Hyndburn Borough Council

How Hyndburn Borough Council improved Revenues reliability with MRI Software

At Hyndburn Borough Council, Revenues and Benefits is a high‑impact, resident‑facing service covering Housing Benefit, Council Tax Support, Business Rates, and customer contact. System availability directly affects service quality and resident experience.

Prior to migrating to the cloud, MRI Software’s Revenues & Benefits solution was hosted on premise and relied heavily on internal IT resource. Reliability issues, weekend system concerns, and frequent upgrades placed significant pressure on internal IT resources. With around 40 core users and a further 25 wider users, even short outages resulted in substantial lost service time and reduced productivity.

A strategic decision aligned to wider transformation

The move to cloud aligned with Hyndburn’s wider digital transformation strategy. Having already seen benefits from moving its core payments system to the cloud, extending the approach to Revenues and Benefits became a natural next step.

“We’d already moved other systems to the cloud and seen real benefits,” said Lee Middlehurst, Head of Benefits, Revenues and Customer Contact at Hyndburn Borough Council. “It became a natural next step to do the same for Revenues and Benefits.

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.

A key driver was reducing the reliance on internal IT. At one stage, the equivalent of one full-time IT resource was absorbed purely by Revenues and Benefits system issues. Reducing this dependency was essential for long-term resilience.

When the project moved forward, careful planning and collaboration proved critical.

“We had concerns about timescales and having the right people involved,” Lee explained. “But having a clear, patient project manager from MRI and key staff from our service and IT teams made all the difference.”

User acceptance testing, interface validation, and local process checks ensured the live environment closely reflected the existing setup, while improving consistency and reliability. The transition itself was seamless.

Reliability restored and confidence rebuilt

Since moving to MRI’s Revenues & Benefits Cloud solution, system availability has improved significantly.

“There used to be issues every month, from scheduler problems to network outages,” said Lee.

“We’ve had none of that in nearly two years. It’s changed how staff feel about the system. They trust it now.

Upgrades no longer create concern. Staff confidence has increased across the service, from management through to frontline teams processing claims and maintaining accounts.

Since implementation, Hyndburn has achieved:

• Elimination of recurring outages
• Significant recovery of staff time across a large user base
• Removal of local infrastructure and upgrade risk
• Reduced pressure on internal IT services
• Improved staff confidence and morale

Most importantly, service availability is now dependable, enabling teams to focus on supporting residents rather than managing system issues.

Enabling the future

With a stable cloud foundation in place, Hyndburn has already begun implementing automation modules, accelerating its wider digital transformation roadmap with MRI Software

The move has also strengthened the council’s readiness for future change, including potential service restructuring or local government reorganisation.

MRI Revenues & Benefits Cloud has provided Hyndburn with more than just a reliable system, but the confidence to plan ahead, with core services that are supported, scalable, and ready for the future.

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