Clive Jones, head of revenues and benefits for Buckinghamshire Council describes his experience of merging five councils into one unitary authority and shares some of his key learnings
The phrase ‘may you live in interesting times’ springs readily to mind when I reflect on the past three years for Buckinghamshire Council. The task of merging five councils into one against the backdrop of the Covid pandemic and all the turmoil it created could be described as a perfect storm.
Although we had our fair share of cultural and technological challenges in creating the new unitary council, our interesting times have led to positive change for Buckinghamshire’s people, communities and businesses.
One of the key steps in our journey was to consolidate Revenues and Benefits, a major undertaking which has not only improved services for citizens, but has also unlocked a potential £725,000 in savings.
So how did we achieve this transformation, and what did we learn along the way?
A complex set of challenges
To go back to the beginning, it was April 2020 when the new Buckinghamshire Council was formed from the four legacy district E F council areas of Aylesbury Vale, Chiltern, South Bucks and Wycombe, and the former Buckinghamshire County Council.
Bringing five separate entities together was essential to the overall vision of a single, unitary authority but the consolidation presented us with a range of complex challenges. Although the legacy districts were close neighbours, each one came with its distinct culture and ways of working.
For a start, each district had its own Revenues and Benefits team with staff who knew each other well and had worked together for years. Staff described their teams as having a family atmosphere, so moving from a small district council to a large authority was a significant culture shift. I would compare it with the experience of going from a cottage industry to a major corporate organisation.
On top of all that, Covid restrictions pushed everyone into home working and all meetings rapidly moved online.
The other complication was that each team used a different software supplier for Revenues and Benefits. So, the process of entering a council tax reduction claim in one district was totally different from the next as the systems were all configured in different ways.
It clearly wasn’t possible for each staff member to learn how to use multiple systems, or to try and get the disparate systems to talk to each other. What we needed was one single system with common processes across the council.
Bringing everyone on board
People are absolutely fundamental to the success of an organisation, so I started by creating leadership team meetings which we held twice a week to shape the future of Revenues and Benefits in Buckinghamshire. My deputies from each of the legacy areas attended and the meetings provided a positive forum for everyone to get used to working together, albeit via video conferencing.
It was important to have a clear vision for a council-wide approach at the start of the project so all our teams could buy in to a shared understanding of where the hard work was taking us. With such a big consolidation project we needed all stakeholders to be fully on board including customer services, the cash receipting team and the ICT team.
I distinctly remember holding a massive Microsoft Teams call at the start of the project with 112 people attending where we set out clearly what we were going to do, and how we were going to do it.
The priority was to agree some Revenues and Benefits policies for the new authority which included a common council tax reduction policy and an agreed process for receiving housing benefit claims. Having business analysts and project managers on the team was essential in translating our business requirements into technological solutions.
Moving from separate legacy systems to a new solution without impacting on our service to customers was no mean feat. To allow for a full programme of testing we decided to split the project into two phases and drew up a timetable to train everyone on the system we had selected.
To make sure we had thought of everything, an external team of consultants came in to review our testing process. And this, along with input from the oversight board, the software supplier and the project teams contributed to the smooth running of the project.
Spreading the word
While it may sound ambitious, it actually made perfect sense for us to review our customer website at the same time as the Revenues and Benefits consolidation. Now residents could access more services online, it was important to let them know how much easier it would be for them to pay bills or make claims.
An integrated communications plan was fundamental to getting the word out to all our customers. One way we did this was to engage customers through our stakeholders including the customer service team, local councillors and Citizens Advice. There was also a customer campaign through email, social media and ads in libraries, buses and bus stops encouraging people to get online.
With 235,000 households in the Buckinghamshire council area, a lot of people rely on us, so to ensure residents received their benefits with no delay while our systems were migrated, we set up all payments in advance. There was a crisis support line for anyone whose circumstances changed while we were upgrading the software so we could process an emergency payment for them.
It was also important to keep council members and staff fully up to speed with the changes, so if a council worker received a query from a resident about why their benefits claim hadn’t been processed, they could point the customer in the right direction.
A positive impact
Merging five sets of systems, processes and ways of working, with all the challenges that entails has been a fascinating experience. The facts and figures confirm it’s been a worthwhile one too.
Buckinghamshire Council is 1.6 per cent ahead of target for the collection of business rates, and achieved the target of 98.2 per cent in council tax collections. Considering 1 per cent of our council tax revenue amounts to £4.5 million, that’s a considerable achievement at a time of high inflation and the rising cost of living.
There is the prospect of £725,000 in savings too, which should be achieved through a combination of efficiency gains, automation, rationalised software licensing and reduced printing costs. It’s been great to witness how rapidly our online transactions have risen, and to see our customers accessing the services they need more quickly and easily.
One of the top learning points to come out of the merger is how important people are to the success of a complex project like this. I would recommend anyone who undertakes a similar project to keep the lines of communications open between stakeholders, teams and staff, right from the start. People can achieve great things when they work together and share a vision.
Our interesting times have given us a stronger organisation which is greater than the sum of its parts. We can look ahead with confidence to the next stage in making lives better for our residents, communities and businesses.
Buckinghamshire Council uses NEC Software Solutions for its Revenues and Benefits solution
