Norwich City Council has received a national award in recognition of its advanced approach to meet the challenge of residents’ growing monetary concerns following the pandemic.

‘The Changing Lives Award’ has been granted to the team at Norwich for implementing new legislation – The Debt Respite Scheme, better known as breathing space – with Robotic Process Automation (RPA). The scheme offers debtors a 60 day pause on debt enforcement, including the exemption of interest, recovery action or communications, allowing residents to seek advice and implement a suitable debt solution before escalation.

The award has been granted by NDL as part of its Community Awards, recognising the best uses of technology with social purpose.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, monetary concerns rapidly became a growing issue for many UK residents. It was necessary for the council to implement the scheme as quickly as possible. In fact, the IT team were given just two weeks notice to complete the scheme – meaning a technical solution was to be found immediately.

With the Breathing Space scheme requiring specific exemptions, and involving discussion of sensitive topics such as debt, it was essential that all relevant departments received the same accurate information in real-time.

Norwich had previously found ample success using the original Tell Us Once solution, programmed by NDL’s SX software. The Tell Us Once scheme applied the same automation to a further 25 internal processes - including parking permit printing and allotment notices – creating time savings for administrative staff and distribution of high-quality data across a range of departments.

The same automation was swiftly applied to Breathing Space, requiring only a few minor tweaks to existing scripts within the SX platform.

In just one working day, the development team produced and tested the RPA application. Following great success, the automation was implemented for Breathing Space immediately.

The process allows debtor advisors to request 60 days Breathing Space via a portal set up by the insolvency service, which creates a notification via email within the council’s back-office system. This is then indexed against individual records. NDL’s RPA bots then review and check open accounts related to the debtor across six relevant departments. Workflow for relevant departments is then automated, in which any outstanding debts can be frozen efficiently.

The implementation of the Debt Respite Scheme legislation which led to the breathing space project has allowed every department to be automatically updated whenever new information relating to a residents breathing space is received. In doing this, the automation process has currently achieved a time saving of approximately 27 hours, processing 91 emails – equating to 546 transactions.

As well as this, Breathing Space also enables residents to have the time to work with debt advice agencies to find a sustainable solution to managing their debts, whilst reducing some of the wider negative impact that debt brings. In terms of benefits for council officers, admin overheads are significantly reduced, which allows time resources to be spent more effectively supporting residents, and delivering essential services.

Tom Wright, Head of Digital Engagement at NDL said: “We would like to congratulate everyone at Norwich City Council on their achievement of the Changing Lives Award - in recognition of their swift and proactive approach, adopted at the height of the pandemic. A digital-first strategy enabled the team to adapt quickly and ensure that applications were handled with precision as well as speed. This essential requirement enabled the team to provide the very best service to local residents when it was needed most. The Norwich team set a great example for the use of digital transformation in times of crisis and we hope that the project helps to inspire other authorities facing similar pressures.”

Public sector organisations and NHS Trusts across the country have participated in the NDL Community Awards, which showcase a diverse range of innovative projects that demonstrate the best use of automation and digital solutions to overcome some of the biggest challenges being faced by public services today. At a time when the NHS and public sector is under enormous pressure, the awards shine a spotlight on the excellence of the teams and organisations that are going above and beyond to improve the lives of citizens - as well as of those that are delivering our much-needed services.

For more information about NDL’s work with Norwich City Council and other NDL Community Awards 2021 winners, visit https://bit.ly/3ricWFP or contact info@ndl.co.uk.