Member Article

Waltham Forest Council appoints Voicescape to help drive up Council Tax collections

Voicescape has strengthened its position in the public sector, after being appointed by Waltham Forest Council – its sixth local government client win in the last 12 months.

The Manchester-headquartered software business, which provides resident engagement solutions for social landlords and local authorities, will work alongside the Council to help manage Council Tax collection.

Waltham Forest is home to 278,400 residents and more than 102,000 households. It is the first London borough Council that will implement Voicescape’s well-established Collections solution - innovative technology that automates costly and ineffective outbound calls, allowing revenues and benefits officers to focus on high value inbound calls and collect more Council Tax arrears. This enables them to focus on high quality and meaningful engagement with certain residents to negotiate payment arrangements, which in turn helps to increase the overall Council Tax collection rate, while reducing levels of debt.

The technology combines behavioural insights to better understand the resident experience and increase engagement; data science to help target and tailor interventions and focus time on where it can have the greatest impacts; as well as intelligently automating the bulk outbound calling tasks that can be leveraged to free up officers’ time.

Nalda Russell-Stowe, Corporate Director of Revenues and Benefits, said: “We are acutely aware of how the current cost-of-living crisis is impacting on our residents. We want to do everything we can to prevent people getting into arrears by engaging early with them and doing what we can to help. This technology will allow us to increase communication with our residents, enabling us to focus on those with the greatest need, while also improving the efficiency of our staff.”

Earlier this year, Waltham Forest Council announced its ‘Your Crisis, Our Action’ campaign to help residents deal with the cost-of-living crisis. So far, it has invested £4 million in its cost-of-living response, which includes direct financial support, support with retrofitting homes and investment in community initiatives.

Peter Hudson, Sales Director, at Voicescape, said: “Waltham Forest Council is already taking proactive steps to meet the complex challenges that exist within the sector – issues that have been exacerbated by the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis.

“We’re delighted to be working alongside the team to extend that response and help them connect further with residents in the borough, by adopting a Collect with Care approach that helps to protect vulnerable residents, while utilising exciting and innovative technology. The aim is to ensure that methods of collection are effective, that processes are efficient, and that they’re ethical in meeting the individual circumstances of customers who may be struggling with the rising cost of living.”

Using a unique combination of automation technology, behavioural insights and data science, Voicescape creates bespoke communication solutions that enable public service organisations to drive substantial operational efficiencies and service-level improvements.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ian Jones .