Councils still failing at improving productivity

New research has revealed that UK councils are still not realising productivity improvements through specific technology upgrades.

Freedom of Information requests, sent to 78 local councils, found that 32 per cent of local councils in the UK have had their IT budgets decreased in the past year, and a further 21 per cent have had their IT budgets remain the same. Furthermore, only 21 per cent of local councils have future plans to invest in workflow solutions, representing only a six per cent increase on the same findings from December 2017.

Y Soft Corporation, the company which requested the information, says that this shows that many councils are still missing out on significant efficiency gains in various departments.

Through the research, it was found that 61 per cent are currently using workflow tools to digitise scan documents, which is promising, despite the lack of plans to invest in the technology further. However, the research also found that they are being deployed unevenly throughout various departments.

When asked what the most commonly automated processes were, councils answered: finance management (41 per cent); revenue and benefits (38 per cent); planning (15 per cent); council tax (nine per cent); and housing (nine per cent).

Y Soft’s James Turner said: “These results indicate that there is clearly still a lack of awareness and understanding of the various applications of digital workflows in different departments and the impact that these can have on productivity improvements. Councils therefore need to work harder to be more consistent and maximise their investments across various departments, enabling their workers to get away from laborious tasks, improve their daily routines and help improve morale and retention.
 
“Automated document workflows are an effective solution to improve productivity in any office environment, but especially within local councils which have many process-heavy tasks. Administrative tasks are often time consuming and draining not only for the council but on employee’s productivity and wellbeing. However, with automated digital document workflows, an employee for example can simply scan all of the documents as a batch and through a pre-allocated barcode, each document will be automatically and correctly named and saved in the appropriate place, whilst those who need to be aware of the new document are alerted to its presence.”