Northern Ireland Councils Adapt To Pandemic By Embracing Digital Transformation

Northern Ireland councils have turned to cloud-based technology during the Coronavirus pandemic, as part of a move to digitally transform operations, and improve business decision making.  All these actions have helped to support Digital Transformation and their ability to respond to remote working needs.

A number of local authorities in Northern Ireland, including Mid & East Antrim Borough Council and Mid Ulster District Council, have switched to new, integrated software as a service from leading enterprise software provider TechnologyOne to drive cost savings and improve business efficiency.

“We’re seeing a growing number of councils in Northern Ireland re-evaluate their IT systems and move to an enterprise SaaS solution to digitally transform their organisations,” said TechnologyOne’s CEO Ed Chung. “Adopting a more mature approach to service delivery allows councils to focus on what’s important – better serving their community.”

TechnologyOne’s mobile-enabled OneCouncil system will help Mid & East Antrim Borough Council transform its digital experience by bringing together finance, HR, payroll and procurement systems into a single, enterprise solution. This will allow the council to improve efficiencies, by reducing manual data inputting and improving data quality, analytics and reporting.

By replacing legacy Totalmobile on-premise software with TechnologyOne, Mid & East Antrim will simplify how its 800 employees access financial, HR and payroll systems.

Employees will be able to access business tools and information using any device, anywhere and at any time. This will make it easier for them to update and view their personnel records, including payslips and holiday entitlement, and request annual leave online self-service.

The council was formed in 2015 following the merger of Ballymena, Larne and Carrickfergus Borough Councils, which has led to it inheriting and having to operate a number of separate IT systems.

Kieran Carville, Interim Head of Finance at Mid & East Antrim says linking HR, payroll and finance systems in one place will be a huge benefit for the council.

“By digitising and automating workflow process we will bring new efficiencies and savings for the council. It’s a massive leap forward from where we currently are,” he added. “All our admin will be automated giving us much more time to focus on more value-added activities and continuing to deliver improvements for our citizens.”

By replacing aging IT systems and moving them on to a highly secure SaaS platform, the council also expects to reduce the burden of managing technology systems, while also improving flexibility and better facilitating remote working.

“We wanted to move away from server-based systems and COVID-19 has really emphasised the importance of this. Our employees are having to work from home and are currently needing to use VPNs to connect, so TechnologyOne’s SaaS systems will be hugely beneficial going forward,” said Carville.

Ed Chung said TechnologyOne has worked alongside councils around the world – most of which this year have come under increasing pressure as a result of the pandemic and squeezed budgets. “Digitally transforming business tools and work processes is vital. It will automate mundane activities, help drive collaboration and provide far greater insight to aid smarter decision making. This is all to the benefit of local communities.”

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