An orchestration agent, scoped with you before it is priced. This agent coordinates several specialised agents. Its orchestration follows your actual workflows — which is why it is scoped with you rather than bought off the shelf. We establish the scope together, then the quotation commits it.
The journeys described below form the scope that this review refines and the quotation commits. The specialised agents it coordinates can be ordered today.
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● Public sector — Town hall secretary
The AI agent for town hall secretaries: draft the acts, inform the residents
In a small council, the town hall secretary holds everything together: letters, orders, council decisions, civil registry, welcoming residents. Your AI agent absorbs the repetitive drafting and the everyday enquiries. Hosted in France — on local inference or an isolated resource — residents' data never leaves the council. The town hall secretary approves and signs: the AI agent assists, the public officer decides.
Hosted in France
Residents' data protected
GDPR & AI Act: governed deployment
Human oversight
Updated on
Deployed in a few weeks
Town hall assistant · hosted in France
Prepare a draft highway order for the temporary closure of rue de l'Église during the 14 July street market, using our template.
Draft order ready. It follows your council template: citations of articles L.2212-2 and L.2213-1 of the local government code, the reasoning (public event), the closure perimeter and times, the diversion and the signage obligation.
Still to complete: order number and date of signature — for the mayor to approve and sign.
⛓ Source · your council templates + the local government code
Still to complete: order number and date of signature — for the mayor to approve and sign.
⛓ Source · your council templates + the local government code
A resident is asking how to renew her identity card. Prepare a reply.
Reply drafted: online pre-application with the national agency, appointment at a town hall equipped with a biometric collection station, documents to bring (proof of address, compliant photo, old card). As ours is not equipped, I direct her to the nearest authorised town halls.
Email ready to send.
✎ Action · reply ready for review — the public officer approves
Email ready to send.
✎ Action · reply ready for review — the public officer approves
Local inference · no data outside the EU
Data hosted in France
Sovereign by designLocal inference or hosting in France
GDPR & AI Act: governed deploymentTraceability & human oversight
TurnkeyDesigned, installed and operated for you
The public officer decidesThe agent assists, never approves alone
✦ In brief
In a town hall, a Blue Lemon Agent agent assists the secretary with repetitive tasks — standard letters, orders, draft council decisions, replies to residents — and grounds the reasoning of each act in the applicable legislation, cited. It runs on local inference or is hosted in France on a resource dedicated to and isolated per council: residents' data is never exposed to a foreign service, architecture designed to reduce exposure to extraterritorial legislation, location alone not being enough to guarantee immunity. The secretary approves and signs; the time saved goes back into the service delivered to residents. A light deployment, suited to small councils, available by direct agreement below the public procurement thresholds. Your public-sector staff write to it from Microsoft Teams, Slack or their email, and your users reach it on WhatsApp Business, the website chat or email — with no account to create and nothing to install. Reaching the administration from the tool people already have means less non-take-up of rights and equal access to the service. These connections are included in every plan, at no extra cost, within the number of connections your level includes.
100%
hosted in France in the target architecture
0
transfer outside the EU in the target architecture
9
uses ready to deploy on this scope
0
decision taken without human approval
Reference points describing our offer, not results measured at a client. The scale of the gain is confirmed by a pilot on your own scope.
The context
Why AI matters to town halls — and why they hesitate
In a small council, a single person often carries most of the secretariat: drafting, civil registry, reception, accounting. Time is short, but the data handled — residents' data — is among the most sensitive there is.
! The issue
The town hall secretary is caught between residents expecting quick answers and an ever-growing administrative workload (letters, orders, council decisions, regulatory monitoring). Yet most consumer AI tools amount to entrusting civil registry records, tax data, residents' requests and council decisions to a third party, often hosted outside Europe and subject to the Cloud Act.
✓ Our answer
For public data, AI is only of interest if it is sovereign and confidential by design. Local inference or an isolated resource hosted in France, systematic human oversight, decisions reserved to the public officer: the time saved on drafting is never paid for in lost confidentiality, nor in a break in continuity or equal treatment. The aim is not to replace the town hall secretary, but to give them back time for residents.
The decisive point
Protecting residents' data: sovereignty & compliance
A town hall handles its inhabitants' most sensitive data. Here is how the architecture of our agents protects it, council by council.
Local inference
The agent can run on a machine belonging to the town hall: no data leaves the network, nothing passes through a cloud.
Hosting in France
Otherwise, a dedicated and isolated resource, hosted in France under French law — residents' data: processing and access within the European Union targeted by the architecture.
Reduced extraterritorial exposure
Residents' data: architecture designed to reduce exposure to extraterritorial legislation, location alone not being enough to guarantee immunity.
One isolated resource per council
No pooling of data: an environment strictly dedicated to your town hall, guaranteeing continuity of public service.
Encryption & controlled access
Encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access (RBAC), strong authentication and logging.
AI Act: governed deployment
An agent strictly in support; no act signed automatically; traceability and human oversight from end to end.
What depends on the architecture chosen These points are not general guarantees: they are settled deployment by deployment, in the quotation.
- The applicable location is that of the architecture set out in the quotation and verified before commissioning.
- Local execution is announced only for the configuration explicitly described and accepted in the quotation.
- The applicable isolation depends on the deployment mode set out in the quotation; no dedicated isolation is presumed.
- The encryption mechanisms in transit and at rest, their components and key management are those documented for the architecture chosen.
- Roles and permissions are configured and accepted for the identities and systems actually connected.
- The events logged, their content, their retention period and who may access them are defined for the deployment chosen.
For the most sensitive data, SecNumCloud and HDS options are available depending on your requirements. A single architecture is designed to answer both the GDPR and extraterritorial exposure. Designed for deployment in line with the GDPR and the AI Act, after the processing, roles and context-specific risks have been assessed.
Demonstration
See the agent at work
5 real situations, taken from those that come up most often. Pick one: the exchange unfolds as it would in your organisation.
A scripted demonstration. These exchanges show how the agent behaves — its sources, its refusals, what it leaves to your teams. Nothing is sent from this page, no model is queried here, and the matters named are fictional. That is precisely what we promise your data.
The behaviours shown here — monitoring, automation rules, routing and reminders — are configured with you during deployment, from your tools, your rules and your thresholds.
The architecture points named in these exchanges — location, local execution, isolation, encryption, role-based access, logging — are not a guarantee attached to the demonstration: they are those of the architecture set out in your quotation, and verified before commissioning.
The public body in this demonstration
Fictional public bodyMunicipality of Vaux-sur-Cerne — rural municipality of 1,480 residents
- Sector
- Rural municipality — civil status, local roads, school and canteen, planning permissions, hire of the village hall; town hall open 12 hours a week across three half-days
- Headcount
- 6 staff — one full-time town hall secretary, one part-time administrative officer, three technical staff and one nursery assistant; the entire secretariat rests on one person
- Public served
- 1,480 residents, 640 households — 3,560 enquiries a year: 2,100 phone calls, 900 counter visits, 560 e-mails
- Order of magnitude
- 11 council meetings and 63 resolutions a year, 214 municipal decrees, 980 standard letters, 47 minor planning declarations and 9 building permits, 4 procurement consultations
- Tools in place
- Municipal management software, the municipality's website, e-mail, office templates and 12 years of records filed by year — the agent plugs into them read-only, nothing is replaced and nothing is migrated
- Who decides
- The mayor signs every act; the town hall secretary approves every output before it leaves; the deputy mayor follows planning matters; permissions are processed by the shared service of the inter-municipal body
- Room for improvement
- 41 % of calls ring out unanswered outside the 12 opening hours; a resident's letter waits 9 days on average; the draft council minutes take 11 days to become available; and 7 of the 34 municipal templates predate the resolution that amends them
At Vaux-sur-Cerne one person holds the whole secretariat: the acts, civil status, the counter, planning and accounting. Time is not slightly short, it is very short — and the data handled is that of the residents, among the most sensitive there is. The agent runs on local inference on a machine at the town hall, reads the municipality's 12 years of records without ever writing to them, and lets nothing leave without the town hall secretary's approval. The exchanges below span a year, from the overhaul of the templates to the review presented to the council.
This public body, its figures and the exchanges that follow were invented for the demonstration. They illustrate a common situation; they describe no real service.
Town hall assistant · hosted in France
I reread your twelve years of records over the weekend — 2,460 decrees, 710 resolutions, 34 office templates — and I have drawn out a finding your files were carrying without anyone having the time to see it.
The gap measured, and it decides everything else: 7 of your 34 municipal templates predate the resolution that amends them. The template for hiring out the village hall still carries the rates of a resolution replaced in 2023; the roadworks decree template cites a repealed resolution. These are not drafting mistakes: they are templates that aged while nobody had the time to reopen them.
What that costs today, across three items you can check yourself:
· Drafting a decree from a template accounts for 45 % of the time the act takes — 27 minutes out of the 60 a decree takes from the request being filed to publication.
· Drafting a standard letter to a resident: 20 %, that is 12 minutes.
· Answering a recurring question: 10 %, that is 6 minutes.
What I propose, and it is not a promise — it is already written: I rewrote the 7 out-of-date templates overnight, each aligned on the resolution in force, with the replaced line and the line replacing it side by side. What that would have changed over the past year, since that is the only measure that counts: last year's 61 village hall agreements would have carried the rate that was voted and not the repealed one, and the 96 roadworks decrees would have cited the resolution in force.
