How AI is Transforming Public Service: Welsh Councils Cut Admin by 75% to Focus on People

How Three Welsh Councils Are Using AI to Revolutionize Customer Service and Care

Three County Councils in South Wales – Swansea, Carmarthenshire and Rhondda Cynon Taf – are collaborating to maximize the impact of Microsoft AI, focusing on improving internal operations, customer service, and care for vulnerable residents.

Council care services are built on human moments: home visits, difficult conversations, and support decisions. But behind each moment sits mountains of administrative work—notes to write, assessments to complete, case histories to review.

Now, generative AI through Microsoft 365 Copilot is dramatically reducing this administrative burden, shifting the balance back to meaningful human interactions.

Mari Ropstad, Head of Adult Social Care at Rhondda Cynon Taf, explains: "The attention our workers can pay to individuals during visits has significantly improved."

Time saved from administrative tasks leads to better explanations, fewer misunderstandings, and clearer understanding of support needs.

Dramatic Efficiency Gains

With Microsoft 365 Copilot deployed to 300 staff members:

• Needs assessments are completed almost four times faster
• Case note reviews are more than twice as fast
• Staff can complete nearly twice as many risk assessments per hour

The impact on staff wellbeing is equally impressive:

• 86% report higher quality output
• 50% say their wellbeing has improved
• 75% feel more positive about their roles

"Happy staff stay" — Mari Ropstad, Rhondda Cynon Taf County Council

Ropstad emphasizes that staff retention directly benefits recruitment costs and care quality. "Social care is a high-pressure field with significant stress," she notes. "We've seen qualified professionals leave because of it. When staff are happy, they stay, and recruitment becomes easier."

This stability also benefits residents through continuity of relationships, a crucial element of quality care.

Swansea's Transformative Implementation

Swansea County Council has purchased 1,000 Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses with 2,500 staff regularly using Copilot Chat across multiple departments.

Ness Young, Director of Corporate Services, explains that Swansea invested in comprehensive training, built a champion network, and ensured staff understand how to use AI tools safely and responsibly.

Staff use Copilot to:

• Prepare for meetings
• Summarize lengthy documents
• Draft clearer reports

The Council estimates saving 5,400 staff hours in just four weeks through AI implementation.

"They can focus on work that truly makes a difference" — Ness Young, Swansea County Council

This time savings allows for better analysis and decision-making. In social care specifically, teams spending less time on repetitive admin can devote more attention to residents and communicate more clearly with those receiving support.

Swansea's rollout extends across housing, education, and customer service departments. Young notes: "It's giving people hours back—speeding up housing casework, cutting social care admin, improving response quality, and helping resolve issues faster."

Swansea is also implementing AI agents to support frontline decisions. In children's residential care, AI helps "spot early signs of risk by identifying patterns in daily records." In schools, Copilot transforms complex policy changes into clear guidance, ensuring families receive accurate information faster.

Carmarthenshire's Customer Service Revolution

Carmarthenshire County Council has significantly improved customer service by developing a chatbot that quickly locates accurate information, enabling customer care agents to answer resident queries faster and more accurately.

Previously, staff had to search through extensive FAQ documents or the Council website while callers waited. By moving key resources to Microsoft SharePoint and applying the chatbot to this centralized data, operations have been transformed.

Copilot's ability to rapidly access correct policies and documents has helped reduce complaint response times to well within the 10-day target.

Additionally, neurodiverse staff—particularly those with ADHD and dyslexia—report feeling less anxious and overwhelmed by clerical work, creating a more inclusive workplace.

Collaborative Learning Approach

Rather than working in isolation, the three Councils collaborate to accelerate impact, share learnings, and improve consistency.

They organize joint 'Promptathon' and 'Agentathon' events to equip colleagues with skills to maximize technology potential. This "learn once, benefit many times" model prevents wasted time on repeated early mistakes.

Georgia Sweet notes that shared learning helps avoid redundant efforts, while Ness Young observes that confidence grows when staff see practical examples from peers rather than just IT guidance.

In Rhondda Cynon Taf, frontline staff provide feedback on what works best, allowing refinement of prompts and templates for reuse across departments. Ropstad emphasizes that time is the most crucial resource in social care: "If we can reduce administrative work, we can redirect that time where it truly matters."