OSCAR (Orchestrated Service & Citizen AI Router) is a vendor agnostic, strength-based framework designed to provide a single digital front door for local government services.
Overview
OSCAR (Orchestrated Service & Citizen AI Router) is a vendor agnostic, strength-based framework designed to provide a single digital front door for local government services. It is locally designed, inclusive by default, and intended to support consistent, governed use of AI across citizen services.
Local authorities are rapidly adopting AI, but often in silos. This has resulted in multiple single-purpose tools across departments, potentially leading to fragmented experiences, vendor lock-in, duplicated integration costs, and inconsistent governance. Residents are often required to navigate multiple pages or channels to resolve a single issue.
The solution
OSCAR separates orchestration and governance from service‑specific capability, acting as a central intelligence layer that routes requests to the most appropriate specialist agent, regardless of vendor. This allows councils to build on existing AI investments while avoiding fragmentation and duplication. Specialist services such as parking, bookings, safeguarding, fault reporting, and social prescribing connected to a single, shared core rather than operating as standalone tools.
Safety and governance are central to the design of OSCAR. The platform embeds centralised controls, including guardrails, personally identifiable information (PII) redaction, permissions management, and comprehensive audit logging. These controls sit at the heart of the architecture, ensuring that no individual agent can operate outside agreed governance, compliance, and security standards. OSCAR is also designed to integrate securely and consistently with existing legacy systems, reducing risk and avoiding the need for wholesale system replacement.
Peterborough City Council has already demonstrated innovation in its adoption of AI, with several chatbots available to residents to support a range of services. These include Hey Geraldine, featured on our AI Case Study Bank, as well as tools that enable residents to report faults, enquire about parking, and access social prescribing services. OSCAR builds on this foundation by providing a single digital front door, linking these multiple touchpoints across the council’s website and channels. This joined‑up approach improves the resident experience and helps ensure people are directed to the right support as quickly and smoothly as possible.
OSCAR operates across web, WhatsApp, and voice channels, using a channel transpiler to convert rich service logic into channel‑native formats while maintaining consistent behaviour. This multi‑channel approach allows residents to access services in the way that best suits their preferences and circumstances, whether via mobile, desktop, or voice interaction.
Overall, OSCAR enables councils to scale AI safely and confidently, reduce fragmentation, maintain strong governance, and deliver inclusive, joined‑up services through a single, coherent digital front door.
Strategic Roadmap: Scaling OSCAR
OSCAR is currently at proof‑of‑concept stage, with plans for it to be made available on Peterborough City Council’s public‑facing website in the near future. The council is at an early point in its OSCAR journey and has developed a clear roadmap to progressively expand its use of the platform and unlock its full potential as its wider AI capability matures.
This roadmap sets out a series of phased stages that reflect increasing levels of sophistication and impact:
- Phase 1 – Librarian: Use of informational AI, primarily through retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG), to answer frequently asked questions.
- Phase 2 – Specialist: Deployment of departmental, transactional AI tools, recognising the risk of siloed services if this becomes the end state.
- Phase 3 – Concierge: Orchestrated, cross‑service transactions managed through OSCAR, enabling joined‑up service delivery and representing the core value of the platform.
- Phase 4 – Guardian: Proactive services triggered by events or data, enabling earlier intervention and anticipatory support.
- Phase 5 – Architect: Strategic insight and policy shaping informed by analysis of aggregate service data.
Although presented as phased, OSCAR is being delivered through overlapping stages, enabling earlier value while foundational capability continues to mature.
Peterborough City Council currently identifies as operating within Phase 1 & 2, while actively building the technical, organisational, and governance capability required to progress through the subsequent phases over time with Phase 3 going live shortly.
In parallel with the resident‑facing service, an internal OSCAR (OSCAR Workforce) capability is being developed to support staff and service operations, using the same orchestration and governance model. This dual approach enables capability to be proven, refined, and reused internally before being scaled more widely, ensuring consistency and reducing duplication across the organisation.