Govtech blog

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.

For the 4th consecutive year, we’re proud to have passed and been recertified for ISO27001 and Cyber Essentials. It’s great for us, but it’s also great for you – why? It’s more than just a badge. It’s a sign of commitment and trust; it symbolises how we work in a secure and safe manner and most importantly, demonstrates how you can depend on us to do the same for you.

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.

Last Thursday, 22^nd July, the team was finally able to get back together for the Govtech Summer BBQ at a local Cirencester venue, Ingleside House. It was the first company event since Christmas 2019, and for me, the first time I was able to put faces to names and be able to meet most of the Govtech family. Unfortunately, not everyone was able to make it, but for those who could we thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon of socialising, indulging (check out the BBQ spread), and appreciating one another and the efforts we’ve all made throughout the pandemic.

It’s hard to believe that the GDPR has been in force for more than 3 years now, having been introduced on 25^th May 2018. So, what have we learned in that time? How have we adapted?