Digital transformation offers local government a chance to redesign how councils operate, make decisions, and deliver services for residents.
That was the message on the Business News Wales Government & Not for Profit podcast from digital leaders at Neath Port Talbot and Caerphilly County Borough Councils, and from transformation specialists at Perago, who are working with local authorities across Wales to embed modern, data-driven and collaborative ways of working.
Tim Daley, Strategy and Transformation Director at Perago, said that digital change in local government needs to start from within with internal workflows, governance and culture. He described a council website as “the front door to a complex organisation that provides hundreds of services every day”, but said the greater test is how well those services connect and how effectively information flows behind the scenes.
Tim said the process can feel “like unravelling a long piece of string or a large ball of elastic bands”, with one change exposing others that need attention. It takes time, he said, and relies as much on people and leadership as it does on technology. The reward is an organisation that can respond faster, make better use of data, and deliver more consistent outcomes for residents.
He added that public expectations continue to rise. People compare their local council experience with the services they use elsewhere, and that’s driving a new urgency in how local government designs its digital services, he said.
At Neath Port Talbot Council, that shift has taken shape through the creation of its online platform, myNPT, which allows residents to access and track council services in one place.
Ian Vaughan, Head of Product and Delivery, said the work began with discovery – understanding problems before defining solutions – a principle he first learned while working with Perago and the Centre for Digital Public Services.
He said the vision for myNPT was to give residents a single, seamless view of the council, without needing to understand its internal structure.
The platform, he explained, draws on familiar design patterns from central government services, such as those used for passport renewal and vehicle tax, to ensure a consistent and intuitive experience. The approach has seen the authority embed user-centred design across all service areas.
At Caerphilly County Borough Council, a transformation programme launched two years ago is already changing how the council works and how residents experience services. The council, which needs to save £65 million over three years, has so far achieved £20 million in savings while introducing agile working, new governance processes and greater transparency.
Karen Williams, Customer Services Hub Manager, said the early stages of transformation were supported by Perago and helped shift the focus from individual departmental targets to organisation-wide collaboration. Weekly “stand-ups” and regular updates are now attended by hundreds of staff, including Cabinet members, creating what she describes as a more open and agile culture.
Karen said a website was “just the tip of the iceberg”. If the systems and processes behind it are still clunky and outdated, “all you’re doing is putting a fresh coat of paint on a crumbling wall.”
That understanding is now shaping how Caerphilly redesigns its digital platform and the services behind it. The focus, Karen said, is on end-to-end service design, fixing the entire process, not just the interface, and ensuring residents are kept informed throughout.
Listen to the Business News Wales Government & Not for Profit podcast here.
