Blaenau Gwent

If you know Government Digital Service, modern ways of digital working, you would recognize this team and how they're working, um, to deliver the new visitor accommodation service.

And we also heard from, um, a local government team, um, in Blaenau Gwent in how they're using AI, um, and digital methods to transform council tax and really deal with failure demand, um, and improve services, um, for local residents.

And I think that's sort of one of the really important parts of some of the talks we had last week, and hopefully we'll be able to show more and more of over time, is, uh, this idea that you, you don't just transform services by buying a piece of technology and, and inst- and installing it.

What you're able to-- If you focus on delivering services for people, you can start to cut out things like failure demand over, uh, uh, and, uh, costs that aren't necessary and various other things that allow you to start being able to deliver services that meet people's needs a bit better.

What did the data tell us? All our project work is framed around what the data is telling us and we try to advocate that you've got to use your data to drive your decision making.

So the three most demanded services in Blaenau Gwent contact centre was council tax, which is our current focus.

We'll then be moving on to the waste services and then there is another any other queries, which is a complete minefield.

So we are looking forward to that one.

It's just a better way of designing services and a better way of enabling you to deliver a better service.

So our next steps for the project is basically scaling what's worked for us.

So our plans are, or are starting, we're replicating what we've done with council tax in Blaenau Gwent across Torfaen and Monmouthshire councils, and taking what's worked and duplicating it.

We're applying the same model to other services.

Okay? Uh, so let's say hello to Dafydd Tristan Davies from Plaid Cymru, a cabinet minister for government effect and risks and the Constitution, and the MS for Cadwaladr, Wynnon, Taff.

Uh, we've got Ken Skates, the leader of Welsh Labor, MS for Flint, Wrexham, and we've got Llyr Powell for Reform UK, MS for Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Rhymney.

Uh, please welcome them to the stage.

[audience applauding] Keep up, Dafydd.