The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh partnered with CGI to benefit from a robust payroll system and exceptional customer service.

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) is a world-renowned scientific center for the study of plants, their diversity and conservation. Founded in 1670, it is one of Scotland’s most popular visitor destinations and employs over 250 people.

As a registered charity and non-departmental public body, The Royal Botanic Garden must secure value for money. In 2019, when it wanted to change its payroll solution, it was seeking a better service to decrease the risk of payroll errors and increase cost efficiencies.

With a strong public sector market presence, over 40 years of experience and impressive reputation gained with similar clients, most notably London’s Kew Gardens, CGI was selected as RBGE’s partner of choice.

Specialist expertise

CGI processes £13bn of salary payments every year and over 5 million payslips across 250 clients. RBGE has two monthly payrolls and a wide range of employment contracts to handle. With CGI’s fully managed payroll solution it knew it would be in safe hands.

CGI was able to offer RBGE the highest standards of security for its real-time accurate payroll data and reporting. A full disaster recovery capability and CGI’s specialised Cyber Security Business Unit meant that all RBGE operations could be reviewed to ensure best practice.

Cutting-edge financial knowledge and expertise offered RBGE the ability to remain across ever-changing legislation and new pension reforms.

The fully-managed solution RBGE required included services for automatic handling of absence management, seamless on- and offboarding, process analysis, data management, recruitment and real time PAYE reporting. Its employees would not only get electronic payslips, but also be able to access their own password-secured payroll information to claim benefits, manage pensions or apply for mortgages.

Ease of transition

RBGE was able to procure its services quickly and efficiently, with complete clarity around pricing as CGI is a registered user of G Cloud, the public sector’s pre-approved digital marketplace. It could also benefit from CGI being part of a framework consortium, with benefits ranging from cost sharing of pension schemes to driving innovation around product development.

RBGE appreciated the smooth transition to its new payroll solution. A client satisfaction survey in the latter stages of this phase scored an impressive 9 out of 10, leading the way for implementation.

Extra support to bloom

During the implementation phase, RBGE took advantage of CGI’s customised General Ledger (GL) work, offered over and above the fully managed service. CGI helped RBGE produce an essential reporting system to enable it to track its complex and varied payroll-related transactions, and ensure its information is as accurate and up to date as possible.

Excellent communication plays a vital role in CGI’s customer service. Like all clients, RBGE was given a dedicated Payroll Manager, supported by a team of six others, available at any time during working hours. RBGE also benefited from access to a Client Engagement Manager, responsible for designing and managing RBGE’s service to ensure that its exact and changing requirements are met. With this team in place, CGI can guarantee that any issues RBGE might have with its payroll are responded to swiftly and dealt with efficiently.

Key benefits

  • An accurate, bespoke payroll solution
  • Ease of use
  • Electronic payslips and employee payroll access
  • High level cybersecurity
  • Outstanding customer care

“Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is a national institution and the wellbeing, security and prompt payment of our workforce is key. CGI’s payroll solution is managed by experts, and is secure and userfriendly. The team offers high level customer service and our diverse and changing payroll needs are being met.” Gillian Cooper, HR Manager