Waverley Borough Council Committee System - Committee Document
Meeting of the Executive held on 04/04/2006
Electronic Documents and Records Management Systems (EDRMS)
APPENDIX C
WAVERLEY BOROUGH COUNCIL
EXECUTIVE – 4TH APRIL 2006
_________________________________________________________________________
Title
:
ELECTRONIC DOCUMENTS AND RECORDS MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
(EDRMS)
[Wards Affected: All]
Summary and Purpose
The purpose of this report is to:
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Summarise the current situation with respect to the Council’s document and records filing systems;
§
Outline options for addressing the issues identified;
§
Recommend officers to consult with neighbouring Authorities with respect to their document and records management strategies; and
§
Procure an Electronic Data and Records Management System (EDRMS), initially to address the urgent issues with respect to the management of e-mails and Microsoft Office files.
Environmental Implications
The corporate implementation of an EDRMS would reduce the Council’s consumption of paper.
Social / Community Issues
There are no direct social / community implications of implementing an EDRMS.
E-Government Implications
The implementation of an EDRMS would enable the delivery of a number of the ODPM’s priority outcomes for e-government including the adoption of ISO 15489 methodology for electronic document records management.
Resource and Legal Implications
The implementation of an EDRMS would ensure compliance with Freedom of Information and Data Protection legislation. The resource implications are given in detail later in the report.
_________________________________________________________________________
Introduction
1. A provision of £70,000 has been included in the 2005/06 IEG Capital Programme to begin to address the need to improve the Council’s access to its information, partly in response to the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and the Government’s e-government agenda, but mostly because of growing concerns over the management, or lack of it, of e-mails and Microsoft Office documents (letters, reports, spreadsheets, etc.) within the Council.
2. Because of the scale of the task and the lack of in-house expertise and experience in this specialist area, your officers went out to tender and selected Cimtech Ltd to review Waverley’s current working practices with respect to the management of information held on paper and a wide range of electronic media, and to recommend an action plan. (Cimtech Ltd is part of Hertfordshire University and as such is independent of any EDRMS software suppliers.)
3. This report summarises Cimtech’s findings. (A full copy of Cimtech’s report, “Information and Records Management Study for Waverley Borough Council”, has been placed in the Members’ Room.)
Background
4. Waverley Borough Council is the custodian of a very considerable amount of information on all of its services, customers and citizens and about its financial, property and human resources. As such, the Council’s information is an extremely valuable resource in its own right that needs to be maintained and managed as efficiently and as effectively as any other of its assets.
5. When Waverley Borough Council was first set up virtually all of its information was held on paper. Over the years there have been numerous technological developments in data storage media so that currently, within the Council, information on customers, property, services, resources, etc. might be held on any one or more of the following:
Paper;
IT application databases;
E-mail;
Document images (DIP);
Microsoft Office documents (Word, Excel etc.); and
Microfische
6. Any corporate filing system that may have existed in the days of paper-only records and documents has long since fallen into disuse. There is no corporate method of filing information now. Even worse, there are significant areas of data storage where records management is effectively non-existent, most notably e-mail and Microsoft Office documents held in personal directories.
7. Managers have been aware of local issues surrounding the lack of document management for some time, particularly with respect to e-mail, and Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS) have been demonstrated to various officers in recent years. However, such application packages would only address part of the problem, the electronic data, and not include the significant amount of information the Council still holds on paper.
8. There are numerous drivers for adopting a standard corporate classification scheme that would be applied to all information for all services in all departments stored on all types of media. These include:
The Freedom of Information Act – where information is required on any subject, irrespective of where it is held or on what media;
Joined-up service delivery, both within the Council and between other public sector service providers;
Internal efficiency gains derived from less officer time spent in searching for documents and files; and
Local Government restructuring – Waverley Borough Council is the custodian of the information about its citizens, customers, staff, finance, property, services etc. As such the Council would wish to ensure the integrity of this information in the event of its being assimilated into any new Authority.
(Note: The last two points would require all authorities to adopt the national standard classification scheme and, preferably, implement the same EDRMS software.)
9. In order to address the above issues, a number of specialist consultants were invited to tender to undertake a review of the Council’s current information management (both paper and electronic) and produce a scoping report identifying the main issues to be addressed and recommending an action plan. After evaluating five tenders, Cimtech Ltd were selected. Dave Pitt, from Cimtech Ltd, undertook the review between October and December 2005.
