The Counter Is Not Obsolete: Keeping a Human Route Through Bridgend's Digital Council

Bridgend County Borough Council, like councils across Wales, is moving more of its business online. Housing repairs, recycling permits, council tax support, blue badge applications and school admissions can now be started, and sometimes completed, through a screen. For residents with a reliable connection, a device and the confidence to use them, this can be a genuine convenience. But a council is not a website. It is a public service with a duty to reach everyone it serves, including those for whom the first step — logging in — is the obstacle.

I have spent recent constituency surgeries listening to residents who are not asking for special treatment. They are asking to be able to pay their rent, report a repair or claim the help they are entitled to without being told that the only way to do so is a smartphone. That is why I am calling for a clear guarantee: every council service in Bridgend must have a visible, funded and workable non-digital route.

The form has moved; the need has not

Digital-by-default is a sensible principle. Digital-only is not. The distinction matters because the residents most likely to need council help are also among the most likely to be offline. Age, disability, low income, insecure housing, language barriers and poor connectivity do not disappear when a form is moved to a portal. They become harder to overcome.

In Bridgend, the geography alone should caution against complacency. In the valleys, from Maesteg and Caerau to Ogmore Vale and Pontycymer, mobile signal and broadband speeds can be patchy. In parts of Porthcawl and the surrounding villages, an older population may have a device but not the confidence to use it for something as consequential as a benefit claim. In Wildmill, Bettws and Cefn Glas, data poverty is a real constraint: a parent may have a phone but not enough data to upload documents, and no home broadband at all.

A password should not be the price of admission to local government.

What the casework shows

One recent case involved a 78-year-old resident in Maesteg who needed a housing repair. She has no smartphone and no home internet. Her daughter lives away. The council's online reporting form asked for photographs and a login. What should have been a straightforward repair became a fortnight of phone calls and worry.

Another resident, a disabled man in Wildmill, was asked to upload evidence for a council tax reduction. He has a phone, but his data ran out before the upload completed. He was told to try again. He did. The same thing happened. By the time he came to my office, he was ready to give up on help he was legally entitled to.

A carer in Porthcawl described trying to arrange a blue badge renewal for her father. The online system timed out repeatedly. The telephone line was busy. The library was closed on the day she could get there. She is not digitally excluded in the narrow sense — she uses email and online banking — but the system still failed her.

These are not edge cases. They are the everyday experience of a council that has digitised its front door without ensuring there is still a doorbell for everyone else.

The price of a password

Digital exclusion is rarely about a single missing skill. It is a combination of device, connection, data, confidence, accessibility and trust. For older residents, the barrier may be a fear of making a mistake with money or personal details. For disabled residents, it may be a site that does not work with screen-reading software or a form that demands documents in a format they cannot produce. For low-income households, it may simply be the cost of data.

There is also the question of authentication. Council accounts, verification codes and online forms assume a level of digital literacy that many people do not have. When a resident is asked to create an account just to ask a question, the council has made access conditional on a skill that has nothing to do with the need being met.

Assisted digital is not a sticking plaster

Bridgend has good people working in its libraries and community hubs. Citizens Advice Bridgend, Age Cymru and Digital Communities Wales offer valuable support. But assisted digital support cannot be a volunteer with a tablet once a week. It needs to be consistent, funded, private and available across the borough.

Residents should be able to walk into a library in Bridgend, Maesteg, Porthcawl or Pencoed and get help with a council form. They should be able to ring a number and speak to someone who can complete the transaction with them. Those who cannot leave home should be able to request a home visit or a paper form. And every council department should have a named route for reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010.

Practical steps for residents

If you are struggling with an online council service, you do not have to struggle alone. You can contact the council's customer services team and ask for a paper form or a telephone appointment. You can ask a relative, friend or support worker to act on your behalf with your consent. You can visit a local library or community hub for help using a public computer. Citizens Advice Bridgend can assist with benefit claims and council tax support. Age Cymru can advise older residents. Your local councillor can also take up a case if a service is not accessible.

Keep a record of dates, reference numbers and who you spoke to. If you are told that a service is online only, ask for the non-digital alternative in writing. It should exist.

What Labour should do

Locally, Labour councillors should publish a digital inclusion audit for Bridgend: which services are online-only, which have assisted routes, and how many residents are using them. That audit should be refreshed each year and reported publicly. The council should fund assisted digital support properly, rather than relying on goodwill and volunteers.

Nationally, Labour should put digital inclusion at the heart of local government and social security reform. A legal guarantee of a non-digital route for essential public services would be a start. So would funding settlements that recognise the true cost of face-to-face advice and telephone support. Digital transformation should be judged not by how many forms are online, but by how many people can actually use them.

A council that meets people where they are

The move online is not going to reverse, and it should not. But progress should not leave people behind. Bridgend's residents deserve a council that is modern and accessible, not modern instead of accessible. A human route is not a relic. It is the mark of a public service that takes its duty to everyone seriously.

I will continue to take up cases from residents who have been locked out by digital-only systems, and I will keep pressing for a guarantee that no one in Bridgend is asked to choose between a smartphone and the help they need.