Published: 24 May 2007
The five London Boroughs of Hackney, Haringey, Kingston Upon Thames, Richmond Upon Thames and Sutton span over 183.16 km² of Greater London.
Local authorities operating in these Boroughs, The London Five, provide a range of services to 409,000 households.
Communication difficulties
Previously, the bulk of citizen communication for The London Five came via each council’s call centre.
Call centre staff across the Local Authorities were often stretched and found themselves tied-up handling smaller enquires for citizens such as taking payment for council services, providing Council Tax balances or confirming receipt of payments.
Citizens served by The London Five could actually pay for council services by multiple channels: phone, in-person or by establishing a direct debit. It was also possible for citizens to pay for council services via an e-payment facility present on each council’s website.
However, the ability to make queries was only possible in-person or by phone. The availability of personal citizen account information online for self-service (Council Tax balance or Housing Rent account statement, for example) was missing.
Aiming for Online
In summer 2005, The Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames Council (RBK) made plans to enhance its existing online payment facility to offer citizens an online account through which they could access, view and interrogate balances and statements for various key council services.
It was hoped this would improve use of the e-payment facility, but also encourage citizens to complete simple enquiries online – balance enquires, checking payments had been received, request copies of statements, etc.
RBK also aimed this enhancement would free-up call centre staff to focus on more complex enquiries and reduce call waiting times for citizens.
With similar aims and objectives, London Borough of Hackney Council followed suit in August 2006, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames Council (LBRUT) and London Borough of Sutton Council in March 2007 and London Borough of Haringey Council in April 2007.
Solution
Each local authority has installed Gandlake Citizen’s Account e-presentment platform.
It is a vendor managed service ensuring quick and effective implementation without additional infrastructure costs, software licenses or ongoing support.
Gandlake’s Citizen’s Account enables councils to offer citizens a personal and secure online account to view and interrogate balances and statements for any council service, check personal payment history, installment plans and payments received.
The installation of the Gandlake solution at RBK took just three months to complete. This rapid three-month implementation time was replicated at London Borough of Hackney Council and LBRUT.
Gandlake’s Citizen’s Account can in fact be installed in as little as nine weeks from the time the contract is signed.
Secure Citizen
Citizen registration, authentication and enrolment for the service at London Borough of Hackney, London Borough of Haringey, LBRUT and London Borough of Sutton is managed locally by Gandlake.
RBK uses Government Gateway to register users and provide them with a unique Government Gateway ID.
Outstanding Results
Citizens ability to view and interrogate balances and statements for Council Tax and Business Rates is reducing the number of telephone calls the Councils’ customer advice teams receive allowing them to handle more complicated phone calls more quickly.
In RBK, call waiting times are just 4 minutes – with no call waiting time increase in the past 18 months.
In Sutton, the ability of citizens to answer smaller enquiries themselves through a combination of self-service technologies, including the e-presentment platform, is enabling call centre staff to increase the number of telephone calls answered from 50 to 80 per cent.
Council Tax and Business Rates information is now accessible 24 hours per day and is, in fact, being accessed 24 hours a day by citizens.
Take up
Almost 6000 citizens and businesses in London can now access their own secure online account with citizens registering at a rate of almost 500 per week.
RBK boasts over 3000 people who can now access an online account with 40 new registrations per week.
Website Council Tax revenue collection through the Gandlake hosted service reached £532,500 by March 2007. This represents an increase of 45 per cent on the previous Financial Year.
RBK collected £2.5m overall through its website by March 2007, a 140 per cent increase on the previous year with over a fifth of all online Council Tax payments coming through Gandlake’s Citizen’s Account.
Hackney
London Borough of Hackney Council has over 1500 registrations with 25 new registrations per week.
Sutton
In Sutton, 200 citizens are registered to access an online account with around 50 new citizen registrations per week.
“Taking a soft approach to the roll-out we have buried the service quite deeply within our website and yet we’re still receiving three to four requests per day,” says John Grice executive head of customer services, London Borough of Sutton Council. “Now that we’ve moved promotion of the service to the front page of the website we have seen take-up increase to more than ten requests per day.”
Richmond
Approximately 350 citizens per week are registering to access a secure electronic account. Citizens’ registrations for an online account already total more than one 1000.
“Local authorities already presenting Council Tax and Business Rates balances and statements online are seeing significant citizen take-up,” says Elaine Batchelor, Local Taxation and Benefits Manager, LBRUT. “We expect a higher than average take-up because a significant percentage of our residents use PCs and access our current website. We have set a challenging target to receive registrations from ten per cent of our total households due to pay Council Tax or Business Rates by the end of 2007.”
The Future
It is forecast that total citizen registrations for an online account – across the five London Boroughs – will reach 15,000 by 2007 end.
RBK has already successfully registered 5 per cent of its total households due to pay Council Tax or Business Rates. London Borough of Hackney Council is aiming to register 5 per cent of its households due to pay Council Tax or Business Rates; London Borough of Sutton Council is aiming for 2-5 per cent and London Borough of Richmond upon Thames Council nearly 10 per cent.
The Authority-wide, non-silo approach of the Gandlake platform means an increasing number of council back office services are candidates for web enablement.
In the future, each council is planning to offer account information online for a host of other services:
RBK will offer Benefits, Housing Rents, Sundry Debtors and Sundry Creditors; London Borough of Sutton Council, Housing Benefit, Overpayments and Sundry Debtors; and LBRUT, Parking Permits and Licenses.
Customer Service Access Module
RBK and London Borough of Sutton Council are also planning to trial a new technology from Gandlake which will make PDF images of statements and demands stored in the Council’s IT department back-office available to front-office customer advice team staff via the each Council’s existing CRM solution. This allows staff to view statements exactly as they are viewed by citizens – ensuring the Councils can respond to citizens’ telephone enquiries with greater knowled
