Govtech blog

As a Year 11 student at Deer Park School, this year is all about preparing for my GCSEs and making important decisions about my future. With so many career options available, I wanted to explore different work environments to see what might inspire me. This led me to Govtech for my work experience, where I was eager to learn all about the different aspects of office work. My week there gave me valuable insights and it helped shape my thoughts about my future career path.

The digital age that we live in is ever advancing at an incredible rate. With the introduction of automation, productivity is enhanced, and the bottom line is ultimately maximised. But what happens when, for some reason, data has been entered incorrectly by a claimant and the system is then unable to accurately verify it against the database?

Recently, I completed a week of work experience at Govtech Solutions. I am a student at Pate’s Grammar School going into year 11, and I thought it would be a good idea to do some work experience during the summer. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to do so at Govtech, and it exceeded my expectations. 

I joined Govtech as their project manager almost 10 years ago. I had just completed 24 years of service for a large London Local Authority, and that was me done; I planned to put my work in Local Government firmly in the rear-view mirror. However, there was one company I felt compelled to say a personal goodbye to, and that was Govtech. 

In November 2008, as I approached my 50th birthday, I moved my family from Essex and escaped to the countryside of Gloucestershire with the desire to discover a completely new lifestyle.

Once settled in my new home I decided to start looking for a job, and in the Spring of 2009 came across an on-line advertisement for an ‘IDCS Operator’ for Govtech Solutions Ltd, based in Cirencester.

It’s been a busy year end, but we’re grateful that Bedford Borough Council, City of Edinburgh Council, Dudley Council, Dumfries and Galloway Council, Milton Keynes Council, North Ayrshire Council, Northampton Borough Council, Northumberland County Council, Reigate and Banstead Borough Council and South Ayrshire Council, have all chosen to renew our digital process automation services.

In my almost 32 years of Local Authority experience I am still intrigued to learn how important company culture is to make long lasting relationships with suppliers. If I look back at all the ITTs I worked on, both developing and evaluating, as then as a bidder, they were all designed to be scored against criteria that could differentiate the offerings and be assessed against strict objective measures; this was obviously the essential nature of the tender design and would stand up to scrutiny of rigour and fairness if challenged. But during the process how much did people’s own personal feelings towards a company’s approach or their people still influence their final decision? If it did, is this wrong or inevitable?