The number of services provided through Bridgend Council’s website is set to expand over the next year, according to Scrutiny Committee report due to be discussed this morning (pdf).
The website was upgraded in April 2018 as part of a multi-year £2.5million digital transformation project. To date, just over £1.6million of that has been spent.
Phase 1 of the project saw council tax payments and housing benefit applications move online, coinciding with the launch of the new website. Just over 7,500 people have signed up via the “My Account” service and paying bills online saves BCBC postage and paperwork administration costs.
Phase 2 of the project will see a number of additional services either move online or be launched for the first time, including:
- Council tax single person and vacant property discounts.
- School admissions forms.
- An online appointment booking service for registering births, marriages and deaths.
- An online booking service for pest control.
- An app to allow residents in Bridgend to report issues such as potholes, dog fouling and broken street lights (with a tracking system to tell you how a complaint is progressing).
- An internal human resources self-service system for BCBC and school staff.
- A web chat system for customer services.
Phase 2 is going to be gradually rolled out between October 2018 and March 2019 with hopes the entire phase will be completed by June 2019.
Feasibility studies are also being undertaken with a view to introducing self-service machines at the Civic Offices for payments and ID document scanning (i.e benefit claims and taxes), as well as the introduction of a cashless payment system in schools.
