The council has launched a partnership with Multiverse to train 30 AI Champions, who will help navigate increased service demands and staff pressures.
Wigan Council is bolstering its teams’ digital and AI strengths by training 30 staff through a Multiverse AI Academy, funded through the Growth and Skills Levy. This cohort will enable the council to improve efficiencies across its departments, helping them to deliver better services for local people by streamlining time spent on manual tasks and relieving capacity pressures on teams.
The new Academy will see staff enrolled on Multiverse’s AI for Business Value programme. This Level 4 course is designed to enable learners to identify opportunities to engage with ethical AI and embeds AI for optimised processes that deliver measurable results. The Academy will also support the council’s aim to reduce digital skills gaps, enabling teams to forecast demand surges and relieve frontline pressures on services, like SEND support for children, that are seeing an uptick in demand.
This training programme follows the council’s ongoing work to modernise its processes and embrace digital technologies and infrastructure that improves inclusivity and connectivity. Investments such as the launch of Technology Enabled Care roles for adult social care will break down silos and make sure people have access to the services they need.
Councillor Nazia Rehman, cabinet portfolio holder for finance, resources and transformation at Wigan Council said: “We are passionate about innovation, so we can provide the best and most efficient services to residents. This new AI Academy with Multiverse is an exciting step forward, enabling our staff to use AI ethically and strategically, as a tool to make the best use of staff time, enabling our teams to do their jobs faster and better while keeping people and our residents at the heart of all we do.”
Gary Eimerman, Chief Learning Officer at Multiverse said: “We are very proud to support Wigan Council in developing its in-house AI capabilities, working towards the meaningful goal of reducing waiting times and improving services for its community. By unlocking efficiencies, councils like Wigan can harness savings to feed back into their services, while protecting staff from the increasing pressures that come with mounting demands.”
Multiverse is the upskilling platform for AI and tech adoption, which delivers personalised, on-the-job learning. Multiverse has trained more than 20,000 apprentices in AI, data and digital skills since 2016.
Over 1,500 companies work with Multiverse to deliver a new kind of learning that’s transforming the workforce at scale. Programmes are targeted at people of any age or career stage.
