Caerphilly County Borough Council

Caerphilly County Borough Council secures long-term Revenues resilience with MRI Software’s cloud solution

Caerphilly County Borough Council relied on MRI Software’s Revenues & Benefits solution to deliver Council Tax and Business Rates for its communities. By 2022, the system was supporting around 60 users across the Revenues service. While operationally sound, the existing setup was creating additional pressure. Upgrades and patches required careful scheduling, annual billing releases didn’t always align with service demands, and system continuity relied heavily on the availability of a busy Digital Services team. Even short periods of downtime had a noticeable impact on day-to-dayzoperations.

At the same time, the council recognised a wider shift across local government towards cloud-hosted services. To remain resilient, compliant, and adaptable, Caerphilly needed a way to protect service delivery today while preparing for the
future. Without change, the council faced continued reliance on local infrastructure, increasing operational risk, and growing pressure on internal IT resources. Managing upgrades in-house would continue to introduce disruption at peak times and make long-term planning more complex.

A trusted cloud platform designed for local government

MRI Software worked with Caerphilly to move its Revenues & Benefits solution to a fully managed cloud service. MRI Revenues & Benefits Cloud removes the need for local infrastructure, delivers scheduled and predictable releases, and ensures systems remain secure, compliant, and up to date.

For Sean O’Donnell, Revenues Manager at Caerphilly, the decision was clear;

This wasn’t about change for the sake of it,” Sean explains. “It was about having confidence that our core systems were future proofed and ready to support what comes next.

The move also ensures Caerphilly is well positioned to adopt future integrations and benefit from ongoing product innovation designed for cloud environments.

A controlled, low-risk transition to cloud

The migration project took just under six months. MRI worked closely with Caerphilly to validate data, interfaces, and testing at every stage. Release schedules were managed flexibly, with adjustments made to avoid critical periods such as annual billing. From the council’s perspective, the project felt more like a planned handover than a disruptive system change.

The move itself was very straightforward,” said Sean. “We didn’t experience any real downtime. It felt more like transitioning to a managed service than a disruptive change.

Greater stability, less disruption and time savings for the team

Since transitioning to the Cloud, the most noticeable improvement has been system stability and reduced operational overhead. The council has achieved:

• Near continuous system availability
• Removal of on premise infrastructure and hardware management
• Access to the latest patches and releases as standard
• Elimination of working hour downtime for system updates
• Meaningful time savings across the Revenues service

While these improvements are measurable, the most significant outcome has been increased confidence. Systems are available, supported, and compliant when it matters most.

Previously, upgrades during the working week resulted in downtime across the Revenues service. With approximately 60 users, even short outages had a significant impact on productivity. That disruption has now been removed.

There’s far less interaction needed with Digital Services and much less time spent dealing with operational issues,” Sean noted. “That time saving is incredibly valuable. It allows us to focus on delivering the service.

A future ready Revenues service

After more than three years operating on MRI Revenues & Benefits Cloud, Caerphilly would not consider returning to on premise hosting.

“The stability, convenience, and time saved have made a real difference,’ concluded Sean. ‘It removes a lot of background pressure and lets us concentrate on service delivery.”

With a secure, managed solution in place, Caerphilly now has a strong foundation for future change, ready to evolve alongside citizen and organisational needs.

Discover how MRI Revenues & Benefits Cloud can support your organisation.