13-06-2006

Interview with Steve Larner, South Holland District Council

Interview with Steve Larner, head of customer and information services, South Holland District Council

Why are you embarking on this project?

SHDC believes that effective and efficient workflow management is a major step towards the holy grail of good governance. We are helping to deliver against Gershon efficiency targets through the implementation of an integrated electronic document, records management and workflow solution. Our aim is to provide collaboration across key areas of the business and extend those benefits to citizens by upgrading the SHDC website. 

 
What were you looking for in an electronic document records management system?

The products that we used needed to integrate with our existing technology. They also needed to meet all of the government and records management standards. They had to be sustainable and supplied by a software company that would still be in business in five to ten years time.

Why did you choose Morse?

We chose to work with Morse’s Wisdom workflow-enabled document and records management software because it gave us a fully integrated system. We are subject to certain regulatory and compliance requirements from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM). To adhere to these requirements, we needed a complete IT platform to take care of the whole information lifecycle from creation to retention through to the publishing of information. Wisdom gives us that by linking the front office process with our back end systems.

What were your criteria for success?

This project was an important investment for us. We wanted to get it right first time. It was important that we achieved our critical success factors of improving services to the public by delivering efficiency savings within the council, but also creating something that was sustainable for the future. If we couldn’t do that then we wouldn’t have an information framework and citizen facing website that we could rely on.

How did you go about implementing the new system?

A low cost pilot was devised for the council to demonstrate the value and benefits that could be made. We ran the pilot with three or four areas of the council where workflow would make the biggest improvement, either through efficiency savings or improvement to the service being provided to the customers of SHDC. We concentrated on Planning, Benefits and Building Control – all of the areas where we could clearly see some big improvements that could be made.

How is the system used day-to-day?

Wisdom provides an easy way of setting expiry dates for documents; it allows us to know where those documents are, whether they are electronic documents or paper records. Council staff and members are used to working with paper files and saving any electronic document and records to their own drives, files and folders. The new electronic document records management and workflow system uses meta-data to tag documents and provide advanced searching capabilities that make the, ‘I can’t remember where I saved it’ syndrome a thing of the past.

How have the staff at SHDC reacted to the new way of working?

Staff reaction has been positive. This is a fairly big change to how the council works and it provides a challenge in terms of change management. One of the issues for this implementation was moving people from working with files and folders to a more browser based way of working.

What results have you seen from the new system and processes?

South Holland now has a solid secure intranet backbone and a completely integrated solution. This has resulted in delivery efficiencies set through the Gershon report and has increased the quality of customer service. The benefit to citizens has been that the information that they receive through self service is of the same quality and standard as that delivered from our customer services team. We are re-purposing the information that we hold and produce so that it automatically gets published onto the website without extra work. That means a more efficient and effective service and therefore, a better service for our customers. This is particularly valuable as we’re a rural district and access to electronic information is going to become increasingly more important.

 Specifically, we have seen:

• A reduction of over 25% in time taken to respond to customer enquiries.
• A cost saving of over £1,500 per member of staff in time taken searching for information.
• An increased BVPI (Business Value Performance Indicator) rating due to increased electronic service delivery.

What does the future hold?

SHDC is now decisively part of the e-government evolution. However, we are really at the beginning of the end and not the end in itself. Demand for services is constantly changing and the services that we provide change accordingly. We have a lot more work to do to refine the information that we have and provide the increasing number of services that our citizens demand. As the number of customers using the website increases they will place more demands on us. We now have a robust, functional and flexible product around us to meet those demands.

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Overview

South Holland District Council (SHDC) is based in Spalding, Lincolnshire. It supports over 79,000 people in and around the towns of Spalding, Holbeach, Crowland, Long Sutton and Sutton Bridge. Over 400 services are provided through the SHDC website, including links to other public services such as the county council. Citizens search for information and access services online through the “A to Z of information”. SHDC is working with Morse to implement integrated electronic document management, records management and workflow for improved collaboration internally and with citizens via the website.

The management of electronic records is recognised as a vital element in the government's modernisation programme. It supports online service delivery and helps government meet the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. It is also a key part of The Efficiency Programme, the outcome of Lord Gershon’s independent review of public services expected to produce efficiency gains of £21.5 billion a year by 2008.