Weston-Super-Mare Town Council Uses iTrent and People First to Support their Community

The council actually had some experience with MHR products, having used iTrent to pull through its payroll data via the North Somerset Town Council. However, this middleman approach was extremely sluggish, with a lot of manual processes.  

On top of this, Weston-Super-Mare Town Council makes use of a range of employee contracts, including full-time, part-time and zero hours contracts. With one PAYE reference and twelve pay runs each month, there were a lot of moving parts to account for. 

This led to everything taking a while to complete, and so the council was looking to invest in their own solution. 

Even setting payroll to one side, they had no HR system currently in place. This meant that HR processes including time and attendance, absence, and onboarding were all handled manually too, making them just as time consuming as the payroll system. The council were looking for an integrated system that could handle their needs. 

At the time of their agreement, People First’s payroll system was still being developed. However, the council liked the intuitive, modular design of. In the end, they decided to go with People First HR for workforce management, while using their own version of iTrent along with managed services to cover their payroll needs. 

In the future, the Council will pivot towards People First payroll, allowing them to use one singular source of data for all their HR requirements going forward. 

Sarah Pearse, Deputy Town Clerk & Responsible Financial Officer, Weston-Super-Mare Town Council, "We were already quite familiar with iTrent due to North Somerset Town Council making use of it, but we weren’t getting the full benefit from it due not being able to run it ourselves. MHR was great at helping us get an understanding of what products will best suit our needs. For now, we’ll be using our own version of iTrent, managed by the team at MHR, but we’ll be looking to swap everything over to People First as soon as possible."

Anton Roe, CEO, MHR, "Weston-Super-Mare Town Council had an excellent experience with iTrent. Following consultation, we realised that in the long term, People First’s flexibility and ease of use was a better fit for the council's needs. We look forward to the council fully transition over to People First payroll as smoothly and as quickly as possible, letting them get full control of their HR and payroll from one simplified platform."