Collection

Pay for something

Research to understand the needs of residents and staff around paying for council services, such as council tax.

  • Improving My Rent Account Alpha

    Hackney Council launched an online Rent Account service in October. Since then it has been used 50,000 times by 12,000 people. However, just 27% have tried to make a payment on the service and 36% of people have failed to complete an online payment. We want to explore how we might increase payments through personalised notifications and an easier payment process.

    September 2018 - December 2018

    Phases: Alpha

    Part of collections for: Pay for something, Council housing tenants, Register for something

  • Understanding the council tax service and it's users

    This research explored residents' experiences of Hackney's council tax service over the last few years in order to identify opportunities for improvement. Alongside, it also sought to understand how staff across the service experience the service, systems and work processes.

    December 2023 - March 2024

    Phases: Discovery

    Part of a collection for: Pay for something

  • Improving the understanding of the cost of social care

    Project shaped around improving the understanding of care costs for users and people who support them. Our vision for the project was a service that supports people to make good choices about [paying for] their care, based on accessible, easy to understand information and a transparent process.

    June 2021 - March 2022

    Phases: Discovery, Alpha

    Part of collections for: Pay for something, Apply for something

  • Improving timely collection of council tax

    Exemplar project to shaped around improving the timely collection of council tax. The project comprised of a discovery to look for where the opportunities lay and an alpha to explore one of the opportunities for potential further development. The project was undertaken with support from a delivery partner who provided intensive support for the discovery and light touch support for the alpha. Our vision for the project was to improve the timely collection of council tax, so that the council receive more tax at the right time - in-year, and less people get into debt

    June 2020 - March 2021

    Phases: Discovery, Alpha

    Part of a collection for: Pay for something

  • Improving the Council Tax process at Royal Borough of Greenwich

    The Royal Borough of Greenwich (RBG) are working on a better online Council Tax service, focusing on allowing taxpayers to both view and pay their bills online. Placecube and Pilotworks are working with RBG on this project, to implement CTax on Placecube's Digital Place platform. We are currently in a discovery and testing phase, documentation will be added soon. In the meantime, contact randy.silver@pilot.works (Product Manager) with any questions.

    September 2020 - present

    Part of a collection for: Pay for something

  • Council Tax Reminder Letters

    In this project we conducted a broad Discovery to understand residents' experience of paying council tax, and residents' experience of interactions with council tax services. Doing a deep dive to understand the problem, we then used a design sprint format to jumpstart problem solving. As a result we then redesigned the Reminder 1 recovery letters, which were tested with residents.

    September 2023 - present

    Phases: Alpha, Discovery

    Part of a collection for: Pay for something

  • Residents providing documents to use council services

    This research focuses on a product to allow council officers to request evidence from residents securely, and for the residents to provide the evidence digitally. For example, providing a photograph of your passport so that you can use Housing services.

    October 2021 - present

    Phases: None

    Part of collections for: Pay for something, Apply for something, Customer Services, Register for something