OnBase has been a critical enabler for change, allowing Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council to work smarter
The Customer
Located to the North East of Manchester, the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale serves a population of 206,000.
The council has 10,000 staff and will spend £182m from its revenue budget and £85m from its capital budget in 2009/10. Investments in innovation will transform the way this Council offers a ‘cradle to the grave service’, and it is increasing these already significant investments to meet the challenging improvement and efficiency targets set for the organisation. The use of OnBase has been a valuable enabler for that step change.
The Challenges
Local authorities are resource intensive and are under constant legislative and political pressure to reduce costs and improve service provision. The council also wanted to avoid building back office systems which would increase the future maintenance burden.
The old microfilm system was a dying media, with poor access. It was costly and cumbersome to maintain and the physical constraints of storing a growing paper mountain in a town centre location had to be addressed. This has been given added importance with the development of a £70m new corporate centre which, within five years, will house the majority of services in a state of the art building. The intention is not to transfer ‘old’ inefficient working practices to that building with the staff, but work smarter, using a back office infrastructure that supports that aim.
The solution would also have to meet the following requirements:
- A state-of-the-art technical solution
- Support integration with numerous legacy and new local authority back office systems
- Rapid file lookup/retrieval for 1000’s of users
- Provision of a total auditable and imaged history (people and places)
- Flexibility and scalability to meet both existing and future needs, such as integration to GIS, CRM, contact centre, remote working technology and integration with electronic service delivery solutions.
The Solution
An OnBase integrated document and records management system from ProcessFlows was selected after an in-depth market review. That system has expanded and developed as vertical and enterprise solutions have become important.
The system included automated capture and indexing technologies with the following capabilities:
- Access to legacy data (eg legacy mainframe)
- Simple code free integration with existing line of business systems
- Web access (no software install minimises IT overhead)
- Email management
- Integration with Microsoft Office
Applications: Initially for Planning & Building Regulation, OnBase is being implemented throughout many service areas. These include Housing, Child and Adult Care Services, Information & Transformational Government, Leisure & Recreation and Schools Services.
The Benefits and Results
Within weeks of implementation the system was running smoothly with scanning underway.
In the first 18 months the following milestones were reached:
- Approximately 500,000 planning & building control files containing letters, maps and photographs were imported into the system
- A total of more than 5 million individual documents were scanned
- More than 30 cabinets of planning files, taking up two entire rooms, were reclaimed for use as prime office space
- 23 trainees gained NVQs after working with the system
- Taking into account all costs, a return on investment was achieved in the first 12 months. There are ongoing cost savings that meet the stringent and increasing efficiency savings that deliver value for money
- In particular, Government ‘best value service targets’ were also achieved, aided by access times to documents reduced from 30 minutes to less than five seconds per document
What Next
- All departments will have access to the scanning hardware, with document import processors for all council services
- The process is being embedded into many back office systems, facilitating the corporate aim of a move towards workflow and linked to where business process re-engineering is undertaken
- Scan stations will be gradually centralised for 24/7 operation
- Total paperless online planning applications by 2011
- Web-based instant ‘on demand’ function as an embedded element in the restructured Intranet for all services by 2012
- Further CRM and workflow/call centre integration as workflows develop.
“ProcessFlows spent time up front to ensure they had a thorough understanding of our current and future requirements, and then worked with us to ensure that they were met. ProcessFlows is not just a supplier, but an important business partner to Rochdale Borough Council.”
“The ProcessFlows Team, both Sales and Services, has a wealth of knowledge that gives them an understanding of the lifecycle of any document and a willingness to develop new ideas. They can use that knowledge to look at issues from a fresh perspective ‘outside the box’ and add real value to the relationship. Training costs were minimal and one off (a little update knowledge is needed!) and the online web training is extremely helpful. The system is easy to implement and even easier to use/support. Also, it is never down – a rarity in networked systems!”
“The ease with which images can be manipulated with no technical knowledge is stunning. The security of those same images is never compromised and the total audit trail for every document is remarkable. This is vital – the public need to feel confident that we are storing and handling personal information securely and with integrity.”
“OnBase represents excellent value for money, on both the initial and future licence and support costs. The number and scope of additional add-on modules means that we can flexibly plan how to deliver the next stage of our strategy. This will help place us in the top quartile of performing authorities.”
Kenneth Usman-Smith, Technical Support Manager at Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council
More information
For information on any of our solutions or products, please call us on 01962 835053 or email sales@processflows.co.uk.
