11th May 2021
Civica Digital360 supports rapid isolation payments for Birmingham residents
Birmingham City Council (BCC) has taken rapid action to ensure residents who are instructed to self-isolate due to COVID-19 can apply for funds as quickly as possible. The Council approached Civica for a simple payment system to quickly and efficiently process claims.
The most populated city council in the UK, BCC represents more than one million people across 40 wards. The Council’s Revenues and Benefits service uses Civica’s Digital360 EDM software to manage processes. Civica’s Service Design team rapidly built on this to create a COVID-19 isolation payment system, having recently delivered a similar project for Swansea Council.
Residents asked to self-isolate can now submit a claim for an isolation payment and upload supporting evidence directly from an online form available across all platforms. The automated process sends applications straight to the customer record within the Digital360 system used by BCC’s Revenue and Benefits team. With all the information they need to hand, staff can make rapid decisions on claims.
We are an established user of Civica’s Digital360 document management system across our Revenues and Benefits Service and wanted to take full advantage of the available functionality when administering the self-isolation payments. Being able to do that, particularly in the amazingly short time in which Civica implemented the functionality for us, has allowed us to retrieve documentation to support the application of those in need of financial support as quickly as possible. We greatly appreciate Civica’s support."
David Kinnair, Head of Benefits, Birmingham City Council
The fully automated solution integrates with Birmingham’s customer portal, so any data and documents submitted by residents are brought directly into Digital360 for processing. This means the Council can start making payments to those needing financial support as quickly as possible without any manual intervention. Claims are auto-indexed to the correct citizen, allowing for a clear audit and simplified retrieval of all associated documents going forward.
Chris Owen, Divisional Managing Director at Civica added:
We’re pleased to be supporting Birmingham City Council as it strives to help those in the community affected by COVID-19. Our team always rises to the innovation challenge of taking our software and adapting it to rapidly meet the needs of customers, working in partnership to get the right results and improve digital services."