Wealden District Council Implements Document Management System to Improve Council Tax and Benefits Efficiency

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Located in the United Kingdom, Wealden is the largest district council in East Sussex. Covering an area of some 325 square miles with a population approaching 140,000 they are responsible for 60,000 council tax accounts as well as the management of over 20,000 Housing Benefit claims, of which around 12,000 are live at any one time. These documents can result in large quantities of paper-filled filing cabinets, making it difficult to find what is needed to meet customer queries or management demands. To tackle these problems Bill Lovell, Wealden’s Assistant Treasurer, decided that an electronic document management system was needed.

Lovell’s first step was to determine what sort of system would best meet Wealden’s requirements in terms of functionality, ease of use and, of course, cost. To ensure the best decision was made, an internal project team was assembled, consisting of personnel from IT and those who would actually be using the system. Having extensively reviewed the market by visiting trade shows and talking to other users of electronic filing and document image processing systems, Wealden drew up list of specifications that their system would need to meet.

Meeting Wealden’s Needs

The team required a system that offered the flexibility of adapting to their exact requirements to meet the needs of their operations, without having to change their own processes. In addition, they also wanted a system whose software provided sophisticated indexing capabilities to cope with large amounts of documentation.

After reviewing five solutions, Wealden selected modules from Optical Image Technology, Inc.’s (OIT) DocFinity® Suite of Document Management Solutions that were purchased from and installed by OITUK, OIT’s European Distributor. OIT and OITUK were chosen not only on the strength of their product offering and the technical expertise of their people, but because they offered high quality software together with flexibility at a competitive price. The Wealden team was also able to visit existing customer sites from both local and commercial sectors in the UK, all of which were satisfied with their systems.

OIT products selected: DocFinity COLD-ERM, DocFinity Imaging, DocFinity WorkFlow, and DocFinity Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM).

Council Tax Department

Wealden opted first to install the document management system in their Council Tax Department to handle council tax documentation. The system enables all paperwork received, such as letters from homeowners, payment information, etc. to be electronically scanned into DocFinity Imaging, accessible by 20 staff from their PCs. This information is also linked to their mainframe held customer database so that accurate and up-to-date information is maintained throughout the organization. Comments Lovell, "User acceptance across the organization has been high."

When a customer or internal inquiry is made, the data can easily be found using the system’s sophisticated indexing facilities to search by name, address, account number, property reference number or a unique filing number allocated by the staff. This means inquiries can be processed very quickly by using the 9 laser disks on which the information is now held rather than the 30 cabinets in which the paperwork was previously stored. In addition, managers can easily track the progression of paperwork through the Council’s systems to ensure inquiries and problems are being dealt with in a timely manner.

Housing and Benefits

A similar OIT system is installed in the Housing and Benefits Department. This system is designed to handle the complicated demands of dealing with benefit claims that involve an eight-page application form along with supporting documentation such as pay slips and bank statements. To process these claims, the DocFinity WorkFlow module incorporates flexible workflow facilities to monitor a wide range of elements and their progression through Wealden’s systems.

Before deciding on the OIT system, Wealden drew up workflow documents to track the processes through which a claim has to pass. This ensured that the selected system would be able to handle their working practices rather than the Council having to amend them to meet the needs of the software. "OIT allows us to integrate our processes straight into the system because we knew what we wanted before we started implementation," says Lovell.

Exceeding the Requirements

Wealden is in the early stages of implementing OIT on its Novell network. Based on SQL, OIT is a modular, fully integrated, Windows-based, enterprise-wide solution able to manage all forms of documentation and offers true Client/Server architecture. This means it has the ability to meet Wealden’s current and future needs to electronically store and manage benefit documentation. It can also easily be used in the future to draw information from other computer systems if required, making it an efficient management tool, as well as easing operational procedures.

OIT’s DocFinity system is able to import, export and manage data from all of the major database environments and can be manipulated using many programming languages including VisualBasic, Power Builder, Access and C++. OIT can be run on multiple processors to cope with large volumes of data and under a number of operating systems such as Windows NT, OS/2 and UNIX. Explains Lovell, "This system will pay for itself by improving efficiency rather than us having to justify capital expenditure."

Lovell mentions that when the OIT DocFinity system was installed, users were assessed to see how they liked the system. After only one month, 70% of the users were satisfied and after three months this figure has increased to an impressive 95%. Explains Lovell, "We have been delighted with the success of the systems so far. The products are good and we receive excellent support when we have problems or questions. We have also had comprehensive training for all of the staff, although not very much is actually needed because the software is so easy to use. All in all I think (document management) systems are a superb way for local authorities to handle current requirements of managing Council Tax and Housing Benefits, while providing a platform to deal with changes that may come along in the future."