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How the Southampton City Council refines travel spend and policy with TravelPerk
Southampton City Council
Southampton City Council is the local authority responsible for governing the city of Southampton in Hampshire, England. The Council provides a wide range of public services – such as guidance on housing and social care, environmental services, culture and education, as well as transport and economic development, to name a few. Due to this broad field of responsibilities, council staff frequently need to travel. Car hire and trains are often needed to ensure that council workers can efficiently and safely conduct their fieldwork, e.g. social service visits, environmental health checks or infrastructure maintenance. Additionally, accommodation is used for events, training and business trips, and also to help the local community.
The challenge: Issues with independent travel bookings
Prior to implementing a central platform with TravelPerk, staff would arrange their travel and accommodation independently, using multiple different providers and platforms. This system posed a few challenges:
- Time management: Independent bookings through staff members took time away from their actual work. Processing the individual requests and invoices was, in turn, time-consuming for managers and administrative staff.
- Travel spend: Due to the number of providers as well as the various options for payment and reimbursement, travel spend was difficult to track. Creating accurate reports and analyses – which is particularly important for a government institution to show how taxpayer money is being used – was a challenging and resource-heavy process.
- Policy: Since travel was booked through various different channels, with varying inventory and options, it was challenging to implement a travel policy that could be followed by everybody.
The solution: A centralised, comprehensive and efficient travel platform
Through the implementation of a central travel platform with TravelPerk, staff members at Southampton City Council are now able to book their travel and accommodation quickly and efficiently, without having to manually research suitable providers and agencies. The platform is intuitive and easy to use, without extensive onboarding. Travellers and administrators can book travel and accommodation and obtain accurate reports.
“It's quite a neat setup, easy to use and self-explanatory. There are different modes for the booking side of it and the administrative side. […]My favourite feature is probably the reporting feature: You can schedule reports – so that managers can get an understanding of how their teams are using the system and analyse usage regarding dates, duration of bookings and more. Additionally, you can search up bookings by name of individual staff members, which we use a lot for processing invoices.”Bertie Watson: Contract Officer, Southampton City Council
Bertie Watson: Contract Officer, Southampton City Council
The results: Greater compliance, more transparency and less work
Creating travel policies and enabling compliance
For organisations with frequent business travel, easy to follow policies regarding the booking process, maximum spending limits and safety measures are vital for budgeting and insurance, as well as fulfilling their duty of care towards employees. While there were some rules in place prior to introducing the platform, overseeing adherence to them was challenging – due to the variety of methods and channels that were being used. With TravelPerk, Southampton City Council can now integrate their travel policies into the booking process, so staff can easily adhere to council guidelines. For instance:
- Our experts helped set up guidelines for the usage duration of certain elements, such as car hire.
- Southampton City Council is in the process of establishing an overarching corporate travel policythat is easy to follow within the platform’s parameters.
- Additionally, the Council is exploring sustainable options such as incentives for train travel and electric vehicles. TravelPerk is equally committed to greener travel and is prepared to help the Council in meeting their sustainability targets for corporate travel, ensuring that any future changes in corporate policy can be easily integrated into the current system.
Tracking bookings and travel spend
The platform simplifies tracking of travel activities and expenses. Whereas keeping track of the number of bookings per month was difficult before, the Council is now able to get exact numbers through the extensive reporting features. Administrators and managers can organise the reports by type of travel and accommodation – for instance car hires, trains, and hotels – as well as by various filters, such as different teams and intervals. This not only provides an accurate overview of the volume and type of bookings, but also enables easy processing and tracking of expenses. It is now possible to get precise data on all activities related to travel.
Freeing up resources
Due to the decrease in workload through use of the platform, the Council was able to greatly reduce the number of personnel needed for making travel arrangements. This resulted in the reallocation of valuable resources to other critical areas within the organisation. Team members who were previously occupied with travel management tasks can now dedicate their time and efforts to their primary responsibilities. By streamlining travel management operations, TravelPerk was able to support the Council not only in improving operational efficiency, but also in enhancing its capacity to deliver impactful services. This shift removes manual processes across teams and allows employees to concentrate on their core duties.
What TravelPerk provided
- Speedy onboarding
- Best practice around spending and policy limits
- Comprehensive Management Information reporting
- Extensive inventory
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