Northgate-is - News Item 897

Electronic documents bring Reading economic and environmental gains

Reading Borough Council’s partnership with Northgate Public Services is delivering economic and environmental gains to the council, at a time when local authorities are under increasing pressure to deliver efficient and effective services.
 
Using Northgate’s electronic document management system (Northgate EDMS), Reading has slashed the time taken to source documents by two thirds, and the time taken to locate an invoice from fifteen minutes to just one minute.

Northgate EDMS enables local authorities to capture, manage, store, deliver and share documents electronically. In a project to free up space, the incremental roll-out of the system targeted paper-heavy departments, including Revenues & Benefits, Housing and the payroll and creditor teams. The space saved as a result of the reduction in storage space is the equivalent to desk space for twelve employees.

The document management system has been well received by council employees. They are benefiting from paper-less offices, the ability to provide more efficient services to Reading’s population of 140,000, and greater access to more flexible forms of working. The system reduces the need to travel into the city centre and opens up the possibility of working from home, satellite and remote offices, reducing the carbon emissions from travel.

The workload on the post room has been significantly reduced. Three hundred and twenty thousand documents per year are now being electronically scanned and imported into the system. Other improvements identified include better sharing of information between employees, greater security of data and information, an enhanced audit trail and a link up with the citizen relationship management system which gives a 360 degree view of both customer data and their related documents and correspondence.

Claire Thompson, IT project manager, Reading Borough Council said: “The project has been a great success. There were no problems during implementation and training has been very straightforward and easy. Staff find it very user-friendly.”

Russell Osborne, Managing Director of Citizen Solutions at Northgate Public Services said today: “We are delighted that our work with Reading promotes the triple benefits of electronic documents for citizen-centred services. The council gains from the effective, economic and environmental outcomes of our partnership and it is the people of Reading who are the true winners.”

For more information
Fellows’ Associates
Kathy Sutton                      020 7395 1516; +44 (0) 7966 890401
Konstantinos Makrygiannis       020 7395 1518; +44 (0) 7949 421356
 
Notes to editors

1. Northgate Public Services is a leading provider of innovative services to the public sector and utilities markets. Its task is to enhance public value through the intelligent use of people and technology, and to share in the economic and social benefits that this brings. In the UK, Northgate works with 95% of local authorities, every police force and a half of all fire brigades and ambulance trusts. It supports public service transformation through sustainable performance partnerships. Founded in 1969, the company has nearly 8,000 employees. 

2. Northgate’s EDMS is used by forty per cent of local authorities. Northgate has  processed, scanned, delivered and stored more than 50 million pages using this service. Northgate EDMS stores and manages 2 billion documents electronically.