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Three automation pioneers share their experience rolling out a digital workforce in their councils

AT THE COALFACE: INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT DURING COVID-19 AND BEYOND

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At the Coalface: Intelligent Automation in Local Government During COVID-19 and Beyond

The COVID-19 pandemic is pushing councils to breaking point, with dramatically increased

demand for services set against a backdrop of crippling budget cuts and resourcing challenges.

Intelligent automation has the potential to transform public services and for local government,

in particular, to free up time for frontline staff; to optimize service delivery across councils; to

manage costs; and provide agility and resilience in a turbulent, unpredictable environment.

But how should councils approach intelligent automation to deliver maximum results and

introduce digital workers into their operations in a sensitive and sustainable way? Where should

they focus their initial automation efforts? And what skills, governance and cultures do they

need to establish in order to deliver success?

This was the context for our recent roundtable discussion, where we brought together some of the pioneers of intelligent automation (IA) within local government.

We were fortunate to be joined by:

-Gus Niven, Intelligent Automation Manager at The City of Edinburgh Council

-Rachel Kirby, Systems Thinking Lead at Wiltshire Council

-Richard Small, Robotic Process Automation Lead, Suffolk County Council

Niven, Kirby and Small have been spearheading automation programs within their respective councils and have had some fascinating insights from their experiences so far. As you will see below,some really useful advice and best practices for other council leaders who are looking to take their first steps into IA.

The discussion was hosted by our own, Richard Boddington, head of Local and Regional Government at Blue Prism Cloud. Boddington works with a growing number of automation and innovation leaders within local councils, helping them to shape their automation strategies and introduce and expand a digital workforce into their operations.

You can listen to the full podcast here

In the meantime, here are eight key pieces of advice for council leaders, who are developing their automation strategies or looking to scale up their

Richard Boddington Head of Local Government & Housing, Blue Prism

Boddington leads the Local Govern-ment engagement for Blue Prism having spent 20 years working with the public sector, mostly local government. Richard worked across support, consultancy and project management before moving into strategic sales over the last decade. He’s a strong believer that technolo-gy has a central role I. in supporting the future of public sector delivery.

Richard Small

Intelligent Automation Lead, Suffolk County Council

Small leads Suffolk County Council’s Intelligent Automation Programme and is experienced in delivering tech projects and change management programmes across a variety of public sector service areas including; adult’s and children’s services, public health, highways, and corporate/back-officefunctions.

Gus Niven

Intelligent Automation Manager, The City of Edinburgh Council

Niven has been leading the Intel-ligent Automation Programme at The City of Edinburgh Council since March 2018. A public sector front runner since its inception, the CEC Intelligent Automation Centre of Expertise has become the most successful public sector RPA programme in Scotland.

Rachel Kirby Systems Thinking Lead, Wiltshire Council

Kirby leads Wiltshire Council’s In-telligent Automation Programme and is experienced in delivering systems thinking and change management programmes across a variety of public sector service areas including; police, highways, leisure and corporate/back-office functions.

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At the Coalface: Intelligent Automation in Local Government During COVID-19 and Beyond

use of digital workers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic:

Consider intelligent automation as a catalyst for digital transformationIt was interesting to hear all of the panelists talk about the reasons for introducing IA into their councils and the significance of automation as one of the tools in their business and IT toolkit, rather than seeing automation in isolation or as an end in itself.

Niven explained that when he brought IA into Edinburgh Council’s operations, it was feeding into a far wider digital transformation program that the council was going through. So digital workers weren’t simply introduced to automate specific processes (although they did of course do this) but as a catalyst for wholesale business change and channel shifting, supporting the council’s key strategic objectives.

As we all know, most councils are burdened by out-of- date, legacy IT systems and firmly entrenched ways of working. Systems are often long past their best days and councils rely on workarounds that have been built up over many years. Intelligent automation gives councils a chance to review their processes and think about how they can work better. It can help teams and use technology to provide

quicker, more efficient ways of working for staff, which of course has a positive impact on service delivery.

The panelists agreed that COVID-19 has forced many councils to re-think how they work, as they simply haven’t been able to rely on manual, paper- based processes during the pandemic, with people working remotely, resources stretched and citizens increasingly requiring 24/7 access to services.

Start small but think ‘big picture’While it can be tempting for automation leaders to rush into their first automations, eager to deliver easy, quick wins and demonstrate value, it pays to take a strategic approach from the outset. By putting the right governance structures and policies at the beginning, councils can ensure they develop the practices and behaviors that can deliver far broader digital transformation and business-level outcomes further down the line.

Small described how he scoped IA as a long-term strategic program from the outset. Having successfully run a proof-of-concept project in the summer of 2019, Suffolk began its full automation program in February of this year with a few initial process automations. However, a month later the

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At the Coalface: Intelligent Automation in Local Government During COVID-19 and Beyond

council was faced with a global pandemic and, as a result, its automation program has accelerated dramatically. This was only possible because Small and his team established a robust automation strategy at the outset.

Small advises councils to look at IA both a tactical solution (to meet immediate and urgent business challenges) and a long-term strategic pillar. As he says. “Easy, quick wins are important, whether that’s in the HR or finance systems. It immediately demonstrates value to the business, but also gets staff in those departments bought into automation in the early stages.”

Beyond that, Small stressed the need for IA become part of strategic business thinking at all levels of the organization. For example, Suffolk has built IA into its IT Commissioning Board so that when the organization reaches out for a solution to any problem or challenge, automation is considered as a potential response.

Kirby talked about how once she and her team had delivered some initial early successes at Wiltshire, IA quickly became regarded as a tried-and-tested solution by members of the organization that had experienced the positive impact of a digital workforce. This led to a large appetite for further automation within other areas of the organization.

