CASE STUDY
K
ainos Group plc (KNOS), a leading
provider of digital services and
platforms, has announced that
six months after the successful launch
of a cloud-based revenue collection and
management system for the Welsh Revenue
Authority (WRA), the solution has seen 97%
of all tax returns being completed online.
Established by Welsh Government, the WRA
is the first fully cloud-based civil service
organisation in Wales. The tax authority for
Wales was created to manage and collect
two devolved Welsh taxes: Land Transaction
Tax and Landfill Disposal Tax, which replaced
Stamp Duty Land Tax and Landfill Tax from
April 1, 2018.
As a result of a procurement exercise, a
contract was awarded to Kainos to build
a bespoke, scalable, bilingual digital tax
collection and management system. The WRA
was working to an immovable, government-
mandated deadline to administer taxes by
April 1, 2018. Kainos delivered the new system
based on the Microsoft Azure Platform-
as-a-Service (PaaS), within a challenging
nine-month time frame, enabling the WRA to
administer the first specifically Welsh taxes for
the first time in 800 years.
The implementation of the digital project
has been a success to date, with 99.9999%
availability and customer satisfaction scores
of 85% in the first six months, based on
around 5,370 service users. The WRA recently
published its latest official data with 30,000
Land Transaction Tax transactions reported.
It is estimated that the WRA will administer
approximately £1 billion in taxes over a
four-year period and the project is already
an award-winning one, with Kainos and WRA
taking the ‘Best Use of Cloud Services’ trophy
home from the 2018 UK IT Awards.
Anthony Pritchard, Head of Digital and
Technology for the WRA, commented:
“Delivering this project is part of a wider
historic milestone as these are two taxes that
have been made in Wales for the first time in
hundreds of years. The revenue raised will be
reinvested in supporting Welsh public services.
“Within the first six months of operations, we
have seen many benefits from the system
Kainos has developed, in particular, the
ability to focus on user needs.
“By building on the Microsoft Azure Platform-
as-a-Service solution, we feel confident that we
THE REVENUE
RAISED WILL BE
REINVESTED IN
SUPPORTING
WELSH PUBLIC
SERVICES.
not only have a system for today, but one that
has the potential and flexibility to support the
growth of any future services we may support.
Kainos’ expertise and experience of working
on Azure has been invaluable.”
Leading the charge
“Creating a new organisation where
everything needed to be built from scratch
with only a small team, presented both an
opportunity and a challenge,” commented
Russell Sloan, Digital Services Director
for Kainos.
“Building the new system on Microsoft Azure
PaaS allowed us to embed security from the
ground up to ensure the solution met the
Welsh Government’s Governance, Risk and
Compliance (GRC) requirements.”
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