“We’ve been on board with mygovscot myaccount from the very beginning, and it’s absolutely proven its worth. Hitting the £100 million milestone shows just how much it’s helped transform the way we work. It’s a platform we can trust and one that consistently delivers value for the council and our residents.”
Paul Livingstone, Digital Leader at Falkirk Council
Background
When Falkirk Council launched MyFalkirk in 2016 they made a bold choice – to fully integrate the national mygovscot myaccount sign-in from day one.
They backed mygovscot myaccount as the long-term solution for secure, federated authentication across their services. That decision paid off as in just over seven years, Falkirk residents have made more than £100million in payments through services accessed via mygovscot myaccount.
Leadership
The rollout of mygovscot myaccount was led by Paul Livingstone, Digital Team Leader at Falkirk Council, who made the decision to launch mygovscot myaccount with MyFalkirk from the very beginning. “We could see early on that mygovscot myaccount was where local government was heading, so it just made sense to get on board from the start,” Paul explained.
“Integrating with federated authentication meant we could meet our local needs while keeping in line with national priorities. We went all in with mygovscot mygovScot and we’ve basically been introducing more and more digital service to our MyFalkirk platform.”
Today, residents use mygovscot myaccount to:
- View and pay council tax and rent accounts
- Apply for benefits and school-related services
- Purchase garden waste permits and recycling centre passes
- Report and track issues like missed bin collections
These are only some of the services residents can access online thanks to mygovscot myaccount which helps the MyFalkirk platform regularly handle 50,000–60,000 transactions per month, peaking at over £2.2 million in payments in April 2025.
Transforming service delivery
Falkirk Council has been able to transform service delivery for its residents, and by introducing myaccount early on, people are now familiar with how it operates, reaping benefits including:
- 24/7 self-service which helps with high-volume processes and reduces pressure on contact centres
- Seasonal peaks like garden waste renewals are managed entirely online, avoiding phone backlogs
- Reduced paper wastage as forms are filled in digitally
Uptake just keeps growing. Hitting the £100 million milestone shows just how much it’s transformed the way we work. It’s a platform we can trust and one that consistently delivers value for the council and our residents.
A platform to rely on
The council sees mygovscot myaccount as a secure, national infrastructure service they can depend on which has improved residents’ experience by unifying access across different services.
“From the start, we took a softly-softly approach – ensuring there were as few hurdles as possible for people using our digital services,” Paul explained. “The last thing we wanted was to make the process more complicated than it needed to be. Most of our forms can be filled in without authentication, but people still need to provide contact details – so they’re not truly anonymous.
“Since the end of 2016, we’ve steadily introduced more and more services on the MyFalkirk platform – now sitting at around 160 to 170 live at any one time. If people choose to log in with mygovscot myaccount, they can link their council tax and rent accounts, see their bills for multiple properties, and view any benefits they’re receiving.
“I think not forcing logins from the start was the right approach but now, as our digital services evolve and platforms improve, we’re starting to tighten things up. That’s meant it’s been an organic, slow-growing process.”
Since its launch, the council has processed just over 2.1 million transactions and collected over £100 million. The council collects around £2.2 million a month and processes 50,000 to 60,000 transactions.
“Uptake just keeps growing,” said Paul. “Hitting the £100 million milestone shows just how much it’s transformed the way we work. It’s a platform we can trust and one that consistently delivers value for the council and our residents.”
Future plans
With over 60% of local households now having at least one mygovscot myaccount user, Falkirk plans to extend its use further – moving more services towards requiring sign-in, and continuing to integrate it into every new digital initiative.
“We’ve got a quite a broad bit of coverage across the area with over 60% of households with at least one person signed up,” Paul said. “And then obviously the amount of money we’re collecting, with these transactions just growing over time.
“The more services we launch, the more transactions we deal with on a monthly basis. In some cases, the new services we put online, add huge amounts of transactions. mygovscot myaccount is working really well for us.
“The next step is to look at making it more of a requirement, so we can better link requests to specific customer accounts and build a clearer picture of what people are asking us for across the organisation.
"From a local government perspective, mygovscot myaccount looks like the right authentication infrastructure for us. We’re counting on it being there.”
With millions of accounts, millions of transactions, and millions of pounds processed – in our case alone – I think it’s clear that it works. This is something we should be building on.
Conclusion
Falkirk’s mygovscot myaccount journey underlines how a well-planned and steady integration can transform service delivery. It has made it easier for residents to access services, complete transactions, and make online payments.
“We’re collecting millions of pounds every year, along with service requests we couldn’t have handled in the past – things like recycling centre permits and brown bin permits, which generate such high volumes that our contact centre simply couldn’t cope, especially during seasonal peaks like the brown bin renewals,” Paul explained.
“Across the organisation, people are now starting to see that we can deliver services that were previously too difficult to manage, and do so in a drama-free way online – even collecting payments as part of the process when needed.
“Plus, we can make things as easy as possible for people by letting them sign in with the same account they already use for school payments, iPayimpact, parentsportal and other services.
“With millions of accounts, millions of transactions, and millions of pounds processed – in our case alone – I think it’s clear that it works. This is something we should be building on.”