Powys County Council continues its strategic alliance with Civica with the council-wide roll out of EDM and Workflow to streamline activities for up to 3000 employees
24 May 2010, London: Mid-Wales unitary authority Powys County Council is to roll out electronic workflow and document management with Civica, a market leader in specialist systems and outsourcing services that help organisations to improve service delivery and efficiency. The enterprise-wide programme aims to help the council save £5 million by streamlining processes over the next five years.
Powys selected Civica following successful deployment in its Revenues and Benefits department which resulted in a 19% increase in productivity in only one year, based on Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Civica will now deliver its widely used electronic document management (EDM) and Workflow technology for 3,000 employees across the whole of Powys County Council.
Andrew Durant, ICT programmes and governance senior manager, Powys County Council, said: “With a community of approximately 120,000 people spread over 2,000 square miles, our geographical spread is a massive challenge for the services we provide and for our employees providing them.
“The main benefits Civica’s EDM and Workflow gave us in Revenues & Benefits were improved management of services and employees through electronic rather than paper-based administration and better home working options.
“The technology helped us improve productivity KPIs across the department and achieve the highest collection rate for council tax in Wales for three years running. To expand these departmental benefits across the organisation through this corporate roll-out is a no-brainer.”
Powys County Council’s roll-out of Civica’s EDM and Workflow will cover all council functions from social care and public protection to library services. The system has already been implemented in Development Control and Building Control and in the Pensions department.
The corporate system will be implemented using a thin client configuration to maximise performance and ensure integrity of data on home-based and remote workers’ devices.
Powys County Council Portfolio member for ICT, Councillor Russell George said: “Our Return on Investment (ROI) study has indicated savings in the region of £1.5 million per year through the corporate roll-out of Civica’s technology plus another key benefit is the ability of the system to deliver seamless document management services for our mobile workers that have varying levels of network bandwidth performance.
“To provide home and mobile workers with EDM and Workflow that delivers at the same speed as their office connection is invaluable and we believe will result in more employees taking our homeworking option as a flexible working practice. This versatility will also help us continue to provide the high quality of services to citizens right across the authority.”
David Roots, managing director, Civica UK (Local Government and Regulated Markets), said: “Civica is a strong partner for our customers, able to make a difference at a corporate level because of our depth and breadth of involvement at a departmental level and our capability and track record in process improvement with top performing local authorities such as Powys.
“EDM and workflow is a key technology in achieving genuine service improvements and savings, with the flexibility to accommodate the different needs of individual councils. We look forward to helping Powys deliver new productivity and mobile working gains, as an organisation with a widely dispersed community that needs consistent council services over a large area.”