Free city council appointment booking software that puts a surgery, a committee and a counter in one diary

Residents book a ward surgery or an appointment with the department they actually need, from a page that is open at the hour they are free rather than the hour the switchboard is. Committee rooms cannot be claimed twice, every department keeps its own hours and its own staff, and each ward office runs its own diary inside one account.

Start free See pricing

Free forever plan
A diary for every department
No card required

Members and officers working through papers along the curved chamber bench, name plates set out in front of them

Blu CouncilBook online

Ward surgeryFri 17:00 · Cllr Hadley2 left

Committee 2Tue 18:00 · With clerkHeld

Housing appointment20m · Mon to ThuBook

Next free9:20 AM11:40 AM5:20 PM

Address and ward

Answered

Before they sit down

Ward surgery

Alt Fridays

Set up once, for the year

Room and clerk

Both free

Or the slot is not offered

How it works for you

Built for a council that is a chamber, a counter and a dozen departments

Every one of these takes a call off the switchboard and gives the resident a way to book the right person, without letting anybody book a room or an officer who is not free.

A ward surgery residents can book themselves

Each member’s surgery is a list of times on a page, with the ward and the venue on it. A resident picks a slot rather than ringing a number that is answered between nine and five, which is when most of them are at work.

Your booking page →

Committee rooms that cannot be claimed twice

Rooms, the clerk who minutes and the equipment that moves between floors are all booked together. A time is only offered when every part of it is free, so a licensing hearing cannot land on a room already holding planning.

Rooms and equipment →

The questions that make an appointment useful, asked at booking

On the paid plans you ask for the address, the ward, the reference number and what the appointment is about. The officer reads it before the resident sits down, so the meeting starts at the point the phone call would have reached in ten minutes.

Booking forms →

Every department on its own hours, in one calendar

Housing takes appointments four days a week, licensing on Wednesdays, registrars on Saturday mornings. Each keeps its own hours and its own officers, and a resident only ever sees times that department is genuinely open.

Departments and sites →

Five o’clock on a Friday

A surgery slot is a booking, not a queue at a door

A ward surgery advertised as “drop in between five and seven” is an hour of people standing in a corridor and a member running forty minutes behind by six. Published as slots, it is a list of times a resident picks from, each one long enough for what it is for, with the ward and the venue on the booking. The member sees the day before it starts, the resident knows when to arrive, and on the paid plans the surgery that repeats every second Friday is set up once for the whole year.

Recurring bookings →

When somebody does not turn up

A missed appointment stops being an hour nobody can use

A confirmation goes out on its own as the slot is taken, carrying the time, the address of the office and a link the resident can use to move or cancel it, and on the paid plans a reminder before the day carries the same. Somebody who cannot make Tuesday moves themselves to Thursday instead of not arriving, which puts the Tuesday slot back where another resident can take it. Marking who arrived is on the paid plans too, so a member or an officer knows what actually happened rather than what was booked.

Reminders →

Tuesday, 10:20am

Everything the council does is bookable and nothing is on one page

Twenty past ten on a Tuesday. A resident has rung the switchboard three times about a housing repair and been put through to two departments that were not it. She is now on hold for a fourth, and she works afternoons.

Upstairs, a licensing hearing has been moved because committee room two was booked in a shared calendar for a planning briefing that was cancelled a week ago and never taken out. Downstairs, a member’s surgery has four people in the corridor and no way to tell them how long it will be.

Picktime puts every department, every member’s surgery and every committee room in one calendar, on a page residents can book from, so the answer to “who do I see and when” is a page rather than a switchboard.

Getting started

One department bookable this week, the rest when it suits

Start with the department that answers the most calls

Add its appointment types with the length each one actually takes, the officers who take them and the hours the department is open. One department on the page is enough to see what it takes off the switchboard before you add the next.

Add the members' surgeries and the committee rooms

Publish each member’s surgery with its ward and its venue, as a repeating series on the paid plans. Add the committee rooms, the clerks and the equipment as bookable resources so a hearing holds all of them at once.

Put the link where residents already look

The booking page is one link, and it goes on the council website behind a Book Now button, at the foot of the letter that tells somebody to make an appointment, and on a notice at the reception desk. It works in any browser with nothing to install.

AI receptionist

The call at twenty past ten does not have to be answered by a person

The switchboard is the bottleneck in every council building, and the caller who gives up is invisible. Picktime’s AI receptionist answers around the clock, takes the caller through what they need, captures their details and turns the call into a confirmed appointment with the right department, checked against the same availability the booking page uses, so it cannot offer a Wednesday to a licensing team that only sits on Tuesdays. It transfers to a person when the call needs one, and every call is transcribed into the dashboard, so a resident who rang at eight in the evening is a record rather than a missed call.

