THOUGHT LEADERSHIP productivity and enhanced citizen and employee experience. For example, the council saw up to a 98 % reduction in manual processing time for housing rent verification and enhanced team productivity, allowing them to focus on higher-value strategic work.
This kind of in-house capability also means digital services can be developed and deployed quickly without lengthy procurement cycles or development delays. service backlogs, citizen dissatisfaction and escalating staffing costs to manage the scheme.
Using intelligent AI-powered document processing, the council digitised the end-to-end permit process, reducing manual workloads and saving around £ 160,000 each year on avoided agency staffing costs. The process is now automated – making it faster, more consistent and ready to handle demand surges without additional headcount.
That’ s more than just a tech refresh. It’ s a strategic shift toward building digital capability in-house, giving the council the flexibility to evolve its services as citizen needs and policy priorities change.
South Hams: Intelligent automation meets demand spikes
At South Hams District Council, the problem was different but equally acute. With a goal to offer local residents discounted parking rates, the council expected 30,000 applications each year with unpredictable daily volumes ranging from a handful to hundreds. Traditional processing methods were proving unsustainable, creating a risk of
This automation delivered an immediate boost: application processing times dropped from an average of 15 minutes to under 30 seconds. This is a clear example of how automation – when applied thoughtfully – can save money and improve outcomes, especially in councils with small teams and limited budgets.
Tewkesbury: Using AI to elevate the citizen experience
Tewkesbury Borough Council is another example of how smaller authorities are successfully applying AI to strengthen frontline services. With increasing demand and a small citizen service team, the council turned to AI-driven virtual assistants and advanced natural language processing to triage incoming queries across its contact centre.
Through a low-code solution, the council can rapidly deploy and customise these tools to reflect local priorities and citizen needs. The AI assistant interprets a wide range of queries and routes them efficiently – resolving them instantly through self-service or escalating to a staff member when human input is needed.
This triage model ensures that routine requests are handled quickly and consistently while staff focus on more complex or sensitive cases requiring empathy and expertise.
Because the triage is integrated with back-office processes and case handling, the end-to-end experience feels seamless for citizens. The results speak for themselves: a 38 % shift to digital channels has reduced reliance on costlier contact methods, average wait times have halved and abandoned calls have dropped by 17 %.
More importantly, residents now experience faster responses and smoother interactions – no longer bounced between departments or forced to repeat their issue. For the council, it has meant delivering better service at scale without the cost of expanding headcount.
The low-code foundation also allows the council to iterate and improve the system over time, adapting to new needs without lengthy development cycles. This agile, data-driven approach is helping Tewkesbury provide a modern, accessible and sustainable citizen experience.
Common themes: Consolidation, automation, empowerment
What connects these examples is not the technology itself but the way it’ s applied and the ambition and vision of the councils
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