Buckinghamshire Council was formed in 2020, bringing together five local authorities into one new government organization, serving around 500,000 people in the historic county of Buckinghamshire in South East England.
Buckinghamshire is a richly diverse, enterprising, and attractive county located in the heart of a growing and innovative region. Boundaries stretch from Greater London in the south to the East Midlands in the north, from Oxfordshire in the west across to Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire in the east.
Headquartered in Aylesbury, around 50 miles north of London, the Council is responsible for a region of contrasts, from the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and quintessential rural villages to a network of urban and diverse towns.
The move to a single authority has delivered cost and sustainability efficiencies, quality improvements, and clearer accountability, by removing resource duplication and providing a single, seamless access point for more than 750 services for residents and businesses.
Emergency response provides template
The launch of the new Buckinghamshire Council came within days of the true extent of the COVID-19 pandemic becoming clear, adding significant additional complexity and responsibility.
Council leaders had already selected ServiceNow as one of the core platforms on which the new, unified organization would operate. In fact, it became a core component of its crisis response, with many of its centralized activities—HR, IT, and service desks—migrated onto the Now Platform.
By accessing ServiceNow IT Service Management via a bespoke, self-service portal, staff could respond at speed to the need to work remotely, introduce vital COVID-specific measures, and ensure other essential public services were maintained. The portal is now the first point of contact for IT support for 75% of council employees.
As the urgent need for new services to support vulnerable people and communities became clear, the Council extended its use of ServiceNow, in particular deploying ServiceNow App Engine’s low code capabilities, as Tony Ellis, Service Director IT explains: “ServiceNow underpinned our whole response. Where we identified a need, we knew we could use App Engine to spin up applications in just days to get something going.
“Within months, ServiceNow had become firmly established as a key corporate system. The automation and speed with which we can respond is absolutely invaluable.”
A helping hand for residents and refugees
Buckinghamshire Council’s high speed ServiceNow journey has equipped it to emerge from the unique needs of the pandemic with the skills, tools, and technology to support residents and businesses quickly and efficiently with today’s evolving requirements.
Built on App Engine and operated on the Now Platform, the Council’s ‘Helping Hand’ program began as a means of coordinating the delivery of food and other essential items to the most vulnerable in society. Now, it’s the centerpiece of a comprehensive package of services accessed by more than 40,000 people in Buckinghamshire facing hardship during the cost-of-living crisis, and includes support with heating, bills, transport, health, and social care.
Using App Engine’s low-code tools and techniques, the Council’s IT team then built a bespoke module to support residents in the county wishing to provide a safe haven for the thousands of displaced Ukrainian residents following the Russian invasion in February 2022.
The Council’s ‘Helping Hand for Ukraine’ application includes registration, security clearance, matching services, and a secure payment system for hosts using grants to purchase essential equipment to prepare their homes to welcome and accommodate refugees.
Explains Matt Everitt, Buckinghamshire Council’s Service Director—Business Intelligence & Community Support, “As well as providing a great service, the application enables us to access all the data we need, to track what’s being spent and to provide reports for council leaders and government. As a result of the Ukrainian model, we’ve also created a similar platform to help support the Council service providing for Afghans caught up in the crisis in their country too.”
Data informs priorities
Next on the Council’s App Engine production line is ‘Making Every Adult Matter’ (MEAM), a new initiative designed to help some of the most vulnerable members of society, such as the homeless or those suffering from drug or alcohol-related problems.
Joe Ciocci, ServiceNow Application Architect, says, “ServiceNow gives us a platform with which the ‘Making Every Adult Matter’ service can identify where problems are most acute and then to proactively focus our support where it is needed most.”
Sarah Barnes, Head of Customer Delivery and Governance, adds, “When we add that granular detail to our other data sources, we can target our resources in disadvantaged communities even more effectively, to help address the Government’s leveling up agenda.”
Meanwhile, other applications built in App Engine continue to deliver significant value to the organization, improving speed of response and driving efficiencies. A desk booking application, originally developed to manage office traffic during the pandemic, has provided usage and occupancy data, enabling the Council to close entire office floors, saving rental and power costs and cutting carbon emissions.
“With two years of data summarized in ServiceNow dashboards we were able to make an informed decision with confidence,” says Tony. “Now, using the same principles, we’re carrying out a complete review of our entire estate and I imagine we’ll close more floors as a result.
“With ServiceNow, we have become a truly data-enabled authority. Joe has built a corporate application register in ServiceNow enabling us to manage more than 300 applications, integrate the data, and give us a much clearer picture of the status of our IT estate.”
Feeding the engine
“COVID was a tragic background, but it accelerated our data journey and has had transformational results. Things that would previously have taken a long time to embed were embedded overnight, thanks to ServiceNow.”
Next on the roadmap for Tony and his team is to transform the Council’s HR and finance processes in ServiceNow. “ServiceNow is our go-to platform, both to manage big corporate changes and when we need to respond quickly to unforeseen events, there’s always an answer for us.”
Sarah concludes: “The more we feed the ServiceNow engine the more we get out of it. Data, automation, and dashboards have changed our entire working culture. KPIs, SLAs, and prioritization are enabling our people to focus on the right tasks at the right time, the ones that make a real difference, and we’re more efficient and cost effective as a result.”