Newcastle City Council developed automated chatbots to improve service provision.

There are many examples of where the time required to process and administer public requests for information can limit the responsiveness and efficiency of frontline council services.

For instance, in Newcastle, in order to drop off bulky waste at recycling centres, households need to get the right permit. Van drivers are limited to six drop offs per household a year and they had to apply in writing to be allocated a time slot. This analogue system would take up to 14 days to process a request.

Solving the problem

In March 2017, Newcastle’s City Council was awarded £15,000 from the national Digital Shift Channel fund. This was used to develop in-house capabilities in Microsoft’s BOT Framework.

The digital service allows hosts to create intelligent conversation apps for use in desktop and device chat apps, such as Skype, Slack, Messenger and Outlook.

The first service was a Waste Bot service, which was launched in Spring 2018. Now, instead of waiting two weeks to wait for the allocation of a time slot, drivers who want to drop off bulky waste can text the Waste Bot to apply for a permit, which reduces the processing time to seconds.

Key outcomes

The Waste Bot has received positive feedback from customers, particularly on the speed of the service. It has also reduced calls to the Council from about 60 per month to three and saved the equivalent of about £25,000 per year in staff time.

The digital service allows hosts to create intelligent conversation apps for use in desktop and device chat apps, such as Skype, Slack, Messenger and Outlook.

Newcastle City Council is hoping to apply the BOT Framework to other services. The latest project is a ‘virtual advisor’ chatbot for social care but this time working as a website bot.