Cimtech’s Findings
10. In brief, Cimtech identified the following issues:
a) The Council’s document and record filing systems have fallen well behind best-practice, e.g.-
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There is no Council-wide classification scheme;
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There is no Council-wide file plan;
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There is no Council-wide retention schedule;
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Policies and procedures are informal and inexact;
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Processes such as the procedures with respect to leavers – to secure information when someone leaves – are outdated or missing;
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The ‘print-to-file’ policy is out-moded and increasingly ignored (i.e. not all significant documents are printed out from personal files and filed for shared access);
§
Tools to help staff manage email are lacking; and
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Tools to manage and audit documents and records are lacking.
b) There is an over-reliance on paper (e.g. 1.4 million photocopies were produced in 2004/05) which is inefficient and error-prone;
c) The Council’s Microsoft Office documents (there is currently an average of 1,233 Microsoft office documents per member of staff) and email (Waverley staff send a total of just under one million e-mails per annum – there is no record of how many of these are stored within personal folders) are poorly controlled and this situation will get worse until it is confronted;
d) These systems are not keeping pace with the changing way the Council is working (e.g. increase in electronic service delivery);
e) These systems ignore important standards which the Government requires public bodies to implement, e.g. the Modernising Government White Paper (which requires Councils to ensure that all new internally created records are stored and accessible electronically);
f) These systems are poorly equipped to deliver joined-up customer service;
g) These systems are inflexible and will not respond to the changes which the Council will go through in the coming years; and
h) These systems are not cost-effective; the Council could save money by adopting new systems.
11. In consequence of the above, the report concludes that there is an urgent need for change for the following reasons:
The current systems are failing the Council, its staff and its customers;
The inefficiencies of the current systems are costing the Council money;
The Council is failing to meet many Government standards; and
Any delay in addressing these issues compounds the problems and increases the eventual cost of rectifying.
Options for Improvement
12. Cimtech’s report considers three high level options that the Council might take:
Option 1 - Do nothing
– If this option were adopted, the issues identified would continue and the problems compounded. Your officers would endorse Cimtech’s view that “Do nothing” is not an option – the situation regarding e-mails and Microsoft Office documents is becoming critical;
Option 2 - Improve Policies and Procedures
by introducing a
corporate
classification scheme, retention schedule and
corporate
policies and procedures for the management of documents and records. Although preferable to doing nothing, this option would still not realise the benefits to be gained from Option 3 and would require manual enforcement (thereby susceptible to being observed in the breach). Your officers therefore endorse Cimtech’s view that this is not the best option; and
Option 3 – Improve Policies and Procedures and procure an Electronic Records and Documents Management System (EDRMS)
– This option is considered in detail immediately below.
Option 3 – Procurement of an EDRMS
13. Under Option 3 –
The Council would implement:
- A corporate classification scheme (based on the Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary [IPSV] encoding scheme in compliance with ISO 2788);
- A corporate retention schedule; and
- Policies and procedures for the management of documents and records;
The Council would purchase an EDRMS to support the implementation and enforcement of the above and deliver corporate control over electronic documents and paper records;
The centralised scanning facility would be expanded so that, wherever appropriate, all in-coming correspondence would be scanned on entry to the Council and distributed electronically;
The Council would proactively encourage the keeping of electronic documents and records. However, the Council would still operate hybrid paper and electronic records systems as long as required; and
The policy of ‘print to file’ would be discouraged in favour of ‘store in native format’, which would increasingly be electronic.
14. The advantages of Option 3 are as follows:
An EDRMS would provide the tools to enforce
corporate
policies and procedures.
It would provide major efficiency benefits, including:
- Savings in office space (the report estimates that it would reduce personal office space requirements by an average of 1m2 per member of staff);
- Savings in consumables such as paper, copiers, etc.; and
- Increases in staff efficiency (in particular the quick retrieval of documents and records).
It would support modern ways of working. An EDRMS would deliver efficiency savings which would continue into the future.
It would be an important enabler of change, allowing WBC to adapt to new ways of working, especially:
- Customer-centric service delivery;
- Meeting customers’ expectations of fast response to electronic enquiries;
- Collaborative working;
- ‘Evidence-based decision-making’;
- ‘Joined up government’ (via adoption of pan-Government standards); and
- Better and more efficient FOI and Data Protection responses.
It would support business continuity and sustainability – electronic documents could be stored as required in a Disaster Recovery Facility or similar.
It would play a major role in meeting several of the Council’s Corporate Objectives including:
- Objective 10 – Continue to improve communication between the Council and the community and encouraging feedback;
- Objective 11 – Ensure that services are widely accessible including by electronic means;
- Objective 30 – Focus on the efficient and effective delivery of priority services and the avoidance of bureaucratic costs; and
- Objective 31 – Optimise the benefits from managing the Council’s assets.
By keeping better records, it would give better legal protection to the Council.
It would comply with all relevant national standards.
15. In addition, the Council is facing a “demographic time-bomb” as a significant proportion of its middle and senior management reach retirement age over the next five years. These long-serving members of staff hold the location of much of the Council’s information “in their heads” and without recourse to this knowledge it will become increasingly difficult to locate this information.
16. The report identifies the following disadvantages of adopting Option 3:
It would involve a considerable shift in the way the Council administers the delivery of its services. It is no exaggeration to state that the introduction of an EDRMS would affect the way in which every member of staff works. It would therefore require a major change management initiative.
It would require a significant investment of resource from WBC over a number of years and be an on-going commitment thereafter. Apart from the financial cost, the system will have to be supported both technically and administratively, as detailed later in the report.
17. The next stage in the implementation of an EDRMS will be to undertake a requirements study in order to draw up a specification that captures the advantages and addresses the disadvantages, against which to invite and assess tenders.
