IMPROVING LOCAL AUTHORITY SERVICES AND CUTTING COSTS

- Local Authority Internet / Intranet Document Management

Louth County Council, one of Ireland's most successful and innovative local authorities, and a mature user of IT, has embarked on an ambitious programme to introduce Tokairo's TokOpen and TokOpen Web document management technology to all it's service departments.

Currently, the council has implemented Tokairo's document management solution in it's Planning, and Motor Taxation departments. The authority is rolling-out the planning DM application to the county's Town Councils of Drogheda and Dundalk. A further objective is to extend the system to all other County Council departments.

The system is helping to improve the council's services to county residents, cut costs, boost productivity - and achieve a higher level of administrative functionality. It also affirms the council's leadership role in introducing effective IT technology throughout its authority area.

Changeover to TokOpen was straightforward. "We had already scanned about 20 Gigabytes of data but delivering that to our 130 users had stalled," says Mulholland. "Tokairo migrated the data from the old system to TokOpen over a weekend and achieved total system implementation in a week.

The first departments to go live were Planning and Motor Taxation. "When a planning application comes in we have 8 weeks to validate the information, offer it for approval to other departments and make it available for public inspection before agreeing to or rejecting it. TokOpen lets us assign a planning application ID, open a file and scan in all documentation and graphics - making all information immediately available to other departments such as roads, sanitary services, water and fire certification via our Intranet".

Previously, this was a laborious manual operation, with often voluminous paper files having to be copied before being delivered or posted to those requiring access. Now it need be scanned in just once. Benefits include significant time and cost saving, much faster planning application processing, and easier file viewing. Input from departments on individual applications can be appended and returned to the Planning Department. A feature that is particularly attractive and has endeared the system to users is the facility to annotate 'sticky notes' to files and images when emailing them to colleagues".

"For example, it used to be the case that when an authorised staff member wanted to see a paper file it might be discovered it had been taken out by another member of staff," says Mulholland.
"We can also now archive original documents without having to keep them available as viewable paper files. There is also improved security because we can back everything up electronically. And with our WAN we can make information simultaneously available to the public at our HQ and other offices in Carlingford, Dunleer, Ardee and Drogheda".

As well as facilitating Intranet access for council staff, TokOpen Web is also the platform for another move now under development that will provide Internet public access to planning applications. Eventually, anyone wishing to view application details will be able to visit the council Web site and see the plans. Objectors can already register their objections by email.

Yet another innovation now underway - as part of a Irish Local Government Computer Services Board initiative - is a plan to link up all Irish local authorities so that any member of the public can go to their own authority And view on-screen any planning application in any part of the country.

The same overall benefits are enjoyed by the other two departments currently using the system: Motor Taxation and Personnel. For example, Motor Taxation services are centralised at Limerick but a substantial volume of data on such topics as vehicle and driver licencing, medical tests and roadworthiness applications are held by Louth Council. "We receive up to 60,000 applications a year," says Mulholland, "and using TokOpen we have much faster access to the information for our internal users to check on medical reports, examine vehicle history - particularly useful in the case of classic cars. Currently, there are 130 users and this will grow to around 250 when we roll the system out to our other offices".

Likewise, the Personnel Department. The council employs a total of around 600 staff and TokOpen will provide the department with faster access to personnel files, easier updating and a higher level of security than was previously available under the manual system. Back-end storage is managed by an optical jukebox using WORM (Write Once Read Many) media. This makes a valuable contribution to legal admissibility of documents displayed by the system, as they cannot be erased.

"Much of what goes on in Personnel has an impact on Finance," says Mulholland, "so there will be benefits in that area. Less time is spent hunting down paper files or finding them temporarily unavailable, there are dramatic reductions in printing and photocopying and because older files can be long-term archived, there is reduced filing space".

"Overall, TokOpen provides an enterprise-strength document management solution that is flexible, secure, reliable and highly scalable. It integrates well with our Microsoft 2000 office products, provides users with a friendly, familiar environment, and is well supported".

Following the success of the system in the three initial departments, the council is now planning to roll it out across all departments and other offices. "Not only will it spread the benefits throughout the council organisation but it will also reduce the system's unit costs," says Mulholland.