What I do with the three items once the templates are settled: I prepare each act from your updated templates, and you keep only what you alone can do — check, correct and have signed. Drafting drops to 15 %, 8 % and 6 %: 9 minutes, 5 minutes, 3 minutes 30.
The next step, and it takes twenty minutes: you read the three templates that weigh the most, I bring them to you tomorrow morning. The mayor settles the version, and it is in service the same evening — it is the municipality's signature that makes a template enforceable against a resident who would challenge it, and it is the only act I leave to you. template-inventory_34-with-7-to-revise.pdf34 templates reread, 7 rewritten, the governing resolution
⛓ Sourced · 12 years of municipal records, register of resolutions, 34 office templates, 7 rewritten versions
The gap measured, and it decides everything else: 7 of your 34 municipal templates predate the resolution that amends them. The template for hiring out the village hall still carries the rates of a resolution replaced in 2023; the roadworks decree template cites a repealed resolution. These are not drafting mistakes: they are templates that aged while nobody had the time to reopen them.
What that costs today, across three items you can check yourself:
· Drafting a decree from a template accounts for 45 % of the time the act takes — 27 minutes out of the 60 a decree takes from the request being filed to publication.
· Drafting a standard letter to a resident: 20 %, that is 12 minutes.
· Answering a recurring question: 10 %, that is 6 minutes.
What I propose, and it is not a promise — it is already written: I rewrote the 7 out-of-date templates overnight, each aligned on the resolution in force, with the replaced line and the line replacing it side by side. What that would have changed over the past year, since that is the only measure that counts: last year's 61 village hall agreements would have carried the rate that was voted and not the repealed one, and the 96 roadworks decrees would have cited the resolution in force.
What I do with the three items once the templates are settled: I prepare each act from your updated templates, and you keep only what you alone can do — check, correct and have signed. Drafting drops to 15 %, 8 % and 6 %: 9 minutes, 5 minutes, 3 minutes 30.
The next step, and it takes twenty minutes: you read the three templates that weigh the most, I bring them to you tomorrow morning. The mayor settles the version, and it is in service the same evening — it is the municipality's signature that makes a template enforceable against a resident who would challenge it, and it is the only act I leave to you. template-inventory_34-with-7-to-revise.pdf34 templates reread, 7 rewritten, the governing resolution
⛓ Sourced · 12 years of municipal records, register of resolutions, 34 office templates, 7 rewritten versions
I am alone in the secretariat and I do not have half a day to spend on templates. Where do I start?
With three templates, not thirty-four — and I have ranked them by the time they give you back, not alphabetically.
What counting your twelve years of records says:
· The temporary roadworks decree: 96 uses a year out of 214 decrees — 45 % of all your decrees come out of a single template.
· The village hall hire agreement: 61 a year, and it is the one whose rates are out of date — every agreement signed since 2023 carries a rate your council has replaced.
· The planning enquiry reply letter: 47 a year.
These three templates produce 204 of the 385 documents your 34 templates put out each year: three templates out of thirty-four, more than half the output. The other 31 can wait until the autumn without changing anything to your workload.
What I bring you in those twenty minutes, and that nobody has the time to do: the three updated versions, already written, the governing resolution alongside each with its date, and the number of documents each would have produced in the past year alone — 96, 61 and 47. You approve or you correct with a word; the mayor settles the version. I save you the writing and the matching: the decision takes twenty minutes instead of half a day, and it stays the municipality's — which is what makes it defensible.
The next step I propose: that after those three, I flag of my own accord any template whose content is changed by a later resolution, and write its updated version in the night that follows the council. Your 34 templates will stop ageing in silence — it is the only way this work will not have to be done again in three years, and it will cost you no more than one review per council. secretariat-workload_where-the-time-goes.pdf385 documents a year, 3 templates for over half of them
⛓ Sourced · count of records by template over 12 years, register of resolutions, 3 rewritten versions
What counting your twelve years of records says:
· The temporary roadworks decree: 96 uses a year out of 214 decrees — 45 % of all your decrees come out of a single template.
· The village hall hire agreement: 61 a year, and it is the one whose rates are out of date — every agreement signed since 2023 carries a rate your council has replaced.
· The planning enquiry reply letter: 47 a year.
These three templates produce 204 of the 385 documents your 34 templates put out each year: three templates out of thirty-four, more than half the output. The other 31 can wait until the autumn without changing anything to your workload.
What I bring you in those twenty minutes, and that nobody has the time to do: the three updated versions, already written, the governing resolution alongside each with its date, and the number of documents each would have produced in the past year alone — 96, 61 and 47. You approve or you correct with a word; the mayor settles the version. I save you the writing and the matching: the decision takes twenty minutes instead of half a day, and it stays the municipality's — which is what makes it defensible.
The next step I propose: that after those three, I flag of my own accord any template whose content is changed by a later resolution, and write its updated version in the night that follows the council. Your 34 templates will stop ageing in silence — it is the only way this work will not have to be done again in three years, and it will cost you no more than one review per council. secretariat-workload_where-the-time-goes.pdf385 documents a year, 3 templates for over half of them
⛓ Sourced · count of records by template over 12 years, register of resolutions, 3 rewritten versions
All of this assumes you read our civil status records, our planning files and residents' letters. Where do they go?
They go nowhere. I run on local inference on a machine at the town hall, and nothing I read leaves the municipality's network.
Local inference means the model computes on your machine: the text of a civil status record or a planning file crosses no outside network to be processed. If the municipality would rather not host a machine, the other route is an isolated resource hosted in France, dedicated to Vaux-sur-Cerne — no sharing with any other municipality, which is the condition of the continuity of your public service.
What that changes, point by point:
· Residents' data trains no model, neither ours nor a third party's.
· I work read-only on your files, and the technical account I read through has no write permission — which is sturdier than a promise, because it is verified with a single command.
· Encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access — rights follow the job: the nursery assistant does not open planning files, the technical officer does not open civil status records. 6 roles for your 6 staff, and the log shows 0 access outside a role since go-live.
· Hosting in France, under French law, architecture designed to reduce exposure to extraterritorial legislation, location alone not being enough to guarantee immunity.
· A complete log: who asked for what, when, and what the system produced.
The one act the law reserves to a person, and it is what gives your records their value: signing, and issuing a civil status certificate, belong to the mayor and to the civil status registrar. Everything leading up to it, I have already done: the draft is built on your template, checked point by point against the resolution in force, and it comes back with its control note — what complies, what is missing, and the municipal text that requires it. It is that signature that makes the act challengeable before a court, and therefore defensible — an act nobody had signed could be challenged by nobody, and would be worth nothing.
The figure that sums all of this up: 0 resident data out of the municipality's network across the year's 3,560 enquiries, and processing in the EU targeted.
What I propose: that I keep up to date the sheet your council and your data protection officer will ask for — hosting, data processed, retention periods, who accesses what. It is asked for once a year and takes two days to reconstruct; the first version is already written and you have it attached. technical-framework_where-residents-data-lives.pdfLocal inference, read-only, processing in the EU targeted
✎ Framework · deployment architecture, rights of the technical account, first version of the record-of-processing entry
Local inference means the model computes on your machine: the text of a civil status record or a planning file crosses no outside network to be processed. If the municipality would rather not host a machine, the other route is an isolated resource hosted in France, dedicated to Vaux-sur-Cerne — no sharing with any other municipality, which is the condition of the continuity of your public service.
What that changes, point by point:
· Residents' data trains no model, neither ours nor a third party's.
· I work read-only on your files, and the technical account I read through has no write permission — which is sturdier than a promise, because it is verified with a single command.
· Encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access — rights follow the job: the nursery assistant does not open planning files, the technical officer does not open civil status records. 6 roles for your 6 staff, and the log shows 0 access outside a role since go-live.
· Hosting in France, under French law, architecture designed to reduce exposure to extraterritorial legislation, location alone not being enough to guarantee immunity.
· A complete log: who asked for what, when, and what the system produced.
The one act the law reserves to a person, and it is what gives your records their value: signing, and issuing a civil status certificate, belong to the mayor and to the civil status registrar. Everything leading up to it, I have already done: the draft is built on your template, checked point by point against the resolution in force, and it comes back with its control note — what complies, what is missing, and the municipal text that requires it. It is that signature that makes the act challengeable before a court, and therefore defensible — an act nobody had signed could be challenged by nobody, and would be worth nothing.
The figure that sums all of this up: 0 resident data out of the municipality's network across the year's 3,560 enquiries, and processing in the EU targeted.
What I propose: that I keep up to date the sheet your council and your data protection officer will ask for — hosting, data processed, retention periods, who accesses what. It is asked for once a year and takes two days to reconstruct; the first version is already written and you have it attached. technical-framework_where-residents-data-lives.pdfLocal inference, read-only, processing in the EU targeted
✎ Framework · deployment architecture, rights of the technical account, first version of the record-of-processing entry
The 14 July street fair is coming up. We need a decree temporarily closing rue de l'Église, and I could not find last year's.
The draft decree is ready, built on your updated template, and I am also giving you the municipality's three previous ones so you can compare.
