Peterborough City Council has introduced GoCardless technology for its residents to pay for garden waste collections, helping save up to 800,000 in taxpayers' money.
The local authority was paying for garden waste collections with people's council tax, but found that not all residents actually made use of the service.
To make it fairer to residents not using the service, the council has made garden waste collections a separate charge payable with GoCardless, saving around 800,000 in taxpayers' money.
Using Direct Debit payments proved too complicated and costly with the council's existing payments provider, but with GoCardless, charges comprise just 1% of the transaction, up to a maximum of 2, compared to between 1.9% and 2.4% with an additional fixed fee for credit card payments.
"This is exactly the kind of thing that can cause a big headache when setting up. We knew residents might have concerns about the charge and so we had to get it right," said James Collingridge, Enterprise Peterborough Partnership manager at the council.
"With GoCardless it was really quick to set up and integrate with our existing systems, and has worked smoothly since. The lower processing costs mean we can be more efficient with our budget and with automatic payments renewal, residents don't need to worry about making the payments on time."
Peterborough City Council is among a third of councils that have been forced to start charging for garden waste collections following government spending cutbacks.
Hiroki Takeuchi, CEO of GoCardless, added: "We're increasingly seeing that public sector projects are being treated with the same standard and attention to detail as the private sector companies we work with. Peterborough is a great demonstration of that."
"At GoCardless, we understand why councils have had to add this charge. So we've been helping local authorities to implement it as simply as possible. The Peterborough payments model for garden waste can be followed by any council in the UK, often leaving additional funds available to invest in community projects, education and healthcare."