Risk Assessment
18. Cimtech’s report also provides an analysis of the risks associated with the project, including:
Scope creep – the temptation to include more and more in the project;
Excessive strain on the Council’s IT network;
Importance of change management is under-estimated;
Poor project management including failure to keep with budget and deadlines; and
Poor communication and training resulting in under-use of the system.
19. The report also identifies the risks associated with doing nothing, in particular the cost of increasing administrative inefficiency, e.g.:
The email and Microsoft Office document management problems will continue to grow;
Important issues such as Business Continuity could not be addressed;
Progress in working in partnership with neighbouring authorities, collaborative working and “joined-up government” would be impeded;
Paper documents would continue to consume more and more office space.
20. The longer the delay in embarking upon the implementation of an EDRMS, the greater the risks and the more expensive retrieving the situation becomes.
Resource Implications
21. Of the three options set out above, Cimtech recommends the third, the purchase of an Electronic Document and Records Management System (EDRMS).
22. Although this option would deliver a number of operational benefits and have the potential of realising significant cashable efficiencies, there are risks involved – in particular the need for the up-front investment of resource, both financial and staff time.
23. The IEG Capital programme currently includes a draft provision of £255,000 over four years (2005/06 to 2008/09). Cimtech’s report estimates the project costs of implementing an EDRMS to be at least £240,000 over the same period of time but calculates that any significant cashable savings (up £75,000 p.a.) would not be realised until 2008/09 at the earliest.
24. Cimtech’s report contains an “Outline Business Case” which includes detailed workings of the estimated project costs of implementing EDRMS. These can be summarised as follows (figures shown in £ thousands):
2005/6
2006/7
2007/8
2008/9
2009/10
2010/11
Total
Project costs
10
125
115
20
15
15
301
Capital Programme Provision
70
35
75
75
-
-
255
25. In order to bring the levels of expenditure required to implement an EDRMS into line with the proposed capital programme your officers would propose phasing its implementation, the initial emphasis being to concentrate on introducing corporate policies, procedures and standards and to address the immediate issues of e-mail and Microsoft office document management. Although this strategy would bring immediate efficiency gains (i.e. non-cashable savings) there is a risk that it would result on delays in realising cashable savings (as most of these relate to the storage and retrieval of paper records).
26. The staffing resource implications of implementing a corporate EDRMS should not be under-estimated. The cost of engaging specialist consultants has been built into the estimated project costs, but over and above this the implementation will require considerable input from IT Section and a group of officers to oversee the project and manage the resultant changes in procedures within each service area.
27. And, as stated above, the introduction of an EDRMS will affect the work practices of every member and officer who handles a paper record or an electronic document. Having said that, its implementation will also prove beneficial in the medium to long term for all involved.
28. Cimtech’s “Outline Business Case” also includes detailed workings of the potential cashable and non-cashable savings which would deliver an overall return of £159,000 over five years.
Partnership working / Local Government Review
29. As stated above, the introduction of a corporate information strategy will only support the Council’s working in partnership with other service providers if a national standard classification scheme for the public sector is adopted (i.e. the Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary [IPSV] encoding scheme which complies with ISO 2788).
30. Similarly, if the Government decides to undertake a review of Local Government structures, then the continuation of service during and after any merging of authorities would be greatly enhanced if the participating authorities used the same classification scheme for the management of their information.
31. To this end your officers have already begun consulting with neighbouring Councils with respect to their long-term electronic and data records management strategies.
Conclusion
32. Information is one of the Council’s most valuable assets. There is not a single service it provides that could be provided without it and its loss (through destruction or simply being mislaid or misfiled) can seriously affect service delivery.
33. The Council needs to make a decision as to how it wishes to manage this valuable asset and needs to be mindful that the longer it puts off the implementation of an information management strategy, the greater the risks become.
34. Your officers endorse the recommendation of the Cimtech review to procure an Electronic Data and Records Management System for the following reasons:
It is the only option that enables the Council to meet the administrative challenges it faces over the coming years (including compliance with national standards);
It has the potential to deliver cashable efficiency savings;
It would deliver non-cashable efficiency savings resulting from improved access to the Council’s documents and records
It would address significant parts of the Council’s Business continuity plan;
It would facilitate partnership working, collaborative working and “joined-up government”;
It would protect the Council’s information about its services, customers, citizens and assets both now and in any future restructuring of Local Government.
Recommendation
It is recommended that:
1. officers consult with neighbouring authorities and maintains an awareness of their electronic data and records management strategies, particularly with respect to their records management standards and EDRMS application software; and
2. the next stage of implementing an EDRMS be embarked upon
by undertaking a requirements study, with initial priority being given to the management of email and Microsoft Office files.
________________________________________________________________________
CONTACT OFFICER:
Name:
Lawrence Heath
Telephone:
01483 523084
E-mail:
lheath@waverley.gov.uk
Name:
Phil Tucker
Telephone:
01483 523157
E-mail:
ptucker@waverley.gov.uk
comms/exec/05-06/320