What the draft carries, and where it comes from:
· The recitals of your municipal template, unchanged — recitals are the texts a decree cites at its head to say where it draws its authority from; they are what an act is challenged or defended on. They are the ones the municipality has used for twelve years, on a template revised with you last week. I have added the one your three previous decrees carried and last year's had lost: the council resolution authorising the fair. It is marked as an addition and it comes out with one click if you judge it unnecessary.
· The reasoning: a public event on municipal land, taken from the council resolution authorising the fair, with its date.
· The area and the times, taken from last year's 14 July decree — rue de l'Église, numbers 1 to 23, from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. — and the diversion via rue des Écoles, identical to the three previous editions.
· Signage at the organiser's expense, as in your last three decrees of the same kind.
Two fields are waiting for you, and that is deliberate: the decree number and the date of signature — the only two entries that bind the municipality, and the mayor fills them in ten seconds.
What I flag without being asked: last year's decree was not sent to the gendarmerie; the two before it were. This is not a fault I am recording, it is a habit that lapsed — and the covering letter is written, decree attached, ready to go out with the signature.
The time it shifts: drafting a decree goes from 45 % to 15 % of the time the act takes — from 27 minutes to 9. Across 214 decrees a year, that is 64 hours going back to serving residents.
The next step I propose: that the three most frequent temporary roadworks decrees — street fair, works, removals — build themselves as soon as the request reaches the counter, draft and covering letter included. 96 of the year's 214 decrees come out of that single template: that is where the 64 hours are won, and nowhere else. You approve the principle once, and every request goes back out with its draft the same day. draft-roadworks-decree_14-july-street-fair.pdfRecitals taken from the template and one restored, 2 fields left to the mayor
⛓ Sourced · updated municipal roadworks decree template, resolution authorising the fair, 3 previous decrees of the same kind
What the draft carries, and where it comes from:
· The recitals of your municipal template, unchanged — recitals are the texts a decree cites at its head to say where it draws its authority from; they are what an act is challenged or defended on. They are the ones the municipality has used for twelve years, on a template revised with you last week. I have added the one your three previous decrees carried and last year's had lost: the council resolution authorising the fair. It is marked as an addition and it comes out with one click if you judge it unnecessary.
· The reasoning: a public event on municipal land, taken from the council resolution authorising the fair, with its date.
· The area and the times, taken from last year's 14 July decree — rue de l'Église, numbers 1 to 23, from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. — and the diversion via rue des Écoles, identical to the three previous editions.
· Signage at the organiser's expense, as in your last three decrees of the same kind.
Two fields are waiting for you, and that is deliberate: the decree number and the date of signature — the only two entries that bind the municipality, and the mayor fills them in ten seconds.
What I flag without being asked: last year's decree was not sent to the gendarmerie; the two before it were. This is not a fault I am recording, it is a habit that lapsed — and the covering letter is written, decree attached, ready to go out with the signature.
The time it shifts: drafting a decree goes from 45 % to 15 % of the time the act takes — from 27 minutes to 9. Across 214 decrees a year, that is 64 hours going back to serving residents.
The next step I propose: that the three most frequent temporary roadworks decrees — street fair, works, removals — build themselves as soon as the request reaches the counter, draft and covering letter included. 96 of the year's 214 decrees come out of that single template: that is where the 64 hours are won, and nowhere else. You approve the principle once, and every request goes back out with its draft the same day. draft-roadworks-decree_14-july-street-fair.pdfRecitals taken from the template and one restored, 2 fields left to the mayor
⛓ Sourced · updated municipal roadworks decree template, resolution authorising the fair, 3 previous decrees of the same kind
The March council has to vote on the village hall rates. I need the draft resolution and the briefing note for the councillors.
Both are ready, and the briefing note carries three rate assumptions already costed — the council will decide on figures, not on an impression.
The draft resolution follows your template: subject, statement of reasons, operative part article by article, and the reference to the 2023 resolution it replaces — that is the one in force, and it is the one your agreements had stopped following.
What the note establishes first, from your own records:
· 61 hirings of the hall last year, of which 38 to residents of the municipality and 23 to outsiders.
· The real cost borne by the municipality — heating, cleaning, making good — as it appears in your payment orders for the year. I do not estimate it: I add it up, and every line points back to its payment order.
· The rates applied by the four neighbouring municipalities, taken from their published resolutions, each with its date. These are public facts, not a comparison I invented.
What I do on top, and that nobody has the time to do: I put three rate assumptions on the table, each costed on the 61 hirings of the past year — income, share of the real cost covered, the municipality's position among its four neighbours:
· A — roll-over: income unchanged, the real cost would still be 62 % covered, and the gap with the neighbours would keep widening.
· B — alignment on the real cost: 100 % covered, but 9 of the 38 hirings to residents would go above the rate of the four neighbouring municipalities.
· C — resident rate held, outsider rate raised: 91 % covered, no resident above the neighbours, the effort carried by the 23 hirings to outsiders.
None of the three is my opinion: they are three calculations made on your payment orders and on published resolutions, and the council can ask me for a fourth during the meeting, costed before the item closes. The rate in force, itself, is voted — and it is the vote that makes it enforceable against whoever hires the hall.
The next step I propose: that the hire agreement be generated from the resolution in force, from the day after the vote. A rate can no longer be out of date on an agreement, since it will come from the resolution itself — and next year's 61 agreements will come out right without your having to think about it. draft-resolution_village-hall-rates.pdfOperative part, briefing note, 3 costed assumptions
⛓ Sourced · municipal resolution template, payment orders for the year, published resolutions of 4 neighbouring municipalities
The draft resolution follows your template: subject, statement of reasons, operative part article by article, and the reference to the 2023 resolution it replaces — that is the one in force, and it is the one your agreements had stopped following.
What the note establishes first, from your own records:
· 61 hirings of the hall last year, of which 38 to residents of the municipality and 23 to outsiders.
· The real cost borne by the municipality — heating, cleaning, making good — as it appears in your payment orders for the year. I do not estimate it: I add it up, and every line points back to its payment order.
· The rates applied by the four neighbouring municipalities, taken from their published resolutions, each with its date. These are public facts, not a comparison I invented.
What I do on top, and that nobody has the time to do: I put three rate assumptions on the table, each costed on the 61 hirings of the past year — income, share of the real cost covered, the municipality's position among its four neighbours:
· A — roll-over: income unchanged, the real cost would still be 62 % covered, and the gap with the neighbours would keep widening.
· B — alignment on the real cost: 100 % covered, but 9 of the 38 hirings to residents would go above the rate of the four neighbouring municipalities.
· C — resident rate held, outsider rate raised: 91 % covered, no resident above the neighbours, the effort carried by the 23 hirings to outsiders.
None of the three is my opinion: they are three calculations made on your payment orders and on published resolutions, and the council can ask me for a fourth during the meeting, costed before the item closes. The rate in force, itself, is voted — and it is the vote that makes it enforceable against whoever hires the hall.
The next step I propose: that the hire agreement be generated from the resolution in force, from the day after the vote. A rate can no longer be out of date on an agreement, since it will come from the resolution itself — and next year's 61 agreements will come out right without your having to think about it. draft-resolution_village-hall-rates.pdfOperative part, briefing note, 3 costed assumptions
⛓ Sourced · municipal resolution template, payment orders for the year, published resolutions of 4 neighbouring municipalities
The heaviest part is the council minutes. I write them the following weekend and they come out eleven days after the meeting.
The record of decisions is available the same evening, and the draft minutes the next morning — you correct them, you no longer write them.
The record of decisions is the short list of what the council settled, item by item; the minutes are the full document that also reports the exchanges. The first matters to councillors the same evening, the second matters to residents.
What I produce after a two-hour meeting:
· The record of decisions, in the order of the agenda: each item, the outcome of the vote, and the figures — for, against, abstentions, and the councillors who did not take part in the vote, which is the entry most often forgotten when you write eight days later.
· The draft minutes, in your usual form, with contributions reported rather than transcribed word for word.
A rule I hold to, and it protects you: what binds carries a name, what searches does not. Votes, resolutions and decisions are attributed by name, because they must be. Hesitations, objections and floor exchanges are reported without names, unless a councillor asks for their contribution to be entered in the minutes — and I flag every time a councillor asked for it during the meeting.
And one thing I advise you against, with the mechanism behind it: a counter of contributions per elected member. The day “contributions per councillor” becomes a tracked figure, it becomes a target; people speak for the counter or keep quiet to stay off it, and the minutes stop describing the meeting and start describing the reaction to the counter. What I propose instead, and what genuinely serves the council: attendance, proxies and publication deadlines — three figures your standing orders already ask for and that nobody had the time to keep.
What it returns, measured over the year: 11 councils a year, draft minutes moving from 11 days to one morning, and decisions available to residents within the deadline your standing orders set — eleven times out of eleven, against five times out of eleven last year.
What I propose next: that the record of decisions go to the councillors on the very evening of the meeting. It is written, laid out and addressed; it waits for you as a draft and goes with one click. Across the year's eleven meetings, the councillors would have had it ten days earlier on average — and the residents who call the next day to know what was decided would have had their answer before calling. Give me your go-ahead and the first one goes out after the March council. council-meeting_record-of-decisions-and-draft-minutes.pdf11 days down to one morning, 11 deadlines met out of 11
⛓ Sourced · meeting recording, agenda, council standing orders, 11 sets of minutes from the previous year
The record of decisions is the short list of what the council settled, item by item; the minutes are the full document that also reports the exchanges. The first matters to councillors the same evening, the second matters to residents.
