Five years ago, the London Borough of Hackney (LBH)
was one of the first local authorities in the
UK
to rise to
the Central Government challenge of modernising their
management of electronic information.
This was centred around a roll-out of
an ambitious Electronic Document and
Records Management system (EDRMS)
to over 3,500 users. The vision, spelled
out in the Government’s modernisation
agenda White Paper, was of the
paperless office and the shift to
complete digital documentation for
local authorities.
Not only is LBH one of the first
Councils to complete the roll-out of
its ambitious EDRMS, it was also one
of the first to combine outsourced
off-site storage and scanning – meaning
timescales and cost-efficiencies were
maximised – thanks to its partnership
with TNT Business Solutions.
The challenge
With records dating back to 1930,
and statutory obligations to keep documents
for decades to come, LBH decided to store
the documents it had to keep off-site, and
scan the ones needed regularly in to their
EDRMS so that staff and customers could
still access them easily and quickly.
Daniel Cook, Corporate Records Manager,
takes up the story: “TNT Business Solutions
has been central to the work we do at LBH.
We wanted an electronic records system
to ‘open up’ the functional areas within the
Council by facilitating information flows
between the different business units.
“Our back scanning and off-site storage
project has been managed by TNT and has
really helped with this objective. We’ve now
removed a lot of paper records off-site, which
was crucial for LBH’s new service centre whi
ch opened in February 2010 where office s
pace is at a premium.”
The solution
TNT manages the off-site storage and s
canning for over 35,000 boxes containing a to
tal of 30 million separate items, ranging in s
ize from parking attendants’ notebooks to
large A0 plans and drawings.
As well as off-site storage and bulk scanning,
TNT has also worked closely with the local
authority to provide an innovative ‘scan on
demand’ service. This works closely with
Hackney’s digital vision by reducing the
paper-flow into the Council and allowing
the organisation to destroy material once
scanned, reducing their reliance on off-site
storage, scan by scan.
Daniel added: “This is used when we know
files are likely to be subject to high levels of
retrieval. Instead of back-scanning all the
records – of which 20% are required 80%
of the time – files are barcoded, and when
required the paper file is scanned and
available to the Council by the end of the
next working day.”
The benefits
TNT’s Business Development Manager
Andy Lowe explains the benefits of the
partnership approach: “LBH has certainly
benefited as it’s given them much more
control centrally – we work to stringent
SLA
’s which have increased accountability
and tightened performance.
“We can be flexible and adaptable to their
needs and requirements and the account
management system we have in place means
that we can be quick and responsive if things
need improving further.”
The partnership strengthened further with
a major project undertaken by TNT in 2009
– namely the scanning of almost 5,000
index books for the Registrars Office. Andy
explained: “This huge index – stretching
back to 1837 to the present day – catalogues
where Birth, Marriage and Death certificates
are stored in the Council’s archives”.
The partnership between LBH and TNT is a
showcase of best practice between private
and public sectors. Zoe Rowland, Information
and Knowledge Manager, added: “EDRMS
not only brings the local authority closer
together with the sharing of digital information,
it also brings LBH closer to its customers.
“TNT has played a major part in reaching
our objectives. It’s useful for us when they
can think around the issues and come up
with solutions that we know will be both
cost-effective and also ultimately be more
efficient and effective for the
London
Borough of Hackney.”