Transformation Strategy 2022 - 2027

Customers & Digital Transformation

1.    Overall aim

To continue to make better use of technology to deliver smarter, efficient service processes, to deliver a better experience for customers and allow for transactions to be completed wherever possible.

 

2.    What need do we need to transform and why?

The Programme’s digital priorities have been re-focussed during the last 12 months to take account of the learning from the Covid-19 pandemic, both in terms of addressing the barriers which impacted on the ability of some staff to work remotely, and also due to the need to act on the opportunities to capitalise on the smarter, better ways of working which had been adopted during this time. 

One of the findings from the Strategic Review of the Council’s response to Covid-19 was that the Council was still heavily reliant on a range of paper-based processes (e.g., incoming, and outgoing mail, invoices, timesheets and signing of documents and forms requiring wet signatures) which had required some staff to attend office bases during the period of the pandemic. The Council had already been working towards rationalising and automating a number of these processes during the pre-pandemic period, but the experience of the last two years has further highlighted the need to press ahead with these changes, and to achieve some of the associated financial and environmental benefits that these changes will also deliver. A programme of process automation work is already underway, and a business case has been approved to support the implementation of an ‘E-Signatures’ platform and a ‘Hybrid Mail’ solution is also being piloted in a number of services. 

The majority of what were previously categorised as office-based staff, now have the equipment to work remotely, but there is a need to ensure that we achieve the real benefits from genuine mobile working by maximising the number of work tasks that can be undertaken remotely without having to need to attend a fixed base, such as an office or depot.

Technology has acted as a key enabler to allow services accessed and delivered in alternative ways during the pandemic. The way that staff and customers have adapted to these changes has also increased expectations about the use of technology moving forward. New technologies can play a key role in modernising services by allowing them to be delivered in a way that provides better outcomes for customers, with fewer resources and reduced costs, although this often requires an initial financial investment. In addition, increasing numbers of people are seeking faster and more flexible ways to access services and information. 

Therefore, digital transformation is expected to play a central role in the future design and delivery of services. Data collected from a range of LA’s by SOCITM shows that web contact is 5% of the cost of a phone contact, which in turn is less than a third of the cost of a phone contact. In addition to being significantly cheaper, fully integrated web services also offer other additional benefits, as they are available 24hrs per day, are often faster, can reduce workload and suit the preference of the individual service user. They offer an opportunity to make significant savings and deliver better, more accessible services. 

The Council has already embarked on a programme of work which is looking to improve the way that it manages and responds to customer contacts. This will aim to ensure that contacts are managed in a timely manner and are dealt with at ‘first point of contact’, where possible.

The use of technology, and especially the integration of IT systems, will be key to supporting this approach and ensure that the most efficient ‘end to end’ process is adopted. The Council will only be able to fully maximise the benefits of greater take-up of online provision if it is able to ensure that the associated back-office processes are as efficient as possible, so that the move to digital options does not result in the automation of waste and inefficiency into the electronic version of the process.

Increasing the number of services provided online does not mean that traditional ways of accessing the Council should be deliberately downgraded or removed, and ensuring the sustainability of face to face and telephone options will still need to be a priority for the Council. The Council’s Contact Centre and Hwb facilities will support those digitally excluded customers. We will aim to ensure that the customers have a choice to utilise the channel that best meets their needs. 

As more services look to the use of technology, and commission specific IT systems to support the automation of service processes, there will be more of a reliance on the effective integration with existing core IT systems.

The Council has established a dedicated fund to provide investment of £200k per year to support digital transformation projects across the organisation; there may be a need to increase this funding to keep pace with future service expectations and technological advances. The Council is already making use of AI technology for undertaking some back-office tasks, and the next phase of the Digital Transformation programme will look to extend the roll out of this approach across other relevant functions. The use of Chat Bot and Live Chat in our customer contact services, together with further promotion of a self-help approach, will continue to expand the ways that customers choose to access our services. However, there will be a need to ensure that the pace of digital related developments also matches the needs and capabilities of staff and service users.

