Project 02 / 08 · Public Sector
Environmental & Regulatory Services Change Programme
Client
North East Lincolnshire Council
Role
Lead Service Designer
Sector
Regulatory & Enforcement
Year
Sept 2025 – Present
Role
Lead service designer.
Team
A core team of four at the start. I worked with the Housing team across housing, environmental and highways enforcement, and with IT, who build the flows in Salesforce.
Timeframe
September 2025 to present. Phase Two (rollout) is in progress.
Methods
Form and workflow audit, task-flow mapping, workflow redesign, analysis of resident form responses, sprint cycles, a demand-based priority matrix.
Outcome
One redesigned case-handling model now runs across three services. A scoring matrix built on web and service data decides which service area is redesigned next.
The problem
The council moved case handling from Granicus to Salesforce. The move exposed weak spots across housing, environmental and highways enforcement.
Old processes had been copied into the new system without redesign, so every inefficiency came with them. Officers faced 15+ manual steps for each case action. Nothing ranked urgent cases above routine ones. Cases hung on single people, so one absence could stall a file. The Arcus and Salesforce link was patchy, and teams couldn't see each other's data. The result was case delays and backlogs across three services at once.
My role
I am the lead service designer. I audited 55+ enforcement forms and workflows, mapped how tasks moved between Arcus and Salesforce, and designed the new flows. I test each flow with officers and iterate. IT then build it as a Salesforce flow.
In Phase Two, "we" means IT and me. We deploy each service area together and fix anything that breaks as it goes live. I also set up the sprint cycles, reviews and action tracking that keep the work moving.
I researched residents through what they wrote into forms. Comparing their answers with the questions we asked showed where forms confused people and sent them to the wrong one.
The Redesign
Before, a case went through manual triage, a list of 15+ actions and static assignment. Now triage, priority and routing are built in.
Recreated and simplified for confidentiality.
Before
- Resident Report
- Manual Triage
- 15+ Actions List
- Static Case Assignment
- Arcus Data Entry
- Manual Escalation
- Case Delays / Backlogs
After
- Resident Report
- Automated Triage Logic
- Embedded Prioritisation
- Dynamic Case Routing
- Arcus-Aligned Workflow
- Shared Dashboard Visibility
- Reduced Failure Demand
Fewer manual decisions per case
Routing by capacity and area
One shared view across teams
A pattern other service areas reuse
Key decisions
I redesigned the workflow instead of copying it across.
Moving the old process into a new platform would have kept every manual step. I started from how a case should flow, then had IT build that.
I route cases by capacity and area.
If someone is off, the case still gets picked up. No case waits for one named person. I also rebuilt bin reporting, which had several disconnected routes, into one.
I took the slower, collaborative route.
I persuaded each service area to work through the redesign with me. Parallel projects that skipped this step had to be redone. I held firm on the systems and behavioural-change logic, and I deferred to officers on resident behaviour, because they know it better than I do.
I replaced complaint-led choices with data.
Before the matrix, the next service area was usually chosen by senior decision-makers, often in response to complaints. Now it is chosen by a score.
The Operating Model
The model runs on a weekly rhythm: stand-ups, cross-service sprint reviews, retrospectives and action tracking.
Recreated and simplified for confidentiality.
The priority matrix
Which service area goes next is decided by a score built from web and service data.
Each service area is scored on a set of filters: web page visits, time spent on page, demand and returning visitors, plus case and contact volume and website redirect clicks. Redirect clicks stand in for unmet intent. The scores combine into one rank, and the matrix is rerun as each area closes.
Recreated and simplified for confidentiality.
Dummy service areas and invented scores, to show how the ranking works.
Outcome
What I made
- ·An audit of 55+ forms and workflows
- ·One redesigned case workflow and the Salesforce flows built from it
- ·A sprint and review cadence for each service area
- ·The priority matrix
What changed
- ·No case depends on a single person any more.
- ·The same workflow logic runs across housing, environmental and highways enforcement.
- ·Case progress is visible on a shared dashboard across enforcement teams.
- ·Website routing now stops people landing on duplicate or near-duplicate forms.
Tracking is going in step by step. Some of it is live, but it has not run long enough to show the change in numbers. The first measured results will come from Phase Two. One gap remains: we can see that a form was abandoned but not exactly where. That is planned for the next build.
Reflection
Persuading every team to take the slower route paid off, because the parallel projects that skipped it were redone. The lesson I carry forward is to start with data. The council had no joined-up view of what was happening when we began, so we have built the evidence as we go. A clear baseline before a project this size makes everything after it easier to prove.