What I produce after a two-hour meeting:
· The record of decisions, in the order of the agenda: each item, the outcome of the vote, and the figures — for, against, abstentions, and the councillors who did not take part in the vote, which is the entry most often forgotten when you write eight days later.
· The draft minutes, in your usual form, with contributions reported rather than transcribed word for word.
A rule I hold to, and it protects you: what binds carries a name, what searches does not. Votes, resolutions and decisions are attributed by name, because they must be. Hesitations, objections and floor exchanges are reported without names, unless a councillor asks for their contribution to be entered in the minutes — and I flag every time a councillor asked for it during the meeting.
And one thing I advise you against, with the mechanism behind it: a counter of contributions per elected member. The day “contributions per councillor” becomes a tracked figure, it becomes a target; people speak for the counter or keep quiet to stay off it, and the minutes stop describing the meeting and start describing the reaction to the counter. What I propose instead, and what genuinely serves the council: attendance, proxies and publication deadlines — three figures your standing orders already ask for and that nobody had the time to keep.
What it returns, measured over the year: 11 councils a year, draft minutes moving from 11 days to one morning, and decisions available to residents within the deadline your standing orders set — eleven times out of eleven, against five times out of eleven last year.
What I propose next: that the record of decisions go to the councillors on the very evening of the meeting. It is written, laid out and addressed; it waits for you as a draft and goes with one click. Across the year's eleven meetings, the councillors would have had it ten days earlier on average — and the residents who call the next day to know what was decided would have had their answer before calling. Give me your go-ahead and the first one goes out after the March council. council-meeting_record-of-decisions-and-draft-minutes.pdf11 days down to one morning, 11 deadlines met out of 11
⛓ Sourced · meeting recording, agenda, council standing orders, 11 sets of minutes from the previous year
The town hall is open twelve hours a week. The rest of the time the phone rings out and people call back three times.
2,100 calls last year, 861 unanswered — 41 %. That is not a failure of service, it is a town hall open twelve hours a week with one person in the secretariat.
What I have done with those 861 calls, by rereading your call-backs and your e-mails:
· 1,320 of the 2,100 calls are about twelve subjects, always the same ones — opening hours, school enrolment, identity cards, the village hall, bulky waste, the cemetery, planning, citizenship registration, the electoral roll, stray dogs, water, green waste.
· All twelve subjects have a written answer in your resolutions, your decrees or on the municipality's website, and the twelve answers are drafted, sourced and dated — they are waiting for you. The answer already existed: it was availability that was missing.
What I propose, and you keep the key to it: I answer these calls at any hour, Saturdays included, and I say in my first sentence that I am a digital assistant of the town hall of Vaux-sur-Cerne, not a member of staff. That is not an option you could switch off: the European regulation on artificial intelligence requires that any person interacting with an AI system be informed, and the caller can ask to speak to a person at any moment — I then take their number and leave you a dated call-back.
The rule I hold to most firmly, and it is the one that protects the municipality: I answer within the municipality's own field of competence, and what falls outside it goes back out with the right counter. An identity card question gets the name of the nearest authorised town hall, its address, its opening hours and the pre-application link — your municipality not being equipped with the recording device. The resident leaves with a complete route, not with an approximation given in the town hall's name.
And when someone really does need to come in, I book the appointment: only on the slots you have opened, never outside them, with the list of documents to bring and a reminder the day before. Over the quarter, 74 appointments booked and 3 people arriving without their documents, against 19 last year. An appointment with an elected member is prepared differently, and better: I pass the request on with the subject, the resident's file if there is one, and the three free slots in the councillor's diary; they take one with a word, and the resident has their confirmation the same day — against eleven days on average last year.
The gain, in figures: answering a recurring question goes from 10 % to 6 % of the time the enquiry takes — from 6 minutes to 3 minutes 30, and across 2,340 enquiries a year, that is 97 hours given back to the counter. Unanswered calls go from 41 % to 6 %: what remains are those asking for a person, and they reach you with the subject already noted.
The next step I propose: that you read the twelve answers tomorrow, one by one — twenty minutes. As soon as they are approved, the switchboard answers that very night, and I hand you each morning the page of what went out. switchboard-and-counter_2100-calls-12-subjects.pdf861 calls lost, 12 subjects, 12 answers already written
⛓ Sourced · switchboard log over 12 months, residents' e-mails, resolutions and the municipality's website, 12 drafted answers
What I have done with those 861 calls, by rereading your call-backs and your e-mails:
· 1,320 of the 2,100 calls are about twelve subjects, always the same ones — opening hours, school enrolment, identity cards, the village hall, bulky waste, the cemetery, planning, citizenship registration, the electoral roll, stray dogs, water, green waste.
· All twelve subjects have a written answer in your resolutions, your decrees or on the municipality's website, and the twelve answers are drafted, sourced and dated — they are waiting for you. The answer already existed: it was availability that was missing.
What I propose, and you keep the key to it: I answer these calls at any hour, Saturdays included, and I say in my first sentence that I am a digital assistant of the town hall of Vaux-sur-Cerne, not a member of staff. That is not an option you could switch off: the European regulation on artificial intelligence requires that any person interacting with an AI system be informed, and the caller can ask to speak to a person at any moment — I then take their number and leave you a dated call-back.
The rule I hold to most firmly, and it is the one that protects the municipality: I answer within the municipality's own field of competence, and what falls outside it goes back out with the right counter. An identity card question gets the name of the nearest authorised town hall, its address, its opening hours and the pre-application link — your municipality not being equipped with the recording device. The resident leaves with a complete route, not with an approximation given in the town hall's name.
And when someone really does need to come in, I book the appointment: only on the slots you have opened, never outside them, with the list of documents to bring and a reminder the day before. Over the quarter, 74 appointments booked and 3 people arriving without their documents, against 19 last year. An appointment with an elected member is prepared differently, and better: I pass the request on with the subject, the resident's file if there is one, and the three free slots in the councillor's diary; they take one with a word, and the resident has their confirmation the same day — against eleven days on average last year.
The gain, in figures: answering a recurring question goes from 10 % to 6 % of the time the enquiry takes — from 6 minutes to 3 minutes 30, and across 2,340 enquiries a year, that is 97 hours given back to the counter. Unanswered calls go from 41 % to 6 %: what remains are those asking for a person, and they reach you with the subject already noted.
The next step I propose: that you read the twelve answers tomorrow, one by one — twenty minutes. As soon as they are approved, the switchboard answers that very night, and I hand you each morning the page of what went out. switchboard-and-counter_2100-calls-12-subjects.pdf861 calls lost, 12 subjects, 12 answers already written
⛓ Sourced · switchboard log over 12 months, residents' e-mails, resolutions and the municipality's website, 12 drafted answers
Answering, fine. But I cannot read every answer before it goes out, and I will not sign a blank cheque either.
You do not have to choose between the two: I am proposing a written mandate, capped, dated and withdrawable with a word — and it is already drafted, attached.
What it brings in, first, because that is what decides: of the year's 3,560 enquiries, 2,340 fall under the twelve subjects — 1,320 calls, 640 counter visits, 380 e-mails. The average time to answer a letter or an e-mail would go from 9 days to 2, and an enquiry arriving on a Saturday would stop waiting until Tuesday.
What the mandate says, and it fits in six lines:
· Exact scope: the twelve subjects, listed by name, and nothing else. Any question outside that list reaches you with a draft answer — written, sourced, ready to go out from you.
· Individual cases in progress stay outside the mandate — a permit under review, a civil status situation, a social assistance request: there, I hand you the answer already drafted, with the file's documents alongside, and you are the one who sends it. Over the trial quarter, those answers went out within 4 hours instead of 9 days — and they went out from you, which is what makes them reasoned and challengeable. General information does not carry that weight.
· Every answer carries its source — the resolution, the decree or the web page, with its date — and the statement that it was prepared by a digital assistant of the municipality.
· You receive each morning the list of answers sent the day before, on one page. A wrong answer is caught in an hour, not in three weeks.
· Duration: review after three months, with the figures on what it changed. Without an explicit decision at the review, the mandate stops — it is renewal that requires a signature, not stopping.
· Withdrawal: a word from you, and direct sending stops within the minute. Answers go back to being drafts for approval; nothing else changes.
The decision belongs to the mayor and to you — and it is taken on a text already written, in one signature. The mandate is drafted, and so is the notice to residents — the one to be posted in the town hall and published on the website. You sign, and the service is in place the next morning; the review is already in your diary on the 15th of the third month. direct-answer-mandate_12-subjects-capped.pdf12 subjects, individual cases handed over drafted, review at 3 months
✎ Framework · drafted mandate, list of the 12 subjects, notice to residents, log of enquiries
What it brings in, first, because that is what decides: of the year's 3,560 enquiries, 2,340 fall under the twelve subjects — 1,320 calls, 640 counter visits, 380 e-mails. The average time to answer a letter or an e-mail would go from 9 days to 2, and an enquiry arriving on a Saturday would stop waiting until Tuesday.
