Govtech blog

The largest event on the Revenues & Benefits calendar, the 2022 IRRV Annual Conference & Exhibition in Telford, held at the beginning of October was as usual well attended, vibrant and informative with many brilliant speakers delivering their thoughts on most important topics impacting local authorities. We’d like to thank the Institute for organising such a valuable event.

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.

Last January, after Christmas and New Year celebrations were curtailed again, we saw off the peak in Omicron infections without these translating into mass hospitalisations. Finally, we could hope for a gradual return to some sort of normality, including being able to fly off somewhere for a summer holiday. What a difference 6 months makes!

We’re delighted to announce that, after a 4-year interlude, the City of Wolverhampton Council has chosen Govtech once again to deliver digital process automation for Council Tax and Benefits. In the intervening period, Wolverhampton separately helped Govtech initially to design, and was the first to deploy, Govtech’s Universal Credit Digital Service (UCDS). Now, in a decision which reverses the switch to a competitive offering, Wolverhampton will re-adopt the full suite of Govtech digital process automation services in Revenues & Benefits.

What are your expectations and aspirations for automation in Revenues & Benefits? Who set these expectations? Are your aspirations high enough? Are you worried that using automation will mean losing control? We want to shatter some myths.

Its always a busy year end so we’re delighted that our customers have taken time out from annual billing, and even more rebates, to renew or extend our digital process automation services. We’re fortunate to have a strong and loyal customer base, so we’d like to express our thanks to the following councils, who have once again chosen to remain a part of the Govtech family:

Once again, another challenge, another burden faces Revenues teams as the Government look to local authorities to administer the £150 Council Tax energy rebate. As soon as we heard the news, we asked our customers to join a discovery call to see how automation can help them; it became apparent very quickly that it could. So, we delved deeper into what we could do for them (and non-Govtech customers) to overcome this latest challenge.

Let’s explore the issues…

With our thanks to Adele Nicholson and Alex Ewart, Project Officers at Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council.

The recent publication of guidance for the new ‘Household Support Fund’, combined with the existing pressures on welfare and benefits teams, means that there has been no let up for councils as they continue to battle an increasing volume of daily HBSTOP and LCTR change notifications.

It felt like a long overdue catch up but was great to finally meet councils and R&B professionals mask-to-mask and face-to-face once again at the IRRV Annual Conference in Telford over the 6th & 7th October 2021. It was even more rewarding for having co-participated with our partner Granicus UK as we reinforce our determination to provide the best digital experience for councils and their citizens.

It’s been an extremely busy couple of months here at Govtech and we’re delighted to welcome Nottingham City Council and Isle of Anglesey County Council to the webCAPTURE community of customers. We are equally delighted by so many Govtech customers choosing to renew their hosted digital process automation services recently; so here is our September '21 customer news round-up.

Excuse the pun but, in the midst of the holiday season, the continuing significant rise in the number of Council Tax ‘change of address’ transactions we’re receiving illustrates just how many people have taken advantage of a holiday on stamp duty.