Govtech blog

In 2021, I found myself working in the world of Revenues and Benefits. Before then I didn’t give much thought to what was involved in Council Tax itself. Like many people, I just accepted it as a part of adult life – you get a bill once a year, and if you're like me, you set up a Direct Debit and forget about it.

Having not long returned from the IRRV Annual Conference 2024, always a firm favourite, it’s true when they say everything happens at once. Settle in there’s a lot to share, including: our highlights from the IRRV, welcoming SIX new customers to the webCAPTURE community, and celebrating our long-standing customers.

It seems a while ago but in the Chancellor’s Spring Budget 2024, there was a section focused on public service productivity, with services tasked to become more digitally inclusive, to explore artificial intelligence (AI) and to use automation to improve productivity. Although local authorities were not specifically mentioned in that part of the Budget, Ministers this week wrote to Chief Executives formally asking councils to produce productivity plans. Amidst some understandable groans, it remains the case that every forecaster is predicting continued pressure on council finances so, to many of us, this seems like déjà vu. Whoever forms a government after the next election will be looking to productivity as a means to increase capacity. As experts in Revenues and Benefits automation, we have a good understanding of how it improves productivity and increases capacity.

Earlier this month we attended the IRRV Annual Conference and Exhibition 2023 in Telford. Although we support many, if not most of the IRRV expos across the UK, this is by far the largest in our industry. And judging by how busy our stand was, it appears that the majority of local authorities across England and Wales attended – we got to meet our Scottish peers at their own Conference last month.

A YEAR TO FEEL PROUD ABOUT 

Without a doubt, 2022 was a challenging year for the UK. The pandemic, that seemed to have lasted forever, was slowly coming to an end and there was hope that everything might return to normal. But unforeseen events, like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, had a shocking impact on the global economy and, consequently, on everyone's day-to-day life. Energy costs reached previously unheard-of heights and exacerbated inflation.

Last January, after Christmas and New Year celebrations were curtailed again, we saw off the peak in Omicron infections without these translating into mass hospitalisations. Finally, we could hope for a gradual return to some sort of normality, including being able to fly off somewhere for a summer holiday. What a difference 6 months makes!

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:

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.