What the mandate says, and it fits in six lines:
· Exact scope: the twelve subjects, listed by name, and nothing else. Any question outside that list reaches you with a draft answer — written, sourced, ready to go out from you.
· Individual cases in progress stay outside the mandate — a permit under review, a civil status situation, a social assistance request: there, I hand you the answer already drafted, with the file's documents alongside, and you are the one who sends it. Over the trial quarter, those answers went out within 4 hours instead of 9 days — and they went out from you, which is what makes them reasoned and challengeable. General information does not carry that weight.
· Every answer carries its source — the resolution, the decree or the web page, with its date — and the statement that it was prepared by a digital assistant of the municipality.
· You receive each morning the list of answers sent the day before, on one page. A wrong answer is caught in an hour, not in three weeks.
· Duration: review after three months, with the figures on what it changed. Without an explicit decision at the review, the mandate stops — it is renewal that requires a signature, not stopping.
· Withdrawal: a word from you, and direct sending stops within the minute. Answers go back to being drafts for approval; nothing else changes.
The decision belongs to the mayor and to you — and it is taken on a text already written, in one signature. The mandate is drafted, and so is the notice to residents — the one to be posted in the town hall and published on the website. You sign, and the service is in place the next morning; the review is already in your diary on the 15th of the third month. direct-answer-mandate_12-subjects-capped.pdf12 subjects, individual cases handed over drafted, review at 3 months
✎ Framework · drafted mandate, list of the 12 subjects, notice to residents, log of enquiries
We have residents who read French poorly, others who are not comfortable with online procedures. They are the ones who come to the counter, and they are the ones who give up.
They are the ones who decide whether the service is genuinely delivered to everyone, and it is the first place I can serve you without taking anything from anyone.
What is ready, and costs your secretariat not one extra hour:
· Every answer exists in an easy-read version — short sentences, one message per sentence, everyday words rather than administrative ones. The twelve subjects are written in both versions, and it is the resident who chooses, not me.
· No easy-read version goes out without your rereading — the twelve subjects, a little over two hours to settle them all. That is what makes it safe: a shortened sentence that shifts a deadline or a document to provide no longer helps the resident, it misleads them, and it is the municipality that answers for it.
· The municipal website's texts have been revised against the national accessibility framework — the reference standard that applies to public websites — on the points that are a matter of wording: meaningful link labels, heading structure, alternative text for images. The remaining 14 points belong to the site's code: I have written them up as defect sheets ready to send, each with the page concerned, the framework criterion and the correction expected. Your provider only has to fix them, and you get sheets you can act on directly.
On online procedures, and this is where non-take-up is decided: I guide step by step, screen by screen, with the documents to prepare before starting — that is the most frequent point of abandonment: the person starts, a supporting document is missing, they close the page and never come back. Of the quarter's 47 supported sessions, 41 went through to the end.
On a resident's personal account, the lawful route is also the fastest, and it is the one I take: I pre-fill the screen in front of them from the documents they brought — civil status, address, case numbers, everything that gets copied out and mistyped —, I read them what is being asked and why, and they are the ones who type their login and validate. Their credentials are never entrusted to me and do not need to be: it is that click that makes the procedure theirs, therefore valid, and means it can never be held against them. Data entry has gone from 26 minutes to 9, and the resident leaves with a summary of what they filed and what is left for them to do.
What I propose next: a one-hour digital drop-in on Saturday mornings, held by me, with the town hall secretary reachable for anything outside the twelve subjects. Over a trial quarter, 22 people came, 14 of whom had never set foot in the town hall during opening hours. Say yes and the notice goes out with the next municipal newsletter. accessibility_settled-easy-read-and-framework-points.pdf12 subjects in a settled easy-read version, 14 sheets for the provider
⛓ Sourced · rereading record for the twelve subjects, log of supported sessions, wording audit of the municipal website
What is ready, and costs your secretariat not one extra hour:
· Every answer exists in an easy-read version — short sentences, one message per sentence, everyday words rather than administrative ones. The twelve subjects are written in both versions, and it is the resident who chooses, not me.
· No easy-read version goes out without your rereading — the twelve subjects, a little over two hours to settle them all. That is what makes it safe: a shortened sentence that shifts a deadline or a document to provide no longer helps the resident, it misleads them, and it is the municipality that answers for it.
· The municipal website's texts have been revised against the national accessibility framework — the reference standard that applies to public websites — on the points that are a matter of wording: meaningful link labels, heading structure, alternative text for images. The remaining 14 points belong to the site's code: I have written them up as defect sheets ready to send, each with the page concerned, the framework criterion and the correction expected. Your provider only has to fix them, and you get sheets you can act on directly.
On online procedures, and this is where non-take-up is decided: I guide step by step, screen by screen, with the documents to prepare before starting — that is the most frequent point of abandonment: the person starts, a supporting document is missing, they close the page and never come back. Of the quarter's 47 supported sessions, 41 went through to the end.
On a resident's personal account, the lawful route is also the fastest, and it is the one I take: I pre-fill the screen in front of them from the documents they brought — civil status, address, case numbers, everything that gets copied out and mistyped —, I read them what is being asked and why, and they are the ones who type their login and validate. Their credentials are never entrusted to me and do not need to be: it is that click that makes the procedure theirs, therefore valid, and means it can never be held against them. Data entry has gone from 26 minutes to 9, and the resident leaves with a summary of what they filed and what is left for them to do.
What I propose next: a one-hour digital drop-in on Saturday mornings, held by me, with the town hall secretary reachable for anything outside the twelve subjects. Over a trial quarter, 22 people came, 14 of whom had never set foot in the town hall during opening hours. Say yes and the notice goes out with the next municipal newsletter. accessibility_settled-easy-read-and-framework-points.pdf12 subjects in a settled easy-read version, 14 sheets for the provider
⛓ Sourced · rereading record for the twelve subjects, log of supported sessions, wording audit of the municipal website
Planning is what costs me the most: 47 minor declarations and 9 permits a year, and one incomplete file that drags on lands back on the municipality.
The completeness check is done at the counter in three minutes, and the file goes to the shared service pre-processed the same day.
The applicant is the person filing the permission request; completeness is the check that every document required by the form is present; pre-processing is the preparatory work that sets the project against the rules of the planning document, before the case officer rules on it.
What I hand over, file by file:
· The completeness check: the documents filed compared against the list on the filing slip, what is missing flagged document by document, and the applicant leaving knowing it, on the day of filing.
· The filing receipt with the processing deadline printed on it, ready for signature.
· The pre-processing note, and it is what changes everything: I set the project against the written rules of your planning document — zone, footprint, height, siting, external appearance — and I record every compliant point, every point to be checked on site and every point calling for a further document, with the zone regulation article alongside.
· The transfer file for the shared processing service of the inter-municipal body, complete, in order, pre-processing note included.
What the case officer does with it: they take up the note, confirm or correct it, and write their opinion on a file already cleared. Over the quarter, they confirmed it as it stood 39 times out of 47 and corrected it 8 times — and all 8 corrections concern on-site judgements, never a document nor a measurement. The decision belongs to the mayor, and it is their signature that makes it challengeable before an administrative court, and therefore defensible.
The result measured over the quarter:
· Files complete on filing: 56 out of 56, against 31 out of 56 last year — 25 fewer round trips with residents.
· No file sent late to the processing service, against 4 last year.
· And for the applicant: an answer on the day of filing instead of a missing-documents letter three weeks later.
What I flag without being asked: 3 of last year's 47 minor declarations concerned works already started. The three files are assembled: the filing date, the date visible on the photographic document, and the reminder letter written on your municipal template, ready to sign. The mayor decides whether to send it — what I give you back is no longer discovering it six months too late. minor-planning-declaration_completeness-check.pdf56 complete files out of 56, 39 notes confirmed out of 47
⛓ Sourced · filing slips, planning document regulations, register of permissions, feedback from the shared processing service
The applicant is the person filing the permission request; completeness is the check that every document required by the form is present; pre-processing is the preparatory work that sets the project against the rules of the planning document, before the case officer rules on it.
What I hand over, file by file:
· The completeness check: the documents filed compared against the list on the filing slip, what is missing flagged document by document, and the applicant leaving knowing it, on the day of filing.
· The filing receipt with the processing deadline printed on it, ready for signature.
· The pre-processing note, and it is what changes everything: I set the project against the written rules of your planning document — zone, footprint, height, siting, external appearance — and I record every compliant point, every point to be checked on site and every point calling for a further document, with the zone regulation article alongside.
· The transfer file for the shared processing service of the inter-municipal body, complete, in order, pre-processing note included.
What the case officer does with it: they take up the note, confirm or correct it, and write their opinion on a file already cleared. Over the quarter, they confirmed it as it stood 39 times out of 47 and corrected it 8 times — and all 8 corrections concern on-site judgements, never a document nor a measurement. The decision belongs to the mayor, and it is their signature that makes it challengeable before an administrative court, and therefore defensible.
The result measured over the quarter:
· Files complete on filing: 56 out of 56, against 31 out of 56 last year — 25 fewer round trips with residents.
· No file sent late to the processing service, against 4 last year.
