Microsoft Solutions Partner·Built for councils and SMEs·Cyber Essentials Plus certified·No sales call unless you ask
Building prompts with GCSE — goal, context, source, expectations — at Dunstable Town Council.
Case study
Licences are easy. Skills are the work.
Most organisations with Copilot licences are using a fraction of them. In July we ran a Prompt-a-thon with officers at Dunstable Town Council — finance, community services, HR, democratic services, compliance and the cemetery service — taking one realistic committee decision from a spreadsheet through to a member briefing.
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Digital Academy
Scores point to gaps. Training closes them.
Live Copilot webinars for councils, run by CloudyIT's Digital Academy — beginner to specialist.
Councils and businesses face the same AI questions in different language. Choose yours and every question that follows uses the words you actually use.
01
Three scores
Value, risk control and control, plus a weighted overall and a maturity band.
02
What is working
Three to five strengths pulled straight from your answers.
03
The real gaps
The concerns that matter most, ranked, in plain English.
04
Quick wins
Actions you can complete inside 30 days without a budget.
05
A 90-day plan
A sequenced roadmap and the next stage we would recommend.
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Last step
Your answers are scored. Where should the report go?
We generate your report on the next screen and email a copy you can forward to colleagues.
Used to send the report. No sales call unless you ask for one.
We store your answers so we can send your report and follow up if you ask us to. See our privacy notice. You can ask us to delete your submission at any time.
Your personalised report
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Held at 50 because one of the three scores below fell under 25. Strength in two areas does not offset a gap in the third.
Every stage is supported by the Digital Skills eLearning Hub, so learning continues between sessions.
Case study · Stage 3 Accelerator Day
How Copilot and AI can work for your council.
Inside the Microsoft 365 Copilot Prompt-a-thon at Dunstable Town Council, Wednesday 15 July.
Building prompts with GCSE — goal, context, source, expectations — at Dunstable Town Council.
Most councils with Copilot are using a fraction of it. Licences are live, the icon sits in the ribbon, officers ask it the occasional question — and the work of committee reports, budget analysis and resident communications carries on exactly as before. This day was designed to change that.
A fictional council with very real work
Rather than a slideshow of features, we built the day around a scenario. Officers became the staff of Dinostable Town Council — a market town with a £180,000 capital fund, a much-loved annual DinoFest, and a tired play area at Fossil Field that is hard to reach with a buggy or a wheelchair. The Finance and General Purposes Committee wants a recommendation on how to invest.
ExcelAnalyse the budget, service and resident survey data, and build the evidence base.
WordDraft a formal committee decision report using the council's own template.
Copilot ChatStrengthen the case with grant funding options and best practice from other councils.
OutlookAnnounce the decision to residents, following the council's communications style guide.
PowerPointTurn the whole thing into a five-slide member briefing.
Every prompt built with GCSE
Goal, Context, Source, Expectations. A simple framework, but it is the difference between "write a report" and a prompt that returns something an officer would actually put in front of members.
Officers from across the council working the same scenario together.Mixed teams from finance, HR, democratic services and more.
The moment it landed
The most important design choice was using the council's own templates. The decision report format, the information report and the style guide were all genuine. For almost every team the biggest moment came from handing Copilot a template and a style guide as examples of good, then watching it return correctly formatted, on-brand council work.
What the officers said
Finance, community services, HR, democratic services, compliance and the cemetery service all took part.
4.4/5Average rating. Every response scored the day four or five.
91%Named the hands-on afternoon the most useful part.
100%Left confident using Copilot day to day.
Excel and Word topped the list of apps officers will try first — where committee reports and budget work actually happen.
100% asked for follow-up support.
The candid feedback
Several officers had submitted real tasks from their own work beforehand and wanted more time applying Copilot directly to those. That is a fair challenge, and it has already changed the format: future Prompt-a-thons build a dedicated "your work, your prompts" block into the afternoon.
Measuring what actually changes
Enthusiasm on the day is easy to capture. Impact takes longer. Alongside the workshop we ran a baseline survey recording how long everyday tasks take today. Most officers spend two to five hours a week on repetitive admin, some closer to ten, and before the training fewer than one in five used Copilot daily. We repeat the survey at six and twelve months, which turns a training day into an evidenced programme.
Why this beats a demonstration
A demonstration shows what Copilot can do. A Prompt-a-thon shows what your officers can do with it. People remember the report they drafted and the resident email they rewrote, because it looked exactly like Monday morning.
Stage 3 of the CloudyIT AI Pathway
A single day does not change a culture, which is why the Prompt-a-thon is not a one-off. It is Stage 3, Build AI Confidence — one stage of a seven-stage route from first curiosity to sustained advantage. Your assessment shows which stage to start with.
