Mansfield and Hambleton. Our customers span the length and breadth of the UK and mirror its spectrum of diversity, from large to small, urban to rural, affluent to deprived.

When it comes to automation, whichever R&B system you use, we are indisputable leaders. Discover for yourself what you can fully automate and how many staff it will free up.

We’ve just launched the Govtech automation forum where, in a series of coffee or lunchbreak webinars, we will lift the lid on how end-to-end automation works, how it is controlled and what you can expect it to deliver. Don’t allow others to limit your expectations for what can and should be delivered with full digital process automation. Sign up here – it’s completely free and without obligation!