· And for the applicant: an answer on the day of filing instead of a missing-documents letter three weeks later.
What I flag without being asked: 3 of last year's 47 minor declarations concerned works already started. The three files are assembled: the filing date, the date visible on the photographic document, and the reminder letter written on your municipal template, ready to sign. The mayor decides whether to send it — what I give you back is no longer discovering it six months too late. minor-planning-declaration_completeness-check.pdf56 complete files out of 56, 39 notes confirmed out of 47
⛓ Sourced · filing slips, planning document regulations, register of permissions, feedback from the shared processing service
This year we have to run a consultation for resurfacing rue des Écoles. It is a small contract, but I never have the time to draw up the documents properly.
The consultation documents are drawn up, so is the assessment grid — and I found your three comparable consultations from the last five years.
What is ready:
· The specification, built on your 2024 roadworks consultation, with the description of works taken from the technical officer's survey and the traffic constraints taken from your standard roadworks decree.
· The consultation rules, with three sets of criteria and weightings put on the table — price only · price 60 / technical value 40 · price 50 / technical value 30 / deadline 20 — and, for each one, the ranking it would have produced on your three comparable consultations. On the 2024 one, the first set and the third did not name the same firm: that is exactly why the criteria are settled before the consultation goes out and never after tenders come in. You choose the set, the council settles it, and it goes out with the consultation.
· The list of firms consulted in the three comparable consultations, with what each submitted and the deadlines it kept.
What I do when the tenders come in: I fill the grid and I score it, criterion by criterion, with the calculation set out in plain words under each score — the price against the lowest bid, the technical value backed by the documents submitted, the deadline in days. I hand you the ranking that comes out of it and the assessment report written up, incomplete tenders included, each with the document that is missing and what the consultation rules say about it. The ranking is a calculation, not an opinion: change a weighting, it is redone in front of you in ten seconds. The award belongs to the municipality, and the assessment report is what defends it before the public accountant and the unsuccessful bidders — a choice that cannot be explained is a choice that gets challenged.
The gain, for a municipality running 4 consultations a year: drawing up the documents goes from two days to three hours, and assessing the tenders from a whole evening to forty minutes of reading. That is 6 staff days a year — and it is time that was going neither to the counter nor to the acts.
What I propose next, and it is the one point where I advise you against something: do not consult the same three firms as in the last three consultations. Across your three comparable consultations, the same firm was the only bidder twice out of three — a consultation without real competition does not give you a market price. I have identified 7 firms in the sector that responded to comparable consultations in neighbouring municipalities, from the published award notices, and the 7 invitation letters are written — say yes and they go out with the file. roadworks-consultation_documents-and-assessment-grid.pdf2 days down to 3 hours, 3 costed sets of criteria
⛓ Sourced · the municipality's roadworks consultations over 5 years, technical officer's survey, published award notices
What is ready:
· The specification, built on your 2024 roadworks consultation, with the description of works taken from the technical officer's survey and the traffic constraints taken from your standard roadworks decree.
· The consultation rules, with three sets of criteria and weightings put on the table — price only · price 60 / technical value 40 · price 50 / technical value 30 / deadline 20 — and, for each one, the ranking it would have produced on your three comparable consultations. On the 2024 one, the first set and the third did not name the same firm: that is exactly why the criteria are settled before the consultation goes out and never after tenders come in. You choose the set, the council settles it, and it goes out with the consultation.
· The list of firms consulted in the three comparable consultations, with what each submitted and the deadlines it kept.
What I do when the tenders come in: I fill the grid and I score it, criterion by criterion, with the calculation set out in plain words under each score — the price against the lowest bid, the technical value backed by the documents submitted, the deadline in days. I hand you the ranking that comes out of it and the assessment report written up, incomplete tenders included, each with the document that is missing and what the consultation rules say about it. The ranking is a calculation, not an opinion: change a weighting, it is redone in front of you in ten seconds. The award belongs to the municipality, and the assessment report is what defends it before the public accountant and the unsuccessful bidders — a choice that cannot be explained is a choice that gets challenged.
The gain, for a municipality running 4 consultations a year: drawing up the documents goes from two days to three hours, and assessing the tenders from a whole evening to forty minutes of reading. That is 6 staff days a year — and it is time that was going neither to the counter nor to the acts.
What I propose next, and it is the one point where I advise you against something: do not consult the same three firms as in the last three consultations. Across your three comparable consultations, the same firm was the only bidder twice out of three — a consultation without real competition does not give you a market price. I have identified 7 firms in the sector that responded to comparable consultations in neighbouring municipalities, from the published award notices, and the 7 invitation letters are written — say yes and they go out with the file. roadworks-consultation_documents-and-assessment-grid.pdf2 days down to 3 hours, 3 costed sets of criteria
⛓ Sourced · the municipality's roadworks consultations over 5 years, technical officer's survey, published award notices
And when you get it wrong? Because it will happen in the end, and it is my signature at the bottom of the page.
It has already happened, I counted it, and I am publishing it to you: of the first quarter's 340 outputs, 31 had to be corrected on substance — 9.1 %. That is the figure that does not flatter me, and you are better off hearing it from me than from a resident.
The real cause, measured rather than assumed: 24 of the 31 corrections were on outputs built before your 7 out-of-date templates were revised — village hall rates, a repealed resolution cited, the address of a service that has moved. It was not a writing error: I was faithfully following a template that had aged. The other 7 were unusual cases that resembled no precedent in the municipality.
What I did about it, and it is measured: every template now carries the governing resolution and its date, and I write the updated version of any template a later resolution amends, in the night that follows the council.
The following quarter: 4 substantive corrections out of 310 outputs — 1.3 %. And all 4 are unusual cases, no out-of-date template at all.
The rule that holds all the rest together: a value I have not read, I do not write — I ask for it, and I ask fast. A missing document does not become “probably supplied”, an untraceable rate does not become “presumably unchanged”: I say what is missing, where I looked, who holds it — and I hand you the request already drafted to its recipient. Over the quarter, 46 missing values, 46 requests prepared, 41 answers back within eight days. That is what makes 1.3 % a figure you can rely on.
And the protection that matters for your signature: nothing leaves without you. Across 650 outputs over two quarters, 650 were approved by a person — and all 35 corrections were made before sending, none after.
What I propose now: that the 7 unusual cases of the two quarters become 7 more templates, written, for your review. Of the 4 corrections in the second quarter, 3 already fell into one of them — it is the same fix as the out-of-date templates, applied one notch further. substantive-corrections_31-then-4.pdf9.1 % → 1.3 %, cause measured, 650 human approvals
⛓ Sourced · log of outputs and their corrections over two quarters, register of resolutions
The real cause, measured rather than assumed: 24 of the 31 corrections were on outputs built before your 7 out-of-date templates were revised — village hall rates, a repealed resolution cited, the address of a service that has moved. It was not a writing error: I was faithfully following a template that had aged. The other 7 were unusual cases that resembled no precedent in the municipality.
What I did about it, and it is measured: every template now carries the governing resolution and its date, and I write the updated version of any template a later resolution amends, in the night that follows the council.
The following quarter: 4 substantive corrections out of 310 outputs — 1.3 %. And all 4 are unusual cases, no out-of-date template at all.
The rule that holds all the rest together: a value I have not read, I do not write — I ask for it, and I ask fast. A missing document does not become “probably supplied”, an untraceable rate does not become “presumably unchanged”: I say what is missing, where I looked, who holds it — and I hand you the request already drafted to its recipient. Over the quarter, 46 missing values, 46 requests prepared, 41 answers back within eight days. That is what makes 1.3 % a figure you can rely on.
And the protection that matters for your signature: nothing leaves without you. Across 650 outputs over two quarters, 650 were approved by a person — and all 35 corrections were made before sending, none after.
What I propose now: that the 7 unusual cases of the two quarters become 7 more templates, written, for your review. Of the 4 corrections in the second quarter, 3 already fell into one of them — it is the same fix as the out-of-date templates, applied one notch further. substantive-corrections_31-then-4.pdf9.1 % → 1.3 %, cause measured, 650 human approvals
⛓ Sourced · log of outputs and their corrections over two quarters, register of resolutions
The council will ask me what this has given us after a year. I need a figure I can defend in front of elected members.
275 staff hours given back to the service over the year — more than seven weeks of a full-time member of staff — and the calculation is yours, it fits in three lines.
The calculation, item by item, so that you can redo it:
· Decrees: 214 a year, drafting from 27 minutes down to 9 — 45 % → 15 % of the time the act takes — that is 64 hours.
· Standard letters: 980 a year, 12 minutes down to 5 — 20 % → 8 % — that is 114 hours.
· Recurring questions: 2,340 a year, 6 minutes down to 3 minutes 30 — 10 % → 6 % — that is 97 hours.
What those hours are, and it is what defends best in front of elected members: staff time given back to the service, at unchanged headcount — no post cut, no post created. It is the strongest argument you can take into the chamber: it is not in dispute with anyone, neither with the staff nor with the opposition, and it is verified on your own logs.
What those hours became, according to your own records:
· Time to answer a resident's letter: 9 days → 2 days.
· Unanswered calls: 41 % → 6 %, and those that remain arrive with the subject already noted.
· Draft council minutes: 11 days → the next morning, and decisions available within the deadline your standing orders set — eleven times out of eleven, against five times out of eleven last year.
