Case Study: Spelthorne Borough Council turns 10,000 flood calls into 1,600 actionable work requests with Civica Contacts (Civica)

Civica at The Heart of Spelthorne Borough Council’s Flood Response

Spelthorne Borough Council, serving almost 100,000 residents, faced a major operational challenge when the River Thames floods in February 2014 generated 10,000 flood-related calls to its Borough Emergency Centre in just 10 days (about three months’ worth of calls). The council — a long-standing user of Civica solutions, including Civica Contacts and Civica Workflow — needed to quickly identify the most vulnerable people, prioritise scarce resources like sandbags, and coordinate information between Customer Services, Streetscene, emergency services, councillors and the Chief Executive.

Civica responded by enabling rapid creation of flood-specific Civica Contacts scripts and workflows (three scripts set up in about 15 minutes), plus a volunteer registration script that became an online e-form, allowing calls to be captured, prioritised and routed in real time. The Civica solution let staff identify repeat callers, provide up-to-date Streetscene notes, and streamline tasking so that 10,000 incoming calls were distilled into just 1,600 specific Streetscene work requests, improving coordination, protecting scarce resources and keeping officials and the public informed.

Spelthorne Borough Council

Linda Norman

Head of Customer Services