Renfrewshire Council

Receiving their award, Tracy (left), Simon (centre) Colleagues Tracy Ferris and Simon Law represented Renfrewshire Council at the recent Granicus Awards in London which celebrate the best in Digital Public Services. Topping the Operational Efficiency category for 2023, the team were praised for their successful customer-first approach to improving service delivery with significant cost and time savings.  

Thanks to their hard work, parents and carers in Renfrewshire can now register their children for primary one and apply for free school meals and clothing grants online, saving valuable time for busy families.

One parent commented: "I was worried [with this] being the first time registering my child for school, but the instructions were very clear and easy to use. It took me less than five minutes to register for school and the school bus. Very impressed".

The benefits are also being felt by our customer services colleagues who've seen a 74% decrease in calls relating to free school meals and clothing grants between July 2022 and July 2023. This means they can dedicate more time and resources to supporting residents with other immediate and more complex issues.

Service delivery manager, Roberta McFarnon, said the Customer and Digital Operations team are rightly proud of the award which showcases the Council's commitment to putting customers first:

Roberta added, "These changes have significantly improved the customer experience and residents now have access to vital services wherever and whenever is most convenient to them."

For Simon, the award reflects the team's open-minded approach to understanding our customers' needs. He said, "By listening to feedback, we got to know the challenges and sticking points for customers. This meant we could use the available technology to design innovative solutions and ultimately provide a more streamlined user-friendly experience."

Tracy acknowledged colleagues from across the council whose input helped make the new digital processes a success:

"I want to thank everyone we collaborated with across our Treasury, ICT and Children's Services teams. Thanks to their insights, we've been able to create online processes that work better for families providing essential support to them with minimal delay. Final special mention to Laura Fulton whose original work building the online form really set us up for success."

Commending the team at the recent awards ceremony, Granicus UK Managing Director, Ian Roberts, also shared his congratulations "for winning this award with such a great entry for the success you've achieved in developing citizen [digital] experiences". 

Published Wednesday 27 March 2024