Customer story: Melton Borough Council, UK

Time for a change

Melton had an online system for their planning consultations. They had used it for several years but staff were growing frustrated with how awkward it was to use and the inefficiencies of its process.

Not only was it an arduous and time-consuming system for staff but public participation was also conspicuously low, with citizens finding it an irritatingly difficult way to submit their responses.

With a new Local Plan coming up, Melton's Planning Department decided the time was right to investigate switching to a different platform.

Melton Borough Council chose to use Citizen Space

Citizen Space is a comprehensive system for managing, running and reporting on consultation activity online.

After hearing about Citizen Space, Melton Borough Council requested a demonstration to see if it was an appropriate fit for their requirements.

Following weeks of careful consideration, they decided Citizen Space represented a sufficiently significant improvement on their existing system to make switching worthwhile. A key factor in their decision was Citizen Space's user-friendliness, both for the public and admin users.

Making the transition was about more than just logging into a new piece of software. This was also an opportunity for Melton to improve their entire approach to running online consultations, making the process easier for staff and more engaging for citizens.

As with all our customers, we provided Melton with extensive staff training; we also operate dedicated account management to give in-person support when setting up key projects.

After adopting Citizen Space, Melton quickly found that the ratio of admin-heavy paper responses was dropping, with more people happy to respond online using the new system, creating considerable efficiencies for the Council.

Happy and engaged citizens

They also received really positive feedback from users: 'public comments have been that the system is much more user-friendly and people prefer it to the previous software, which required them to set up an account and log in.

We’ve received extra special thanks to the response-saving function, as people commit a lot of time and effort into preparing their responses. It’s also saved officer time dealing with enquiries.'