How CMIS is Helping Warwickshire County Council Save £10,000 per Month

Case Study

As part of its on-going pursuit of good governance, in 2010 Warwickshire County Council undertook a review to find out if the council was making the best possible use of ICT.

The project was led by the council’s Democratic Services Team in a programme of radical improvements to the decision making process aimed at achieving greater speed, consistency, accessibility and efficiency.

The review found that, for historical reasons, each of the nine directorates had their own process, resulting in serious inconsistency, confusion and waste. The Democratic Services team quickly agreed the improvements that were needed to unify and streamline the process and then produced a business case for purchasing a commercially available ICT system.

The resulting formal tendering process led to Warwickshire County Council choosing Astech to provide a tailored solution to suit the council’s requirements, on the basis of the outstanding flexibility of the CMIS software.

Software tailored for Warwickshire County Council

The CMIS suite of Democratic Management modules has provided the council with a software application capable of delivering the workflow control and functionality it required.

At the heart of the applications is a streamlined, error-free process that:

• is designed to match WCC’s needs precisely
• simplifies the creation of proposals and reports
• creates reports, agendas and minutes
• proceeds on an intuitive, logical, step-by-step basis
• automates many historically manual procedures
  such as document distribution, consultation,
  collection of comments and approvals
• enables visual tracking of progress so giving the author full control and allowing other parties to check the stage of a job
• uses reminders to keep all interested parties to an agreed timetable
• speeds up and simplifies consultation and decision-making
• significantly reduces costs

Additionally, the web-based nature of the CMIS system allows council officers remote access and flexible working from any computer, anywhere.

The package from CMIS includes comprehensive technical support and training, as required.

Saving Warwickshire County Council £124,000 a year

Warwickshire County Council have already, within the first year, recouped their initial investment in CMIS many times over.

The savings have been achieved by a reduction in paper usage, distribution costs and an increase in productivity.In Warwickshire County Council’s own words:

“The electronic preparation, consultation and distribution of reports and agendas has also resulted in considerable savings in printing and distribution costs.”

Officers’ time previously spent administering the process is now diverted to other duties with resultant savings in all the council’s directorates.

An Award Winner

We are extremely proud that Warwickshire County Council have been commended by the 2011 MJ Awards for Excellence in Democratic Services.

It is very gratifying for us to be able to help Warwickshire County Council make such significant improvements. The combination of their forward-thinking attitude to democratic services and the CMIS system has worked even better than we hoped. CMIS Business Development Manager, Simon Hill

Warwickshire County Council is one of 40 local authorities throughout the UK that are benefiting from the advanced and flexible features of the CMIS software.

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