Case Study: Argyll and Bute Council achieves secure, compliant payroll and Direct Debit processing with AccessPay

Helping Argyll and Bute Council process payroll and collect council tax via Direct Debit

Argyll and Bute Council, one of Scotland’s 32 unitary authorities, needed a secure, robust and compliant way to process payroll, supplier payments and collect council tax by Direct Debit before Bacs’ SHA-2 deadline. Facing strict regulatory and operational risks, the council selected AccessPay’s banking connectivity platform to provide secure Bacs connectivity, streamlined approval workflows and automated AUDDIS retrieval.

AccessPay implemented the solution in a matter of weeks, configuring secure Bacs access for 12 users across 11 Service User Numbers and support for 14 file types, with automated audit trails and multi-stage authorisation. The result was faster, more secure processing, support responses often within an hour (sometimes ten minutes), audit data retrievable in minutes instead of days, and measurable efficiency gains as staff reclaimed hours previously spent on manual file handling.

Argyll and Bute Council

Ken Wong

Revenues System Administrator