Sedgemoor District Council is improving the availability of information online to enhance customer service, increase the efficiency of accessing information and reduce data management costs.

The council is now in a position to remove its planning department’s legacy data management system (DMS), as it has completed migrating information to its electronic document and records management (EDRM) system, Trim Context from Tower Software.

Craig Wilkins, information systems manager at Sedgemoor District Council, says archived material for planning stretches from 1974 to 1995. “It was in a proprietary DMS but it has been migrated to our EDRM system and been made available to the public online,” he says.

“Dropping the DMS means we can improve efficiency and save about £7,000 annually on maintenance and server hardware. Making planning documents available online has also reduced the number of phone calls to the council.”

The aim is to replace paper-based systems and integrate all systems with the EDRM software to centralise the storage and management of all documents, and to remove legacy DMS applications.

“We now have a million records in the EDRM system out of 7.5 million documents. We have a variety of systems covering 14 different business areas and EDRM will underpin them all to attain availability of information accurately,” says Wilkins.

“New documents go into the repository as well as archived data being migrated. We can scan documents into EDRM and recycle paper documents, reducing storage costs. We also aim to specify retention policies for data to improve information lifecycle management.”

The council has started to fully integrate its Goss iCM content management system with its EDRM software to assist in making data available via its web site.

As volumes of data multiply, the council has also installed a storage area network to support EDRM.

“We are scanning documents into the EDRM system and populating the back-office systems with metadata. We are having to key in metadata manually but the aim is to automate this process, perhaps through a barcode system, although there is a question over how much metadata a barcode can contain,” says Wilkins.

Recently the council received confirmation that it is likely to be one of the first local authorities to comply with the Code of Connection requirements for connecting onto GCSx, part of the Government Connect programme to provide a common infrastructure for secure electronic transactions between local and central government.

Other benefits include making council reports, agendas and minutes available online – and using Goss software in conjunction with EDRM to ensure the correct document versions are published online in each service area.

The ultimate goal is for the EDRM system to make information readily available to support customer services through all access channels – the internet, face to face and by telephone, says Wilkins.