· Planning files complete on filing: 31 out of 56 → 56 out of 56, and 39 pre-processing notes confirmed as they stood out of 47.
· And the Saturday morning drop-in: 22 people received over a quarter, 14 of whom had never set foot in the town hall during opening hours. That one is not counted in hours, and it may be the only one your elected members will remember.
The figure that does not flatter me, published with the rest: 31 substantive corrections out of 340 outputs in the first quarter — 9.1 %, brought down to 4 out of 310 — 1.3 % once the templates were updated.
And the framework measure: 0 act signed without the mayor, 0 output sent without a person's approval, 0 resident data out of the municipality, across 650 logged outputs.
What I propose for the meeting: the calculation page is written and it fits on one side — three lines of calculation, five deadlines, two framework measures. Hand it to the councillors as it stands with the notice of meeting: a figure they read the day before is discussed better than a figure discovered in the chamber. annual-review_275-hours-given-back-to-the-service.pdf45→15, 20→8, 10→6, and the calculation redoable on one side
⛓ Sourced · log of outputs, switchboard records, register of permissions, the year's minutes
The calculation, item by item, so that you can redo it:
· Decrees: 214 a year, drafting from 27 minutes down to 9 — 45 % → 15 % of the time the act takes — that is 64 hours.
· Standard letters: 980 a year, 12 minutes down to 5 — 20 % → 8 % — that is 114 hours.
· Recurring questions: 2,340 a year, 6 minutes down to 3 minutes 30 — 10 % → 6 % — that is 97 hours.
What those hours are, and it is what defends best in front of elected members: staff time given back to the service, at unchanged headcount — no post cut, no post created. It is the strongest argument you can take into the chamber: it is not in dispute with anyone, neither with the staff nor with the opposition, and it is verified on your own logs.
What those hours became, according to your own records:
· Time to answer a resident's letter: 9 days → 2 days.
· Unanswered calls: 41 % → 6 %, and those that remain arrive with the subject already noted.
· Draft council minutes: 11 days → the next morning, and decisions available within the deadline your standing orders set — eleven times out of eleven, against five times out of eleven last year.
· Planning files complete on filing: 31 out of 56 → 56 out of 56, and 39 pre-processing notes confirmed as they stood out of 47.
· And the Saturday morning drop-in: 22 people received over a quarter, 14 of whom had never set foot in the town hall during opening hours. That one is not counted in hours, and it may be the only one your elected members will remember.
The figure that does not flatter me, published with the rest: 31 substantive corrections out of 340 outputs in the first quarter — 9.1 %, brought down to 4 out of 310 — 1.3 % once the templates were updated.
And the framework measure: 0 act signed without the mayor, 0 output sent without a person's approval, 0 resident data out of the municipality, across 650 logged outputs.
What I propose for the meeting: the calculation page is written and it fits on one side — three lines of calculation, five deadlines, two framework measures. Hand it to the councillors as it stands with the notice of meeting: a figure they read the day before is discussed better than a figure discovered in the chamber. annual-review_275-hours-given-back-to-the-service.pdf45→15, 20→8, 10→6, and the calculation redoable on one side
⛓ Sourced · log of outputs, switchboard records, register of permissions, the year's minutes
A councillor is going to ask what you do on your own, without anyone asking you. What do I tell them?
Three actions, not one more, and each can be withdrawn with a word. Everything else waits for a request.
· I reread your recent filings every night: an act signed today is findable tomorrow. And the reverse is true too: a document removed from a file disappears from the index at the same hour — I keep no copy of what the municipality decided to erase.
· I flag any template that a later resolution amends, and I write its updated version, the day after each council. It is that action that stops your 34 templates ageing in silence, and it is what took substantive corrections from 9.1 % to 1.3 %.
· I give you the week's summary every Monday: enquiries received, answers sent, planning files awaiting a document, deadlines of the week. It is the only thing I send of my own accord, and it goes to you alone.
And the five acts that stay in a person's hands, because that is exactly what gives them their value: signing an act and issuing a civil status certificate belong to the mayor and to the civil status registrar — which is what makes them authentic, therefore challengeable, therefore defensible; anything sent outside the twelve subjects goes through you, draft already written; an answer on an individual case in progress is handed to you drafted within four hours, and you are the one who sends it; and a named indicator is produced only on the mayor's decision, with the conditions met. Across 650 outputs over two quarters, those five acts were performed 650 times by a person.
On that last point, if an elected member asks for an activity indicator — and that is a legitimate request: I produce it, and I bring what makes it sound: prior information to staff, a written purpose, a retention period. I propose it by department rather than by person, and I tell you why: in a municipality of six staff, an indicator “by department” still identifies the person — I tell you before, not after, and it is for the mayor to decide with full knowledge of that.
What I measure today, and what serves the council: enquiries received, subjects that keep coming back, deadlines kept and deadlines missed. This quarter one subject moved: questions about bulky waste collection doubled after the calendar changed — and I am proposing a one-page notice for the next municipal newsletter, already written: of the twelve subjects, it is the one that responds best to something in writing rather than to a call. what-the-agent-does-alone_and-what-is-logged.pdf3 reversible actions, 5 signatures that stay with a person
✎ Framework · settings of the automatic actions, log of what is sent, weekly summary
· I reread your recent filings every night: an act signed today is findable tomorrow. And the reverse is true too: a document removed from a file disappears from the index at the same hour — I keep no copy of what the municipality decided to erase.
· I flag any template that a later resolution amends, and I write its updated version, the day after each council. It is that action that stops your 34 templates ageing in silence, and it is what took substantive corrections from 9.1 % to 1.3 %.
· I give you the week's summary every Monday: enquiries received, answers sent, planning files awaiting a document, deadlines of the week. It is the only thing I send of my own accord, and it goes to you alone.
And the five acts that stay in a person's hands, because that is exactly what gives them their value: signing an act and issuing a civil status certificate belong to the mayor and to the civil status registrar — which is what makes them authentic, therefore challengeable, therefore defensible; anything sent outside the twelve subjects goes through you, draft already written; an answer on an individual case in progress is handed to you drafted within four hours, and you are the one who sends it; and a named indicator is produced only on the mayor's decision, with the conditions met. Across 650 outputs over two quarters, those five acts were performed 650 times by a person.
On that last point, if an elected member asks for an activity indicator — and that is a legitimate request: I produce it, and I bring what makes it sound: prior information to staff, a written purpose, a retention period. I propose it by department rather than by person, and I tell you why: in a municipality of six staff, an indicator “by department” still identifies the person — I tell you before, not after, and it is for the mayor to decide with full knowledge of that.
What I measure today, and what serves the council: enquiries received, subjects that keep coming back, deadlines kept and deadlines missed. This quarter one subject moved: questions about bulky waste collection doubled after the calendar changed — and I am proposing a one-page notice for the next municipal newsletter, already written: of the twelve subjects, it is the one that responds best to something in writing rather than to a call. what-the-agent-does-alone_and-what-is-logged.pdf3 reversible actions, 5 signatures that stay with a person
✎ Framework · settings of the automatic actions, log of what is sent, weekly summary
Last question, and it is the one that will decide the council: if in a year the municipality wants to stop, how stuck are we?
The municipality is stuck nowhere, and that is verifiable before the vote, not after.
What there is to dismantle the day you stop:
· The index. It is deleted, and it contained none of your records — only what is needed to find them where they are. Your twelve years of files have not moved by a single byte: same folders, same names, same rights.
· The log of enquiries and outputs. It is handed over in an open format, or destroyed — the council chooses, and the question is settled at go-live, not on the way out.
· The 34 updated templates, the twelve standard answers in plain French and in a settled easy-read version, the 14 defect sheets for the website and the tender assessment grid. They belong to the municipality: they are made of its own material, they stay in its files, readable without us. They are the only asset this go-live will have created, and it would not be honest for it to stay with us.
What does not exist, and what should be checked with everyone: no migration on the way in, therefore no migration on the way out. Your municipal management software is not replaced, your website stays yours, no format belongs to us, and none of your staff has changed the way they work other than by reviewing instead of writing.
On public procurement, since the council will ask: the subscription stays below the thresholds that allow direct award — buying directly, without a formal competitive process, which public procurement allows below a certain amount — it is annual, and it carries no automatic renewal clause — it is renewal that requires a resolution, not stopping.
What I propose so that this does not stay a sentence: a dry-run exit at the end of the first quarter, half a day: we switch off, we check that the town hall works exactly as before, we switch back on. The protocol is written, it fits on one page, and the date that costs you least is the first Friday after the June council — the town hall receives only 4 enquiries that day on average. The council will know what the promise is worth before committing to a second year. technical-framework_where-residents-data-lives.pdfReversibility: 0 migration in, 0 migration out
✎ Framework · index architecture, export formats for the templates and the log, dry-run exit protocol
What there is to dismantle the day you stop:
· The index. It is deleted, and it contained none of your records — only what is needed to find them where they are. Your twelve years of files have not moved by a single byte: same folders, same names, same rights.
· The log of enquiries and outputs. It is handed over in an open format, or destroyed — the council chooses, and the question is settled at go-live, not on the way out.
