Renfrewshire Council has been recognised for its approach to digital transformation, winning the Leading Innovation award at the COSLA Excellence Awards 2025 for its AI-powered digital advisor, Millie.
Since its launch in November 2024, Millie has handled over 240,000 customer calls, transforming the way residents interact with Council Services.
This has led to 35,000 fewer calls to the Council’s contact centre, compared to the previous year, freeing up customer service advisers to focus on more complex tasks, and provide residents with the personalised support they need.
Built on the ICS.AI SMART AI Platform, Millie was trained using a custom-built organisational language model designed specifically for the public sector. Millie handles a wide range of enquiries, from council services to everyday resident concerns, providing instant answers and support 24/7, eliminating the need for residents to wait for office hours.
Councillor John Shaw, convenor of the Finance, Resources and Customer Service Board, said:
Renfrewshire Council has made significant progress in recent years to invest in digital technology and services, changing how we work and reflecting the changing expectations and needs of our residents.
We all see, and recognise, that digital technology touches every aspect of modern life and our resident’s expectations of how, where and when they access services are changing. And we also want to make sure that our teams are available to help those most in need and provide a personalised service, so people can still speak to someone when they need.
This award recognises the innovative and proactive approach we as a Council are taking to embrace new technology, to improve access to our services, giving our residents greater choice of how and when they can interact with us.
Gary Innes, Senior Service Delivery Manager for Customer & Digital Operations at Renfrewshire Council, said:
We’re proud to be the first local authority in Scotland to introduce an AI-powered customer service advisor, and even prouder of the results it’s delivering.
Millie is an additional service that complements the other ways residents can contact the Council. If Millie can’t answer their question, or thinks they need immediate support, it will transfer their call to the right service, and a Customer Service Advisor will speak with them as soon as possible.
By using technology to handle relatively simple queries, we enable our customer service advisors to concentrate on the more complex tasks, meaning we can help more people, more quickly. It makes us more efficient and more effective for our residents.
The COSLA Excellence Awards celebrate outstanding projects in Scottish local government that demonstrate creativity, efficiency, and impact.
The full list of finalists and categories can be found on the COSLA website.