Client successes: Winter 2025

East Renfrewshire improve waste collection services

East Renfrewshire Council has undertaken a series of digital transformation initiatives to modernise high-volume services, with a key focus on optimising the missed bins reporting process. By leveraging untapped integration opportunities between their GOSS Digital Platform and Esri, their mapping and spatial analytics solution, the council has streamlined service delivery, enhanced customer experience, and reduced staff workload.

The missed bins process faced several challenges. Feedback from customers highlighted inefficiencies, such as the requirement to provide a garden waste permit number. There was limited visibility into issues reported by collection crews, which led to redundant or invalid customer reports. The process included a time-sensitive reporting window that lacked automated checks, causing discrepancies in reporting timelines. Additionally, operational costs were high due to manual validation checks for genuine requests and multiple steps in the reporting process.

To address these challenges, a series of improvements were implemented. Customer feedback was integrated into the redesign, removing the need for a garden waste permit number and adding an option to report waste collection misses for the entire street. Enhanced data integration between GOSS and Esri enabled real-time checks for property issues reported by waste collection crews, preventing premature or invalid customer reports for things like contaminated bins. The East Renfrewshire team also used validation rules in GOSS Forms to mirror business logic, restricting citizens to submit reports before 3pm on their waste collection day, or outside two working days. New integration features between the GOSS Platform and Esri have also enabled East Renfrewshire to identify if the citizen's entire street collection was missed, reducing unnecessary reports. Furthermore, the reporting form was simplified by automating some of the questions, whilst the tasks set for the waste collection teams for genuine waste collection requests (excluding garden waste) were automated, significantly reducing back-office validation checks.

Since launching these improvements, automation has played a significant role in streamlining operations. In the first two weeks, 24 out of 27 cases were processed automatically. Moving forward, East Renfrewshire Council will continue monitoring customer feedback to ensure ongoing effectiveness, with a detailed data analysis scheduled for early 2025 to assess long-term impact and explore further innovation opportunities. These efforts aim to maintain efficiency gains while improving the overall citizen experience.

Sunderland enhance their members portal

Sunderland City Council has been working with GOSS since 2009, leveraging the GOSS Digital Platform to enhance its online services. As part of their ongoing digital transformation, the council has focused on improving engagement for council members through enhancements to their members portal and streamlined communication processes.

Previously, Sunderland's members portal had been operational for three years and served as a one-stop shop for council members to report issues, submit requests, and access tools. While functional, it lacked certain features that members required, such as greater visibility of all information in one place, including the ability to identify recurring issues across various wards in the Sunderland area. Another significant challenge, the Sunderland team faced was reducing email communication from members, who often contacted the council through various unofficial channels. Emails were being sent to 36 different addresses across the council, supplemented by phone calls and Teams messages, leading to inefficiency and inconsistent response times. The team aimed to consolidate these routes into a single, unified process to streamline operations and improve transparency.

To address these challenges, Sunderland developed a members enquiry form, reducing a six-step process to just four steps and provides numerous benefits to members, such as faster triaging and improved accountability. Built using low-code tools within GOSS Forms, the form streamlines enquiry submission and includes various features to members categorise their enquiries, ultimately meaning requests are then routed directly to the appropriate council teams. Depending on the selected category, the form routes enquiries to one of over 60 council groups. The system also allows members to upload files, provide detailed descriptions, and notify residents or ward members about reported issues. The member's details are pre-populated upon login, ensuring a seamless user experience and quicker form completion for the council member.

Beyond the enquiry form, Sunderland developed Power BI dashboards to centralise and visualise data. These dashboards provide members with an overview of reported issues by ward, allow filtering by type and date, and display hotspots on a map. Since its launch in October, the form has handled nearly 100 requests in its first month alone. Alongside this, Sunderland implemented Power BI dashboards to give members a real-time overview of reported issues by ward, filter cases by type and date, and visualise hotspots on a map. Members can track the progress of their enquiries, while a separate dashboard was created for the Chief Officer Group to monitor council-wide activity, response times, and case progress. Members can also access a detailed view of their submissions, including status updates and closure reasons. The primary focus moving forward is training council officers to use the system consistently, addressing instances of non-compliance and improving familiarity with the tool.

Glasgow modernises digital services

Glasgow City Council has been actively enhancing its digital services to create efficient, user-friendly solutions. With the use of their GOSS Digital Platform, the council has been busy redeveloping many of their websites and digital forms to increase control over its digital presence, reducing costs with other third-party suppliers and improving efficiency.

As Glasgow has expanded their digital presence, managing numerous microsites hosted by different suppliers became increasingly complex, leading to inconsistencies in design and access. Improving the council's main website also presented challenges, including large-scale migrations and integrating multiple online forms. For instance, the licensing team previously had no online forms, leading to inefficiencies that required a comprehensive digital overhaul.

To address these challenges, Glasgow City Council has adopted a streamlined approach. Many of their websites and subsites are now developed internally using the GOSS Digital Platform, enabling the team to customise designs and functionality without the need for any other third-party providers. The transition of the main Glasgow City Council website from their previous supplier to the GOSS Digital Platform has been seamless. The site now handles over 1.5 million page views monthly, with zero major issues since launch. Additional subsites are being developed using the GOSS Platform in order to bring greater consistency in how the team at Glasgow manage their online presence.

In licensing, over 30 forms, including complex applications for short-term lets, have been digitised with GOSS Form. These forms streamline processes for various licenses, including alcohol, taxis, and niche permits like zoo and window cleaner licenses. The short-term let policy now features a robust digital form with multiple branches and notifications to relevant authorities such as the fire brigade and police. While GOSS tools manage much of the workflow, external systems such as CanReg help facilitate review and approval processes. Glasgow City Council continues to refine its digital strategy, leveraging in-house capabilities to ensure flexibility, efficiency, and long-term sustainability.