East Lindsey District Council

When East Lindsey District Council wanted to upgrade from ‘green screen’ mainframe systems, it faced a challenging task. With the help of Capita Software Services, the council has implemented Academy revenues and benefits software alongside mobile working, e-billing, and web self-service. It has improved customer service, achieved best-ever revenues collections, and cut benefit claim processing times by a third.

East Lindsey District Council in East Lincolnshire has a population of 137,400. Covering 700 square miles, the area includes the seaside towns of Skegness and Mablethorpe. The authority collects council tax from 63,000 properties and business rates from 6,600 premises. Its budget is £64 million.

Before upgrading to Academy revenues and benefits, the council relied on Anite’s VME mainframe software. Dating from the early nineteen nineties, the applications ran on a shared mainframe at Northumberland County Council. The most recent system was Windows-based Anite Pericles for business rates, installed in 2000.

For Paul Wilson, Head of Customer Services, Revenues & Benefits, the situation was worrying. Mainframe costs were rising steeply while Anite planned to withdraw support. New recruits were also taking too long to train on the outdated applications

“There’s a national push to modernise revenues and benefits and it’s now about providing a wider variety of ways for people to access our services. Our old technology just didn’t provide that,” said Wilson. “We wanted to reduce costs by modernising our hardware and software.”

New, easy-to-use systems were needed to support substantial improvements against government targets and best value performance indicators. The council also wanted e-billing, internet self-service, mobile working, paperless direct debits, and customer relationship management integration.

A multi-disciplinary working party reviewed potential suppliers, examining price, functionality, and e-government features. East Lindsey staff contacted reference sites, checking different solutions for stability, flexibility, and future potential. A SOCITM annual user satisfaction survey claimed Capita’s Academy software was highly-rated, something the council confirmed in a rigorous competitive evaluation.

“The majority of our staff were in favour of the Academy revenues and benefits system,” said Wilson. “But we also asked those councils which had recently converted to Academy from Anite what their experiences actually were.”

Fully reassured by these previous migrations, the project to implement Academy revenues and benefits began in March 2005. Led by a Capita project manager, it included installation, consultancy, conversion, and user training. East Lindsey also received additional help from Capita for a smooth implementation.

80 staff were given full training by Capita including the use of an electronic training package, SkillWise, to complement the Academy Benefits system. Capita also provided managed services with call answering to cover staff absences during training. Considerable emphasis was put on trial data extracts, cleansing, and conversion too.

The new business rates software went live in October 2005, followed by council tax and benefits in December 2005. Having successfully met the original timetable and budget, further resource from Capita then eased the post implementation backlog.

“We had a good relationship with Capita and they supported us very well throughout,” said Wilson. “The recovery from our implementation backlogs was less than four months. The project went very well indeed.”

The changes were far reaching with staff no longer needing to remember complex green screen shortcuts while previously-separate debt recovery functions are now built-in. SkillWise training ensured benefits staff quickly regained full productivity while new recruits found the Windows applications comfortably familiar.

“The database integration between the council tax and benefits systems has significantly reduced the running times for year-end and annual billing - it has enabled us to get the council tax bills out quicker,” said Wilson.

Capita has since delivered mobile working, e-billing, and self-service web access too. Its mobile computing solution provides specialist applications for revenues and benefits as well as storing electronic documents.

“Capita’s mobile working system provides our benefits officers with up-to-date information without the need to take bulky files with them,” said Wilson. “It also enables property inspectors to work from home and visit more properties - they no longer need to visit the office daily to collect information as this is downloaded.”

By cutting out unnecessary journeys, staff will not only save the council mileage costs but also reduce the environmental impact. East Lindsey covers an area of 700 square miles, making it one of the largest shire districts in England. Mobile working helps staff more effectively span the area without frequent return trips to the office.

New self-service functionality is used by registered social landlords as well as individual customers. Managing 6,000 homes, New Linx has found the system “extremely useful” by reducing the number of phone calls to the council. Ordinary customers can view council tax, business rates, and benefits correspondence as well as opting for paperless billing.

In 2006-2007, East Lindsey posted its best-ever council tax and business rates collections, top quartile performance on benefits new claims and best-ever turnaround times for changes in circumstances. The time for benefits new claims has been cut by a third while changes in circumstances has halved.

“Having modern software has contributed towards achieving our best-ever performances,” said Wilson.

More developments are now being considered. Capita’s ABC connector software is likely to be used to link the revenues and benefits system to a Northgate customer relationship management system. Other ideas under review include local land and property gazetteer integration, automated online claims forms, and Valuebill. And with a three-year return on investment, moving to Academy has proved the right decision.

• Tight integration between council tax and benefits
• New mobile working for benefits claims and property inspections
• Improved collections and reduced benefits processing time