The Agilisys podcast: The role of RPA in an award-winning Council

This latest episode of the Agilisys podcast focuses on how Aberdeen City Council is using the robotic process automation (RPA) in innovative ways to drive positive outcomes for the organisation and the citizens, communities and businesses of the Aberdeen City area.

The Council is currently driving the most significant period of transformation in the city’s history. At the core of this unprecedented change is an ambitious and comprehensive technology-enabled redesign of the Council’s service delivery and demand management – with innovation embraced to build the council of the future. The ambitious transformation is already delivering benefits and led to the Council winning the prestigious MJ Awards Local Authority of the Year title in 2020.

This podcast discusses how automation has contributed to this success – and shares key learnings from the first phases of its ongoing journey with RPA.

Sharing their insight in this episode are Andy MacDonald, Director of Customer Services at Aberdeen City Council and Simon Watkins, Managing Consultant for RPA and AI at Agilisys.

Topics covered include:

· What prompted Aberdeen City Council to utilise RPA

· The major RPA successes ACC has enjoyed and what this means for the organisation and the people of Aberdeen

· What ACC is doing well to enable this success

· Key learnings from Aberdeen’s journey

· Advice for other local authorities looking to realise the benefits of RPA

· What the future holds for automation at Aberdeen City Council?

To learn more about the automation of teaching plans discussed in the podcast that freed up the equivalent of 14 full-time teachers, head along to our case study here.

Andy MacDonald

Director of Customer Services, Aberdeen City Council

Andy is the driving force behind the Aberdeen City Council’s digital transformation and champions using technology and data to enable a prosperous future for citizens, communities, and businesses.

He is a performance-driven and results-oriented leader with substantial experience in Transformation, Customer Experience, HR, Finance, Shared Services and Digital & Technology, in private and public sectors.

Recognised by stakeholders for business development, digital transformation, change and project management, customer satisfaction, risk assessment and mitigation, as well as revenue optimisation, Andy has been instrumental in leading and developing cross-functional teams within fast-paced environments whilst expert in identifying and mitigating underlying risks through root-cause analysis.

Simon Watkins

Director of Customer Services, Aberdeen City Council

Simon joined Agilisys with over 20 years of consulting experience within both public and private sectors. He is experienced in supporting high level strategy, project and programme delivery, detailed analysis and delivering new operating models and business change. He has worked with a variety of fields including (but not limited to) Licensing, Revs and Bens, Housing and finance. In addition, his private sector experience covers retail, FMCG, manufacturing, healthcare and banking/finance. He is an experienced Delivery Manager covering ERP, P2P, Master Data Management, Business Intelligence, Business Process Management and RPA.