Case Study: Bath and North East Somerset Council achieves flexible, expert benefits cover and cost savings with Civica OnDemand

Experienced OnDemand Staff Give Bath & NE Somerset Council Flexibility And Expertise

Bath and North East Somerset Council faced acute staffing pressures in early 2015 when benefits officers were redeployed to the FERIS fraud reduction initiative. With tight budgets and an impending move to Universal Credit that could cut caseloads by up to 50%, the council could not justify permanent hires and needed experienced people who could hit the ground running on the Northgate system. To solve this they turned to Civica’s OnDemand service.

Civica supplied two full‑time equivalent OnDemand staff from April 2015 who quickly integrated (familiarity with Northgate meant issues were ironed out by day two), maintained service quality and provided process improvement feedback. The Civica team covered the gaps so redeployed officers could deliver FERIS grants, avoided recruitment and training costs, reduced the risk of costly errors at year‑end, and boosted overall productivity — outcomes that have led Bath and North East Somerset Council to plan further use of Civica’s OnDemand.

Bath and North East Somerset Council

Roy Cafferky

Telephony Operations Manager Customer Services