Somerset Council aims to improve public services amidst funding reductions and changes in policy.
Somerset Council leveraged and adopted Microsoft 365 Copilot deployed through a close partnership with Microsoft to meet the challenges the council faces.
Microsoft 365 Copilot saves employees’ time, increases productivity, and enhances the ability of the council to support residents.
“Microsoft is something we are really excited about for the future.”
Alyn Jones, Executive Director for Resources, Strategy and Transformation, Somerset Council
Somerset Council, a local authority formed in April 2023, provides a wide range of public services to the residents of a county in South West England. The council oversees various functions, including education, social services, transportation, housing and environmental health. With the aim of improving the quality of life for its residents and a commitment to creating a fairer, greener and more resilient community, Somerset turned to technology. By leveraging Microsoft Copilot capabilities, the council increased productivity and saved employees’ time, enabling them to focus more on important tasks and better support the public.
Somerset is undergoing significant changes due to a reduction in funding and several policy changes that need to be addressed. As a result, the authority faced a crucial question:
“How do we ensure that we are delivering the best for our residents with the level of financial resources we have?” says Alyn Jones, Executive Director for Resources, Strategy and Transformation at Somerset Council.
The solution was in exploring and adopting pioneering technologies.
Sarah Moore, ICT Transformation Lead at Somerset Council, explains “If we can use technology and target the workforce on the things that add the most value for the people of Somerset, there will be a direct improvement in the services we are able to offer.”
To achieve the desired state, Somerset aimed to empower its employees.
“Somerset is a brilliant place to work. There are loads of really creative and innovative people,” says Sarah Moore. “And we are really going to need to lean into that.”
Somerset recognised the potential of collaboration with Microsoft Copilot to achieve this.
“We were looking at each individual worker and how we could make the workday easier for them,” comments Sarah Moore. “The focus was on transforming the organisation through our Microsoft investment.”
87% of users reported positive benefits
Somerset utilised Microsoft Copilot for meetings, generating summaries, and as a productivity assistant for individual employees. The results were impressive.
Charlie Main, Artificial Intelligence Technical Lead, reflects on that, “We are seeing an increase in performance, and we are getting greater quality and consistency of work.”
“We found that, on average, 87% of users said that Copilot positively benefited them in some way, resulting in 10 hours of efficiencies per user, per month,” adds Charlie Main. “These efficiencies allow employees to reinvest their time into more demanding activities.”
After witnessing these results, Somerset aimed to provide more employees with this valuable tool.
“We plan to roll out additional licences to streamline not just individual tasks, but to support everyone working within the team,” says Charlie Main.
Somerset is eager to leverage more technologies and see how these transformations can positively impact its work.
“We are exploring how we can digitise genograms in ways we never could before. This will reduce the time required by some of our business support colleagues and empower our social service practitioners,” says Charlie Main.
For Somerset, the key to successfully implementing any technology lies in choosing the right partner, and for them, it was Microsoft.
“We are finding that the time it takes to go from concept to delivery, trial to implementation, is much shorter now with the right partner,” mentions Alyn Jones. “Microsoft is something we are really excited about for the future.”
“We were looking at each individual worker and how we could make the workday easier for them. The focus was on transforming the organisation through our Microsoft investment.”
Sarah Moore, ICT Transformation Lead, Somerset Council
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