Digital process automation was considered to address these operational challenges.

Working closely with ICT, the service consulted with the relevant stakeholders across the council including operational and senior managers, customer services and procurement, gaining political support along the way. Building a solution in-house was considered, as were various product offerings, but given the technical complexity around Council Tax and Business Rates integration, Govtech’s webCAPTURE service was chosen after a full business case analysis because of the proven results it had achieved elsewhere.

Salford implemented the solution over a year-end period when volumes of Direct Debits, Discount applications and Moves would peak. With a soft launch over a month and the contact centre advising customers to self-serve, the implementation project was successfully completed.

Within a year, Salford had seen a dramatic change. The Revenues service now receives over 4,000 transactions through webCAPTURE each month, of which 2,000 don’t reach a member of staff at all as they are fully automated. Simple changes and Direct Debit transactions are performing at levels close to 100%, with very little manual intervention needed. Where Salford’s business rules trigger interventions, these are automatically classified as High, Medium or Low priority items and sent to work queues with notes to aid officers.

Govtech and Salford continue to monitor performance and make minor changes periodically to optimise automation and further encourage self-service. webCAPTURE has freed up time so that staff can spend more time dealing with vulnerable customers, as envisaged by the ‘digital first customer strategy’. This led to a change in staff attitudes to using new approaches to delivering public services.

HIGHLIGHTS

Recognition for its digital ambition

The council’s progress has also been recognised nationally, with Salford being awarded both ‘Digital Council of the Year’ and ‘Overall Digital Leaders 100 Winner’ at the Digital Leaders 100 awards in June 2018. A tremendous accolade, but the council isn’t content to sit still; instead, it’s looking ahead to further improve its customer offering.

Continuous Digital Improvement

Working with Govtech, Salford adopted an early pilot of Single Person Discount reviews, which rapidly showed a financial benefit. The team also have plans to better manage the high volume of student and landlord transactions and by constantly reviewing their online offer, they are looking at greater integration with other systems so that the customer journey is quicker, easier, and better.