How To Improve Service Delivery in the Public Sector

11th March 2025

Guest blog by Think Digital

by Think Digital

Local government is under unprecedented pressure. Councils are charged with delivering more efficient and effective services, lowering the cost of operations and meeting rising customer expectations – against a backdrop of huge budget shortfalls.

With a 27% cut in core spending power since 2010, and a £2 billion funding gap based on what councils are expecting to deliver, it’s no surprise that many councils are struggling to meet these challenges.

Here, AI and automation are emerging as powerful tools to drive transformation. Netcall’s Director of Client Solutions, Mark Gannon , points to several examples of how AI and automation can deliver real impact.

One council that Netcall is talking to processes 400,000 invoices per year, with 200,000 of those manually processed. “We’ve developed a proof of concept that automates that process using AI-driven Intelligent Document Processing, so all those people can be freed up to work on other, more fulfilling, tasks,” he explained.

But it’s not a case of simply “plugging in AI and expecting it to magically make your services better,” said Gannon. “AI combined with other capabilities is where the power lies.”

“One of our customers, St Helens Borough Council, used AI and RPA to make it easier for social workers to process notes after a visit. An AI bot can’t do the visit, but if you can use the technology to make it more efficient, then each social worker can see more people.”

Mark Gannon

Director of Client Solutions, Netcall

This reduces backlogs and also keeps case management information up to date, which improves safeguarding.

Addressing legacy tech and staffing challenges

Another key barrier to innovation in local government is the prevalence of legacy technology systems. Gannon noted that “50% of councils’ IT budget goes on just maintaining legacy technology. So, if they’re spending half their budgets on that, they’re not spending it on innovation, they’re not delivering better digital services, they’re just maintaining the status quo.”

Staffing shortages compound the legacy tech challenge, with 90 percent of councils struggling to recruit tech talent.

“This is where our solutions come in. You don’t need to be super technical to be able to get value from what we deliver,” said Gannon

“A lot of the staff that use our platform are business analysts, project managers – they’re not techie people.”

Mark Gannon

Director of Client Solutions, Netcall

Leveraging low-code for innovation

Low-code platforms like Netcall’s Liberty Create offer a way for non-technical staff to drive innovation. He cites the example of South Hams District Council, a small district council with just 3-4 people in their transformation team.

“They’re business analysts, people who understand how processes work. But they’ve been able to use our platform to develop 90+ applications themselves without needing our help.”

By taking a more modular, collaborative approach, leveraging low-code, and strategically applying AI and automation, local councils can overcome their technology and staffing hurdles to deliver better services for citizens.

Where should they start?

“Councils should speak to peers in local government. The number of councils who try to reinvent the wheel is still far too high, and there’s loads of great initiatives. We have about 70 people at our monthly user group meetings – people coming together to share the work that they’ve been doing, and re-using work that’s already happening in local government.”

Mark Gannon

Director of Client Solutions, Netcall

He also points to examples like the national Local Government Drupal platform, where councils collaborate on a shared content management system rather than each developing their own. Netcall is supporting partners of Local Government Drupal and have developed open integrations between it and the Netcall Liberty Platform to further enhance the opportunities for councils to share and reuse components.

“Councils should consider, ‘How can I build solutions using existing capabilities that are out there, rather than building stuff from scratch?’” he said.

About Think Digital

Think Digital Partners is a bespoke media company that produces both digital and conference format content for the public sector around a variety of technology based topics including AI, Data, Digital Identity, Cybersecurity. Digital Sustainability and wider and more general digital government.

You can read this article, originally published on their website, here.