Our stories
Supporting North Lanarkshire Council with robotic automation
North Lanarkshire Council is harnessing emerging technologies to deliver improved services and faster outcomes to residents and businesses across the region, with PwC working with the local authority on an approach to digital adoption that has been beneficial through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Setting the scene
Over the past two years, PwC has been working with North Lanarkshire Council as part of its DigitalNL Programme to redefine how it delivers services and interacts with its customers, with the use of enterprise technologies and intelligent automation.
Our strategy was to introduce intelligent automation that would speed up transactional activities, with less room for error, while creating capacity for the council to innovate and improve the customer experience.
How we helped
We introduced intelligent automation to digitise the delivery of transactional activities and create capacity for the council to innovate and deliver better customer experiences. We started work in August 2019 with a proof of concept to demonstrate the value of robotics and the potential to process critical transactions more quickly for the council and its customers.
Following this success, the programme team have been working with service areas to design, configure and test ten automations.
Through the deployment of bots to support activities such as council tax payment detail updates, free school meals and clothing grant application processing and updating council tax reduction scheme records, staff members have saved a significant amount of time and the council has been able to deliver faster services to residents.
Through our ongoing partnership, we have been able to upskill employees and create new and exciting roles to help the council develop sector-leading automation capabilities and a workforce that’s fit for a digital future.
“In the next five years, this will be the norm and there will be fewer people sitting behind desks doing things in the manual way. We will need our staff out there dealing with the public.”
Making a difference
The team have identified up to 80 potential opportunities across revenue and benefits, housing, social care, planning and waste which could be automated in the future. And solutions have already been taken up by another council, the London Borough of Redbridge.
Among these opportunities, we have helped the council save considerable time and resources during the pandemic, with the robotic processing of applications for free school meals and clothing grants, COVID-19 and crisis grants, and council tax reductions, which has reduced processing time by up to 95%.
Stewart Wilson, Consulting Lead Partner in Scotland, said: “The transformation journey that North Lanarkshire Council is on is quite momentous as they try to change how they support the area. We have always recognised the impact that our involvement is going to have, not only on the Council and its employees, but also on the residents of that area.”
Contact us
