West Lothian Council: from spreadsheets to one admissions platform.
Parents apply online. The council matches preferences to capacity across every setting.
Early Learning and Childcare (ELC), primary and secondary, on one platform.
Where West Lothian started
Admissions ran on spreadsheets, email and staff knowledge, and depended on one person. The council wanted that dependency gone.
~4,100
children in ELC
~106
council and partner ELC settings
3
stages: ELC, primary and secondary
The CivTech challenge
West Lothian Council set the challenge. Admit is the answer to it.
Supported through CivTech Challenge 7.8 and the Scottish Government.
Fair allocation
Places allocated fairly across many settings.
Less manual admin
Fewer hours spent on spreadsheets and email.
Fewer complaints
Decisions families can follow.
Visible progress
Stakeholders able to see where things stand.
Exceptions first
Discovery mapped the hard cases before the routine ones. They are what an admissions officer worries about, so they came first.
Appeals
A decision has to be explained, and stand up.
Late applications
They arrive after allocation has run.
Mid-year placements
A child needs a place outside the intake.
Capacity changes
A setting gains or loses places.
Policy exceptions
A case the criteria did not foresee.
What changed
For families
Clearer tracking of their application.
For the team
Fewer administrative bottlenecks.
Rules
Configurable eligibility windows, entitlement hours and criteria, as policy changes.
Reporting
Centralised reporting and capacity management.
Audit
Audit trails for consistent, transparent and defensible decisions.
Staff time
Moved from chasing information to resolving exceptions.
From ELC to primary and secondary
West Lothian started with ELC. Primary and secondary admissions followed, on the same platform.
Funded hours calculation is built in.
- ELC first
- Then primary and secondary
- One platform, one set of records
How the platform keeps up
Admit changes as West Lothian's needs change. This is how.
Regular contact
We are in regular contact with West Lothian Council for feedback.
Legislation and needs
We update the platform as legislation and the council's needs change.
The roadmap
New requests from the council form the development roadmap.
Covered by the licence
These updates are covered by the product licence.
Bespoke development
Additional bespoke development is also available.
The same story, told elsewhere
The CivTech challenge
Challenge 7.8, on CivTech's own site.
How it was built
The agency's account of the work, on gearedapp.co.uk.