Dr Mirza Ahmad, Corporate Director of Governance at Birmingham City Council, writes about the authority’s “Excellence in Information Management” programme – one of nine Business Transformation workstreams currently being undertaken by the council…
We live in a world were we are bombarded with a huge amount of information everyday.
With over one million residents to serve, Birmingham City Council is no exception, and its colleagues and partners are continuously dealing with many different types of information, in many formats.
Information is one of the council’s most important assets and it requires effective management.
The council is increasingly reliant on accurate information, both in paper and electronic formats. Latest research discovered that we manage over 30 million customer interactions annually – and you can imagine how much information this generates.
Plus there’s an increasing legal framework that is now being imposed on public sector information through legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act, full implementation of the Data Protection Act and the requirements for respect for private life and freedom of expression in the Human Rights Act.
The challenge is managing this wealth of information quickly, effectively and securely.
As part of its wide reaching Business Transformation programme, the council set up a small team to focus on this important challenge – the Excellence in Information Management (EIM) team.
Launched in 2007, EIM’s aims were to define, design, model and implement effective Information Management and Knowledge Management across Birmingham City Council via a 10 year programme, comprising a blend of technical and people-focused projects.
This would enable the council to use its information more effectively to ultimately deliver improved services to Birmingham’s residents.
But where do you start? The EIM team began by designing a strategy for effective Information Management comprising five key projects – the majority of which are all now up and running and have been handed over to council staff to manage. Each project is summarised below:
1. Addresses: Corporate address database to ensure that all staff were using the same accurate addresses for the delivery of services to residents. Address information is critical to almost 80% of council activities, hence the importance of ensuring that the core address information for Birmingham’s 500,000 properties is correct and maintained. The Local Land and Property Gazetteer was updated in July 2008 and a new browser launched in 2009. The current address match accuracy is 99.93% – well above average.
2. iMaps: Corporate Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Staff and residents can now access, and share, key council information based on any location within the city. EIM has established a team who are helping 1,600 colleagues understand what location information is and how they can use it to improve service delivery. The intranet version launched in March 2009 and the internet version in October 2009. Both systems are now being regularly updated with new data layers.
3. eRecords: Corporate electronic document and records management system. This new system was launched in May 2010 and is currently being used by over 700 staff in the Adults and Communities directorate where it is greatly reducing time spent managing, searching for and sharing files. The move to electronic documents also frees-up space in offices and enables flexible working, as social workers can access all the documents they need securely when out of the office. Two further council directorates will go live with eRecords shortly and the solution will become the corporate home for all electronic records in the future, enabling teams to store and share key documents electronically across the city.
4. Records: More efficient physical records management service that allows 450 records managers to have online access to the paper records they store offsite. Some 52,000 boxes full of records are currently stored off-site with the council’s preferred supplier, Iron Mountain. This service launched in May 2010 and is delivering a better service at a cheaper cost to the council, plus giving more control over paper records back to departments.
5. Team Design: Design and launch of a new Corporate Information Management (CIM) team. This team has just taken over responsibility for the management and governance of the new processes, policies and procedures relating to the management of information across the council.
Birmingham City Council will invest £25.6m over the life of this transformation programme but is looking to generate £56.9m by way of benefits over the 10 years. It is a bold and highly ambitious and innovative project to undertake in Europe’s largest local and illustrates how important effective information management is seen by the council.
If an organisation as large as our own with its many different lines of business can achieve such change, it is something that we feel the rest of the public sector can look at and learn from.
The need for efficiencies in all areas is now more important than ever before, given the Government’s aim to proactively address the underlying problems caused by the colossal national deficit.
The Excellence in Information Management is, therefore, playing an important and progressive part in Birmingham’s response to the challenges we face.
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