computer, tablet and phone with questionnaire displayed on screens

We are proud to be working with UiPath technologies  to provide automated processes to teams which allow them to stop undertaking repetitive work and focus on delivering top quality services to our residents. 

Robotics works by performing tasks that would normally be carried out by a staff member, and can include uploading/downloading documents, putting information into systems for staff to work on, and producing documents from provided information. 

Our approach to robotics is all about removing repetitive tasks from skilled team members and giving them back time to process customer queries quicker or in more depth, thereby delivering a better service to customers overall.  

We're really proud to have automated elements of our planning process to allow our teams to focus on adding value to our customer. 

Examples of the processes we have and are implementing in planning include: 

Daily planning document upload

  • The planning robotic process runs overnight transferring documents that customers have submitted to support their planning application from the Planning Portal into the processing software.
  • As well as uploading the documents between two systems, the robot also identifies what the documents are and assigns them the correct title to allow the planning officers to quickly navigate through the documents.
  • The planning team can then start processing as soon as they start work the next day instead of opening each document, identifying it, manually uploading them and then allocating them to the right document type.
  • Not uploading large quantities of documents during the working day, which historically slowed down the planning system performance, has also helped the wider team.
  • This automation delivers 864 hours of capacity saving each year, allowing staff to focus on serving customers and processing planning applications.

Customer services data dashboard

  • Robotics helps to keep a customer services data dashboard up to date, that shows KPIS and performance data, using data from the back office systems.

Garden waste sales data dashboard

  • Robotics helps to keep a garden waste sales data dashboard up to date, that shows KPIS and performance data, using data from the back office systems.

We are keen to share our learning so far and to inspire other council teams to consider implementing robotics.

If you would like to find out more, please fill in our website feedback form and our digital team will contact you.