Case Study: Mölndal Provides Rapid Social Assistance to Citizens in Need with Intelligent Automation

Challenge
To ensure all citizens are well cared for, the municipality of Mölndal provides social assistance for those who become unable to care for themselves. People in need of help must fill out an application, which includes a broad range of personal information outlining their current circumstances, such as rent, utility payments and other financials. While Mölndal was keen to assist their citizens as quickly as possible, processing their applications was taking up to three weeks. This was time that people needing urgent help simply didn’t have. Mölndal was determined to cut down application processing time and get much-needed help out to people, sooner.

"From the application to disbursing funds, it’s now an average of three to five days. This is good for the citizens and our users because, instead of coming here every month and applying for income support, they can now do it from home, when they themselves feel the need to apply."
Annika SamuelssonHead of Digitalization and IT

Solution
Applying for social assistance can be a labor-intensive process requiring the collection and processing of a lot of information from many sources. While very time consuming for human workers to complete, it’s exactly the type of task ideally suited for Blue Prism digital workers. So, after evaluating the application process, Mölndal deployed digital workers to support application processing. And their impacts were immediate and dramatic. Now, instead of a three-week wait, citizens are receiving funds into their nominated bank account in just three to five days. Digital workers are handling the process with consistency and accuracy— treating each citizen exactly the same. Mölndal has found that they have gained more control in the application process and that funding is being allocated correctly which has led to cost savings.

What’s more, freed from having to process applications, Mölndal’s social workers are able to spend more time doing what they love to do—providing direct aid and assistance to citizens. But most importantly, the addition of the Blue Prism digital workforce has meant that people in desperate need of help are now getting it much more quickly.