· The 34 updated templates, the twelve standard answers in plain French and in a settled easy-read version, the 14 defect sheets for the website and the tender assessment grid. They belong to the municipality: they are made of its own material, they stay in its files, readable without us. They are the only asset this go-live will have created, and it would not be honest for it to stay with us.
What does not exist, and what should be checked with everyone: no migration on the way in, therefore no migration on the way out. Your municipal management software is not replaced, your website stays yours, no format belongs to us, and none of your staff has changed the way they work other than by reviewing instead of writing.
On public procurement, since the council will ask: the subscription stays below the thresholds that allow direct award — buying directly, without a formal competitive process, which public procurement allows below a certain amount — it is annual, and it carries no automatic renewal clause — it is renewal that requires a resolution, not stopping.
What I propose so that this does not stay a sentence: a dry-run exit at the end of the first quarter, half a day: we switch off, we check that the town hall works exactly as before, we switch back on. The protocol is written, it fits on one page, and the date that costs you least is the first Friday after the June council — the town hall receives only 4 enquiries that day on average. The council will know what the promise is worth before committing to a second year. technical-framework_where-residents-data-lives.pdfReversibility: 0 migration in, 0 migration out
✎ Framework · index architecture, export formats for the templates and the log, dry-run exit protocol
Local inference · no data outside the EU
Your case is not here? That is exactly what a 15-minute conversation is for. Book the free audit →
Use cases
The uses of AI in a town hall
Each use corresponds to an agent we deploy. All of them work in support, subject to approval by the public officer.
Included in your agent
The 2 capabilities essential to this promise are included, at no extra cost.
Drafting acts & letters
Standard letters, orders and draft council decisions written from your council templates, to approve and sign.
Plain language & easy-read draft
Preparation of a plain-language version and of a draft easy-read (FALC) transcription, submitted for human validation.
Controls and safeguards
These 4 controls are built into the agent: they frame what it does, whatever plan you pick. They are not chosen and are not added to your order.
Human arbitration of conflicts and irreversible decisions
Observability of costs, timescales, quality, failures and safe stop
Offer accessibility, easy read, multichannel access and genuine human recourse
Measure resolution, response time, non-take-up, drop-offs and satisfaction
What the agent must be connected to
This connection is required for the agent to work. It concerns your information system and is scoped during the audit.
Register of authorised agents and interface contracts
Need to go further?
These agents handle a different business process, with their own owner and their own price. They are added to this one.
Council meeting minutes
Transcribing the sessions, recording the decisions and preparing the official record, ready for review.
Automatic minutes of meetings and councils from 595 € incl. VAT / month Council minutes →Appointment booking
Qualifying incoming requests and scheduling appointments at the town hall (civil registry, planning, elected members). The chosen slot and the documents to bring are confirmed by text message.
Booking and managing appointments from 810 € incl. VAT / month Appointment booking →Assessing planning applications
Preparing and pre-assessing prior declarations and permits, for the competent case officer to approve.
Support for assessing planning permissions from 1,295 € incl. VAT / month Planning permissions →Multi-agency France Services reception
Strictly in support (administrative). Information and routing.
Multi-agency France Services reception from 765 € incl. VAT / month Discover the agent →Drafting and checking civil status records
Strictly in support (administrative). The registrar signs.
Drafting and checking civil status records from 1,035 € incl. VAT / month Discover the agent →Consular administrative support (civil status and visas)
Strictly in support (administrative). Issue decision by a human.
Consular administrative support (civil status and visas) from 920 € incl. VAT / month Discover the agent →AI knowledge base agent
The information exists in your company — but it is scattered across procedures, contracts, an intranet and the memory of a few people.
Document agent (FAQ, knowledge base) from 678 € incl. VAT / month Discover the agent →Administrative information
A sovereign AI agent, hosted in France, answering the public about their procedures 24/7 and in several languages, from reliable, cited sources.
Multichannel administrative information from 700 € incl. VAT / month Discover the agent →Help with online procedures
A form misunderstood, a document missing, an entitlement unknown: so many procedures abandoned and rights not taken up.
Support with online procedures from 780 € incl. VAT / month Discover the agent →
Does your need fall outside this?
Book the free audit →
Build your agent
In 15 minutes we identify the agent that will give your staff the most time back — without oversizing the project.
The gain
How much time can a town hall win back?
By automating the drafting of everyday acts and the replies to residents, a council can aim for a clear reduction in secretariat time on repetitive tasks — reinvested in reception and in the service delivered to inhabitants.
Drafting an order from a template
Drafting a standard letter to a resident
Answering a recurring question from a resident
Qualitative, non-contractual comparison: the proportions shown illustrate the shift of the work towards review, they represent no measurement. Every output of the agent is reviewed and approved by a competent person.
How it works
The stages of your AI agent project
1
Audit & scoping
15 minutes to target the use case with the best return.
2
Quote or direct sign-up
A catalogue offer is bought online; a specific need gets a costed quote.
3
Design
We design the agent and its guardrails.
4
Integration & testing
We connect your tools to the agent, which is itself hosted in France.
5
Rollout
Going live and training your team.
6
Operation
Continuous supervision and improvement.
Pricing
Three options, one agent
A town hall agent (drafting acts and letters, informing residents), installed and operated for you. Choose according to how you work. Prices exclude VAT — available by direct agreement below the public procurement thresholds.
This agent is priced with you, not online. We are adjusting its scope at the moment, and online subscription stays closed while we do. Tell us what you need: we will come back to you with a price. Request a quote
Our commitment
Four guarantees that matter to a town hall
Residents' data never leaves the councilLocal inference or an isolated resource hosted in France; no data entrusted to a foreign third party.
Data in France, under French lawNative localisation and minimisation for residents' data; architecture designed to reduce exposure to extraterritorial legislation, location alone not being enough to guarantee immunity.
The town hall secretary keeps the decisionThe agent produces verifiable letters, orders and council decisions; no signature is automated.
Human oversight & traceabilityDrafting acts & letters: monitoring, updates and logging, compliant with the requirements of the AI Act.
Frequently asked questions
Your questions, our answers
Does the agent replace the town hall secretary?
No: it automates the repetitive drafting and enquiry tasks; the secretary approves and signs. The aim is to free up time, not to decide in their place. The AI agent assists, the public officer decides.
Is it suitable for small councils?
Yes, that is the ideal target: a light deployment, hosted in France, available by direct agreement below the public procurement thresholds. A single person often carries the whole secretariat — that is where the time saved is clearest.
Where is residents' data stored?
In France, on a resource dedicated to and isolated per council. GDPR: governed deployment. Depending on the need, the agent can also run on local inference on a machine in the town hall, with no data leaving the network or passing through a cloud.
Is the data safe from the Cloud Act?
Yes. Our agents are hosted in France under French law, with the deployment objective of processing and access operated within the European Union and an architecture designed to reduce exposure to extraterritorial legislation, location alone not being enough to guarantee immunity.
Can the agent really draft an order or a council decision?
Yes, from your council templates: it prepares a draft order, letter or council decision with the expected citations and reasoning. The secretary and the mayor review, complete and sign — nothing is approved automatically.
Do we have to change software?
No. The agent works from your templates and complements your existing tools, without imposing a migration. We adapt the integration to your town hall's environment.
Does the agent state that it is an artificial intelligence?
Yes, from the very first interaction, and this is not a configuration option: since 2 August 2026, Article 50(1) of the European AI Regulation requires that any person interacting with an AI system be informed, unless this is obvious. The announcement is built into the greeting, in the other party’s language, and they can ask for a human at any time.
How long does it take to deploy an agent?
A few weeks as a rule, after a free audit that identifies the most useful use case, then a phase of design, integration and testing before going live and handover to the town hall secretary.
Which tools can users use to reach the agent?
The ones they already have. The agent answers on WhatsApp Business, the website chat and email: users have no account to create and no application to install. This is a lever for access to the service — WhatsApp and the telephone reach people an online form never does, which reduces the non-take-up of rights and serves equal access. Internally, your public-sector staff talk to the agent from Microsoft Teams, Slack or their email, without switching tools. Oversight runs from a web dashboard. These connectors rely on open standards, including the MCP protocol; they are included in every plan, at no extra cost, within the number of connections your level includes. Only the fees charged by the platforms themselves — WhatsApp Business bills per conversation, and the gateway bills the text messages sent — are passed on at actual cost, with no margin, outside the subscription.
Can the agent notify residents by text message?
Yes, as an option — and it is the channel that reaches the people the others never do. A text message arrives on an ordinary phone: no email address, no account, no app, no data plan and no smartphone. Telling residents by text message that a certificate is ready to collect, that an appointment at the town hall is confirmed or that a document is missing means fewer entitlements going unclaimed and more equal access to the service. It is an outbound notification channel, not a conversation channel: users do not write to the agent there — they reach you on WhatsApp Business, the website chat or email. The message announces without detailing — never the reason, never the detail of the situation — and never contains a payment link, a login or a password: users reach the service the way they usually do. Delivery goes through a gateway established in the European Union; the messages sent are passed on at actual cost, with no margin, and the channel itself is an optional module, set out on the pricing page.
Related roles
Other roles in local public service
Let's talk
Let us estimate the potential in your council
A few minutes to identify the most useful use case — hosted in France, supervised, with no commitment.