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.

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.

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.

In light of the recent letters our customers have received from the Department for Work and Pensions, we would like to clarify and provide reassurance to councils that, here at Govtech, we do not use robots or robotic processes in our service provision and delivery. Here, our Operations Director Nigel Phillips provides an explanation for Govtech customers, covering some uncertainties about the use of robots.

With our thanks to Emma Rose, Strategic Development Manager, with overall responsibility for Customer Services, Revenues and Welfare.

Early in 2020, Plymouth City Council began to implement Govtech’s webCAPTURE service, deploying a suite of Revenues forms developed in the Granicus govService customer experience platform, with full back-office integration and automated processing in the Capita Revenues system.

On 27th April, we participated in the Granicus Customer Summit and shared, with a new audience of digital transformation and IT professionals, the role digital process automation plays in digitising Revenues & Benefits, two key core service areas.