Skills make or break an automation strategyEach of the panelists stressed the importance of establishing the right skills and competencies within the business when starting out with IA. And all agreed that there are huge benefits to re-deploying and upskilling existing council staff to specialize in automation, rather than bringing in external talent.

Niven spoke about the advantages of having people within the automation team at Edinburgh who have extensive, hands-on knowledge of the business, with experience of current systems, processes and bottlenecks. As he said, “People with experience of our council are far more able to find the best route through our applications and to work with our teams

to map out current processes and identify how things can be improved. This ability to work across the organization is essential to delivering results. This means avoiding technical jargon and helping wider teams to understand and value automation. We selected staff to form an automation team, gave them intensive training and they were up and running within a month.”

Small advised councils to build an automation center of excellence around people who really understand the council and the values that underpin it. These are the people who will go the extra mile to find solutions to the most pressing challenges and deliver results that make a real difference both to colleagues and citizens.

At Wiltshire, Kirby currently has an automation team of two developers, which sits outside the IT department, within a separate Systems Synching Team. Their approach is not just to automate existing tasks and processes, but to work with teams to understand how they work and then re-design processes in a more optimized way. Once that has been done, they then look at where automation can play a role within the process. As Kirby noted, “We don’t want to simply automate bad processes; that makes no sense. Our developers have this value- demand mindset; it’s about improving processes, as well as automating them.”

When asked about the skills and characteristics of a good automation developer, the panelists had similar opinions: dogged tenacity, a thirst for knowledge, the ability to quickly build rapport with teams and senior leaders, an eye for detail and an analytical mindset.

There are a few pointers for any council leaders currently creating job specs for roles in their new automation team!

Create automation champions within teamsIdentifying people within teams who can act as champions and ambassadors for automation within the council is even more powerful than senior leadership support.

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At the Coalface: Intelligent Automation in Local Government During COVID-19 and Beyond

Niven talked about the game-changing impact of frontline council staff sharing their experiences of automation and the benefits it has brought them on a personal level. “We had staff telling us how the introduction of digital workers within their teams had completely changed their jobs, freed them up from repetitive tasks and allowed them to focus on what they are best at – helping deliver better services and outcomes for citizens. We asked them to share these stories across the organization to harness that positive energy and influence the way our workforce thought about automation.”

Embrace the spirit of recycling and collaboration within intelligent automation

The panelists urged other automation leaders within councils to take a modular approach to their automation development, enabling them to re-use components of automations over and over

again. This means that councils don’t have to start each process automation from scratch; instead they can get maximum benefits from what they’ve already done and speed up delivery times.

Small talked about prioritizing processes at Suffolk that can deliver value in multiple ways, by re-using components. “All councils have separate systems for adult services, child services, finance and HR. We’ve looked to build automations that can work across all areas of our council and to build a library of components which we can keep coming back to as we expand our Intelligent Automation Programme”

At a broader level, the discussion focused on the growing collaboration across the public sector around IA. Increasingly, councils are sharing their automations (and the component parts) both locally and at a national level.

Small emphasized the importance of this community approach to intelligent automation at Suffolk. “We’re

At the Coalface: Intelligent Automation in Local Government During COVID-19 and Beyond

fortunate to be operating alongside East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT), one of the pioneers of intelligent automation within the NHS, and a founding member of the NHS Digital Exchange. So we’re looking at automation that doesn’t just run within our council, but right across integrated health systems, public health, county councils and the NHS. And increasingly we’re not just looking to collaborate locally but strategically with councils across the UK. There’s no reason why we can’t collaborate with Edinburgh and Wiltshire to share experiences and work together on automations that can benefit all of our citizens.”

Niven agreed that collaboration has been on the IA agenda since day one. “We’re speaking to lots of different councils, not only around sharing automation objects, but also in sharing best practices, industry contacts and work-throughs. Many of us are facing the same day-to-day challenges in driving automation within our councils so it makes sense to work together. We’re not in competition with each other; this is about using intelligent automation for the betterment of our society, without wanting to sound too worthy!”

Be braveWhile getting started with IA can feel daunting at the outset, the panelists all agreed that the best way to learn is by doing. As Niven said: “It’s important for automation leaders to take the leap and have faith in people to grasp things quickly and get behind the

project.” Small added, “This means getting hands-on with the early automations, being brave and delivering some early successes to get a score on the door.”

In summary, intelligent automation has the potential to accelerate digital transformation and provide councils with the agility, resilience and speed they need to respond to COVID-19 and ongoing pressures. As the discussion demonstrated, some councils are already starting to reap the benefits.

But it’s important for council leaders to get the right foundations in place before they embark on their automation journey. This means developing a long-term strategy that can deliver genuine

transformation, while also delivering tactical quick wins to prove the value of automation and address immediate business needs. It also means developing the right skills and structures within the organization, introducing digital workers into operations in a sensitive way and generating support from senior leadership and business users.

To hear more of this insightful conversation, listen to the full podcast episode here

If you’d like to explore any of these topics further or have any questions about how

to implement intelligent automation into your local government operations, please email us at LocalGov@blueprism.com.

Blue Prism is the global leader in intelligent automation for the enterprise, transforming the way work is done. At Blue Prism, we have users in over 170 countries and more than 2,000 businesses, including Fortune 500 and public sector organizations, that are creating value with new ways of working, unlocking efficiencies, and returning millions of hours of work back into their businesses. Our intelligent digital workforce is smart, secure, scalable and accessible to all; freeing up humans to re-imagine work.

To learn more please contact us at LocalGov@blueprism.com, visit us at www.blueprism.com/gov and follow us on Twitter @blue_prism and on LinkedIn.

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