Jersey gets new benefits system

System will handle 75,000 customers

The island of Jersey's state employment department has installed a Business Process Management (BPM) system to handle the records and individual needs of 75,000 customers.

Brought in to replace the department's old 'green screen' benefits payment processing system, the TIBCO system will help fulfil efficiency requirements set by Jersey's parliament.

Tom Gales, Jersey government's policy and strategy director, says the social security department will use the system to streamline its day-to-day claims process.

'It will achieve that for us by integrating our disparate information stores and uniting our processes into one management system,' he said.

Under the new system, claimants now submit completed forms, which are scanned in by a letter recognition system that automatically creates a job or case in the BPM system. This job then advances through a series of steps, and is carried out according to an automatic rules set within the software.

If any of the rules are broken, an alert is automatically sent to the appropriate queue where a staff member addresses it.

Charlie Darkins, an analyst from Capgemini brought in to help the department reform its systems, says that the new system will help the Jersey social security deal with problem cases better.

'It will free up staff to deal with more cases, introduce straight-through-processing for claims processing and integrate databases and business processes across all divisions,' he said.