Camden Council has rationalised the number of suppliers it contracts for payment services with the aim of moving towards a cashless system. Part of the project is for the distribution of social care payments such as the direct payment of adult and children’s social care electronically via prepaid cards. We now currently load £1million per month onto prepaid cards across more than 400 cards in circulation, and we are currently exploring how it can be rolled-out to additional schemes to supplement our cashless strategy. Our staff have reported the prepaid card system has resulted in a: “positive user experience”.
The challenge: The aim of the whole project was to use one supplier for both bill payment collection and prepaid disbursement services, streamlining Camden’s payment flows, enhancing customer choice and aiding our strategy to become cashless. Previously, an existing prepaid card service was being utilised by one department, and so the new project needed to include the provision to migrate more than 320 live service user prepaid accounts from our existing provider. In addition, the new procurement sought to expand the reach of the service across several departments with the aim of streamlining the disbursement and monitoring process, while eliminating the use of cash and cheques.
The solution: In February 2018, following a competitive tender, payment specialist allpay implemented its Bill Payment Services, enabling citizens to pay Council Tax, Rent, Utility Bills, Business Rates and Parking Charges across UK-wide Post Office and PayPoint networks. Since launch, more than 123,000 transactions have been processed and £14.6 million collected. In addition to Bill Payment services, allpay was also selected to supply its Prepaid Card services, allowing the Borough to disburse social care payments such as the direct payment of adult and children’s social care electronically via allpay’s prepaid card platform.
We now currently load £1million per month to the prepaid cards across more than 400 cards in circulation, and we are currently exploring how additional schemes can be rolled-out to supplement our cashless strategy.
Staff have reported the prepaid card system has resulted in a: “positive user experience”.
The impact: The benefits of the prepaid card system for us include: a self-service reporting mechanism with access to 14 different reports including line-item detail on cardholder spend. This was an important feature for us because of our duty to ensure funds spent by cardholders are in-line with their care plan.
The system also offers real-time visibility on all cardholder accounts – with specific users having the ability to suspend or close cards in real-time. Batch Management Facilities also allow our staff to load residual balances from old cards onto the newly issued prepaid cards and continue to load cards with social care funds on a regular basis.
With the aim of providing a more straightforward way of disbursing funds to Direct Payment recipients, the system allowed us to not only do this, but also capture more detailed management information through the self-serving reporting suite. This in turn, provided helpful knowledge and understanding for future financial modelling.
How is the new approach being sustained?
The prepaid cards are preloaded Mastercard®s that can be distributed and used to pay for goods up to the value loaded on the card, offering a bespoke, managed and efficient solution to payment distribution. allpay currently works with around 50 other councils across Britain enabling them to distribute the benefits of the prepaid cards for a variety of projects. Other councils have used the cards to provide accessible funds for emergency accommodation for example, or to provide the facility to purchase specific products, or in our case, to provide payments for adult and children’s social care. For us, the prepaid cards offer a practical and efficient alternative to cheques and vouchers.
The prepaid cards ensure goods and services can be purchased at the point of sale, online, or over the telephone offering a prepaid solution for those in need, regardless of their financial situation. Potential users do not have to have a bank account or credit check ensuring full financial inclusion. All transactions made using the card are recorded and monitored to provide an audit trail and there is no credit or overdraft facility. We have found using the prepaid cards means we have been able to reduce the cost and administration normally associated with paying out funds.
Lessons learned:
The relationship with allpay during the implementation was really positive and holding weekly project meetings via Skype meant relevant people could contribute as and when required. At the beginning, we underestimated the amount of resources needed in the implementation away from the existing supplier, but by working with allpay, we could flex the implementation timeline accordingly.
Staff working with the system on a day-to-day basis have commented that the functionality of the platform for loading of funds to cards, monitoring of spend and reporting is a positive user experience and the system is straightforward to use.
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