Leeds Council could employ "robots" to carry out back office and customer service work

A report, which was approved by Leeds City Council chiefs this month, claimed “repetitive tasks” and “low level customer requests” could be better carried out by “bots”, as the reduction of human error would make for a better experience.

While documents seen by the YEPdo not make clear exactly which tasks could be automated in the future, they said work would start from next month to look into how this could be achieved.

As part of the work, the council will approve the procurement of “RPA solutions” that will support the financial challenge work currently underway.

The report said: “As part of the significant financial challenges being faced by the council, coupled with the drive to digitise and modernise services, there is an urgent need to exploit technology that will increase automation and streamline service delivery.

“Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions will save time and human effort as they automate the execution of repetitive tasks. RPA provides increased productivity and reduces errors. As RPA’s automated software robots are programmed more effectively, these bots can perform a greater number of routine tasks, extending our human staff resource even more.

"With more low-level customer requests handled automatically, those customers will have a better experience. Increased RPA across the authority will generate efficiencies to support the financial challenge by digitising and modernising the delivery of council services and back-office processes where these are currently heavily manual.

“Significant work has already taken place on identifying priority service areas, along with potential savings / income generation targets. However, additional capacity and expertise is required from an experienced supplier to move this work on at pace.

"IDS does not have sufficient capacity or skills in RPA to deliver solutions in a timely manner and so a procurement exercise is required to secure additional capacity from a suitably experienced and skilled supplier with a proven track record.”