 

3.    Key Objectives 

• To support the delivery of priorities within the Council’s Digital Transformation Strategy for the organisation. 
• To lead a significant programme of change and transformation which will seek to rationalise and/ or automate transactional processes which can lead to improvements in cost and quality of services. 
• To consider investment proposals relating to digital technology solutions and make recommendations to CMT for the allocation of revenue/capital expenditure.
• To help the authority move towards the objective of being a paperless organisation.
• Reduce the number of enquiries/requests received by Contact Centre by encouraging customers to access services online and seek to reduce the overall number of enquiries which could be classed as failure demand.
• Increase the number of requests dealt with at a first point of contact within the Contact Centre through providing enhanced access to information and systems.
• Seek to increase take-up of self-service facilities through further development of the Council’s website and ensure that this provides for ‘end to end’ automation of processes.
• Improve the customer experience by seeking to rationalise and centralise web portal access points to transactional services. 
• Promote the use of user engagement activities as part of the review and development of IT systems.
• Increase the levels of levels of digital accessibility and skills amongst service users.
• Identify other services currently provided by the Contact Centre where a Hwb type model could be adopted.
• Identify invest to save opportunities to support the implementation of digital related solutions.

 

4.    What will be our priorities for the coming year and beyond?

• Complete the roll out E-Signatures project to 5 priority areas and undertake a post evaluation before further roll out to other potential areas by December 2022.
• Complete pilots of Hybrid mail pilot projects and identify programme of further roll out in other areas by December with a view to full implementation where appropriate by June 2023.
• Complete the automation of invoices relating to utility services and develop a plan to automate other high-volume invoices by March 23.
• Undertake post evaluation exercise in respect of the recent time-sheet automation projects in Social Care and Building Cleaning by January 2023 and identify the potential to roll-out to other services in Environment and take account potential system development requirements by March 2023.
• Implement a soft-launch of eBilling and Account Management of Council Tax / Revenues Services by April 2023 with a wider roll-out and promotion of eBilling to our customer throughout 2023.
• Complete a position statement on mobile working/telephony across the authority with a view to identifying further opportunities to extend this to other services or to identify/address barriers which may be preventing optimum use by March 2023.
• Following on from above, identify the cost/benefits of digitising of information to support remote/mobile working by June 2023.
• Implement a Chat Bot pilot in Waste Services as part of the roll out of the new Waste Strategy – pilot to completed for green waste services by January 23 with full out to be completed by April 2024.
• Work with specific priority services (Housing and Waste Services in first instance) to identify opportunities to increase the number of enquires/requests dealt with at first point of contact through extension of the Hwb facility and / or further development of online options - Waste Services by June 2023 and Housing Services by December 2023.
• Identify customer contacts being received directly by departments and whether these could potentially be dealt with in a Contact Centre to the benefit of the customer/end user by March 2023.
• Ensure there is sufficient IT capacity to continue to support the financial system developments to further deliver efficiency/productivity savings with greater integration and automation into our Corporate Financial Management System (Agresso). Priorities agreed via the Governance Board - Ongoing.
• Investigate opportunities to rationalise customer access points to web services – June 2023.
• Build the Corporate Power BI environment to fully enable the council and service departments to better understand and analyse their data to help improve business intelligence and decision making by March 2023.
• Identify a priority list of services/functions where the introduction of RPA (Robotics Process Automation) & (AI) Artificial Intelligence that could potentially result in smarter, more efficient processes and deliver cash savings by June 2023.
• Continue to facilitate the migration of legacy on-premises systems to vendor cloud hosted managed services: 
  • Web Recruitment by December 2022
  • Social Care (3 year project by April 2024)
  • Housing Repairs by April 2024           
  • Housing (2 year project completed by April 2024)
  • Revenues & Benefits by April 2024
• Deploy an “Internet of Things” innovation network across key areas of the County as part of the All-Wales network. An open innovation network for the council and our partners, businesses, and citizens to trial various IoT use cases and service transformations by April 2023.
• Develop a business case to support the implementation of “Internet of Things” facility across Council services/functions. Use cases and trials across selected public services by March 2023.

 

5.    How will we measure the impact of these changes?

• Productivity/transactional improvements
• Rationalised processes
• Financial savings
• Customer engagement
• Improved Business Continuity and Service Resilience​

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