How the AI receptionist works →

20:04Incoming call
Monday 20:04On a call

Caller20:04
Hi, I need to see someone in licensing. Could I come in on Wednesday?
AI receptionist20:04
Licensing only sits on Tuesdays. There’s 10:00 or 11:20 tomorrow. Which suits you?
Caller20:05
Ten o’clock, please.
AI receptionist20:05
You’re booked with licensing for Tuesday at 10:00. Can I take your name and a phone number?

Tue 10:00Licensing appointmentBooked

Rang at 8pmA record, not a missed call

Transcript savedTo your dashboard

What it costs

Start free. Pay when more departments are on it than one.

The free plan is a plan, not a trial, with no end date and no card. That is what makes it possible to try one department before anything has to go near a budget.

Free, and it stays free

What one department gets without paying

Your own booking page for its appointment types
Residents book, move and cancel their own appointments
Hours set to when the department is actually open
Email notifications on every booking and cancellation

Start free

When there are more of you

What the paid plans add

More officers and members, each with their own diary
More than one office, each on its own hours
Approve an appointment before it is confirmed
Reminders before the appointment, by email or text
The questions residents answer when they book
A surgery published as a repeating series
The register, marked on the day

See what each plan includes

Works with what you use

It fits the calendar the officers already have open

Nothing gets typed in twice

An appointment lands in the calendar an officer already watches, and the paid plans sync it both ways, so it moves there when it moves here. Put a booking widget on the council website so a resident never leaves it, and a video link generates itself for an appointment somebody cannot travel to.

All 36 integrations →

It works on whatever is on the desk

Picktime runs in a browser with nothing to install, on a desktop, a tablet at a reception desk or a phone, so a member holding a surgery in a community centre can see the list without a laptop.

The Picktime app →

Why councils and public bodies choose Picktime

Picktime is free online appointment booking software for city councils, town councils and the departments inside them, and it is web based, so there is nothing to install and it opens in any browser on a desktop, a tablet or a phone.

Residents book appointments around the clock rather than only when the switchboard is answered, which is the practical difference for anybody who works the hours the office is open. Add your staff and your services and preset the working hours each department keeps, and an email notification goes out on every booking.

On a paid plan, set up recurring appointments for anything that repeats (a member’s surgery every second Friday, a weekly advice session, a standing committee), and send automatic appointment reminders before the day.

Group appointments cover a consultation session or a public briefing where several people attend one slot. Calendar sync with Google, Outlook, Office 365, Exchange and iCloud keeps an officer’s diary in one place, and syncing both ways on a paid plan stops the same hour being promised twice.

Each department gets its own booking page and its own Book Now button for the council website, staff are managed across every office under one account, and it needs no training to use, which matters when the people using it change with the committee.

Questions

Municipal appointment scheduling: common questions

What is the most popular scheduling software?

For a council the useful question is narrower: can it hold a dozen departments on different hours, a committee room that must not be double booked and a member’s surgery, in one calendar. Picktime does all three, and a department can be live on it without a project.

Is there a free scheduling software for a council?

Picktime’s free plan covers one department’s booking page, its appointment types, residents booking and moving their own appointments, and email notifications, with no card and no end date. Your own booking questions and reminders sit on the paid plans. That is enough to run one service properly and see what it takes off the phones before anything goes near a budget.

Can residents book a councillor’s surgery online?

Yes. Publish the surgery as a list of times rather than as a drop-in hour, with the ward and the venue on it, and on the paid plans set it to repeat for the whole year. A resident picks a slot, gets a confirmation and can move it themselves if they need to.

Can each department keep its own opening hours?

Yes. Housing can take appointments four days a week while licensing sits on Wednesdays and registrars open on Saturday mornings. Each keeps its own hours and its own officers, and a resident is only ever offered a time that department is genuinely open. Planning is the department that also has to fill a hall, and booking pre-application meetings and public consultation evenings covers both halves of it.

Can we stop two committees booking the same room?

Yes. Rooms, clerks and equipment are bookable in their own right, and a time is only offered when everything the meeting needs is free at once, so a hearing cannot be put in a room another committee already holds.

What is the most commonly used scheduling system in local government?

There is no single answer, and most councils are running several: a calendar for officers, a queue system at the counter and a phone line for everything else. What Picktime replaces is the last of those: the appointments that currently exist only as a call to the switchboard.

Can one account cover several council offices?

Yes. Each office keeps its own hours, its own rooms and its own staff, and every appointment across all of them shows in one calendar, so a service running from three buildings is read as one week rather than three.