Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
This project aimed to combine the process of users submitting grant applications with back office systems to ensure a seamless, timely and efficient process.
Like many councils, Newcastle City Council fosters local change and development through specific funds such as Ward Grants and Clean Air Funds. However this is a labour intensive process and open to fraud.
There are a number of pain points within the Community Grants process, such as:
- No visibility of NCCs full grant provision
- Different methods of applying and processing used to manage the applications
- The methods are not based on user needs
- Applicants have no visibility of the stage of their application
- When not a manual process, different technologies are used but these are often legacy-based software and require technical workarounds/integration
- No validation for fraud, and the ability to audit is difficult
This beta phase aimed to:
- iterate the alpha MVP and test on two new funds
- continue to design and develop the product ensuring it meets user needs
- develop a product roadmap that includes identified funds for future beta development
- create a comprehensive calendar of grants
- define metrics for savings
- add the ability to utilise data to detect fraud and use API’s to validate data
- provide skills training
TPXimpact were procured by the project team to bring in a user researcher and an agile delivery team who, alongside low code provider Netcall, developed a minimum viable product that was tested on fund applicants, the council fraud team and grant application staff.
Finding time with the council officers for testing was an obstacle the delivery team had to overcome once an initial prototype was developed.
Newcastle were pleased with the result so they moved from an Alpha development into a private Beta with a successful continuous funding application in November 2022.