CASE STUDY
The Kainos solution gave the WRA the
flexibility to customise the system to its
needs. “Together with Kainos and Welsh
Government digital and ICT teams,
we’ve created a blueprint for a cloud-
first approach for other public bodies
considering Digital Transformation.”
“It has also highlighted how this system can
help support a wider Welsh Government
target to have 1 million Welsh speakers
by 2050. The system encourages greater
use of the Welsh language by enabling
users to switch between Welsh and English
while completing forms. As a bilingual
organisation, this is a relatively unique
offering we’re pleased to have introduced for
our service users.”
A bespoke, flexible and scalable
solution for the future
Kainos needed to ensure that the platform
was future-proofed to accommodate
system as it needs to account for all the tax
revenues collected.
Pritchard commented: “This was a very
challenging project as there was no blueprint
in place and there were so many moving
parts. For example, the finance system
implemented by SA Global was a critical
element of the service as it needs to receive
and confirm every tax return has been
submitted and paid. This complex integration
had to be completed within a three-month
window. This could only be achieved using
a cloud approach to integrate the new
SaaS finance system with the PaaS solution.
Working with SA Global, Kainos was able to
navigate these operational and technical
hurdles effectively; they really are experts
when it comes to Azure, with an agile and
innovative approach to problem solving.”
Sloan added: “We are very proud to be
Microsoft’s UK Country Partner of the Year
and this project really allowed us to stretch
IT IS ESTIMATED THAT THE WRA WILL
ADMINISTER APPROXIMATELY £1
BILLION IN TAXES OVER A FOUR-YEAR
PERIOD, AND THE PROJECT IS ALREADY
AN AWARD-WINNING ONE.
any future services that might be added.
“Flexibility within both the delivery
methodology and the platform itself
was essential to accommodate the
inevitable changes that would come as
the organisation and technology plan
was formed, staff recruited and business
processes put in place,” Sloan said. the capabilities of Azure and build our
understanding of just how powerful the
platform can be. We look forward to working
with WRA to further develop and innovate
on the platform.”
Azure PaaS supported the agile approach
being taken to the project, providing
out-of-the-box functionality and easy
integration with other SaaS services such
as Dynamics 365 which provides the WRA
with Corporate Finance, Tax Managements
Finance and HR services. Delivered by SA
Global, another Microsoft Partner, the
finance system was a critical part of the How does the Welsh Revenue
Authority rely on technology to
operate its system?
70
INTELLIGENTCIO
We caught up with Pritchard to ask some
further questions about the solution:
Essentially, we are a complete digital
organisation which means we don’t have
any digital infrastructure, so all of our
systems are in the cloud. We use a number
of different services from the cloud: a
platform service which we’ve created for
the tax system in conjunction with Kainos;
Microsoft Platform-as-a-Service; and then
we also use a lot of Software-as-a-Service
in Microsoft Azure so things like Office 365,
Dynamic SharePoint. Additionally, everybody
uses Skype for Business so again, we’ve got
no physical network at all – everything is
cloud-based. The whole network is built on
technology and on the assumption that it
is digital-first. An example of that is 97%
of our online transactions are digital and
we have had only 3% paper since day one.
The premise is that the default of everything
we do is electronic and we only use non-
electronic by exception and so everything is
designed that way.
What are the main benefits
you’ve seen since implementing
the Kainos solution?
The main benefit for us is flexibility. As a
new organisation, it’s very difficult to predict
initially what the demand for services are,
how busy we’re going to be and how to size
the service. What the cloud allows is for you
to deploy whatever size system you need
at that point in time. Our systems are able
to flex up and down – we’re able to make
them very resilient without putting too much
effort into it ourselves. If demand suddenly
doubles tomorrow, it will auto-adjust to
the service. Whereas traditionally, when
building your own infrastructure, you have
to guess as to how big your system’s going
to be and hope it’s big enough. The cloud
allows you the flexibility to scale to the
demand of the customer.
How will the success of the
implementation allow you to invest
in Welsh public services?
The money that we collect as the Welsh
Revenue Authority goes directly into
supporting public services within Wales so
over the next four years, the WRA will raise
an estimated £1 billion that will go towards
funding public services i.e. some education
and health services. Our ability to collect that
will go towards those services. Also, to make
Wales more accountable as a government
because we are now collecting the taxes
that we’re spending so it gives us more
responsibility as a government about the
ways we spend our taxes. n
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