First robot now working at a Welsh council

Neath Port Talbot Council is understood to have become the first local authority in Wales to use a robot to process back office administration. The council has been trialling the new technology, known as Robotics Process Automate (RPA), to process Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks and update employee information. At a personnel committee meeting head of resources Sheenagh Rees told councillors the robot had helped clear a backlog of data inputting within a matter of weeks. She said: "Since 2013 there has been a 50% reduction of administration staff in HR but we have only had increasing demand for our services. "The reason we were interested in using RPA was because it could help us deal with a high volume of work we weren't able to do.