Case Study: Public sector legal in Scotland
West Lothian Council is demonstrating best value with Case Management & Time Recording from Iken Business
Situated in the heart of Scotland's Silicon Glen, West Lothian is a thriving county with a population of around 160,000. Large-scale investment in the area has resulted in new jobs, new housing and new infrastructure and a population now the youngest and fastest growing in Scotland.
With around 8,000 staff providing more than 100 different services, the council is the biggest employer in the area, managing part of the central belt of lowland Scotland, bounded by Edinburgh on the East and Falkirk to the West. The Council prides itself on its innovative and proactive approach to delivering local government services and has been recognised for its achievements by winning the UK Council of the Year award in 2006.
Like the rest of the Council, the forty-strong West Lothian Legal Team is no exception in its desire for excellence in service delivery. For this case study we spoke to Julie Whitelaw, Legal Services Manager at West Lothian Council.
“Our ongoing challenge is delivering a quality service to meet ever-increasing customer demands without increasing resource.”
In 2006, West Lothian embarked on a project to upgrade from a legacy home-grown work capture database to a complete Case Management System with integrated Time Recording.
"When looking at solutions, one of our key requirements was the ability to easily produce more detailed management information that would enable us to be more open and accountable to our clients."
Following a rigorous tender process, the Iken Case Management System with automated Time Recording was chosen and implemented in 2007. The leading public sector case management solution, Iken products are currently in use in over 60 authorities in the UK and have been specifically designed to meet the needs of public sector legal teams. Iken also offers automated workflows to support lawyers working within the Scottish legal system.
"Iken has transformed the way we work and the way we think about working"
The Iken Case Management and Time Recording system has freed up the management overhead on Principal Solicitors, and allowed the West Lothian Legal Team to adjust its structure to make the most of current staff members. By facilitating a more joined-up approach to working, the team has been able to develop new processes to streamline tasks and reduce the time taken to progress a case.
"Finding information when a staff member was absent was always a major problem before Iken. Now when someone telephones in we can quickly find the case information, regardless of who is in the office, and furthermore we can be confident that it's the most up to date information available."
“Iken is fundamental to continuous improvement"
West Lothian's mission statement is: “Striving for excellence - working with and for our communities”. As you would expect of the holders of the prestigious Corporate Charter Mark, the West Lothian legal team place a heavy emphasis on improving client care. Iken's intelligent reporting allows the team to offer greater transparency and demonstrate best value to customers.
With the aim of continuous improvement, Iken is also helping the legal team to work through West Lothian's own Quality Assessment Model (WLAM). This innovative and bespoke public sector improvement framework has been uniquely developed within West Lothian Council and includes a rigorous annual self-assessment. The Iken Case Management System automated reporting tools provide all the data required to complete this assessment, reducing the amount of manual effort required.
"It has also proven to be a very effective management tool"
The Iken management reporting tools have also been particularly useful in providing an accurate picture of the size of the task each member is facing at any one time. This can help greatly with team workload balancing and also with performance management and evaluation.
"We're almost in a paperless office now, which two years ago would have been unimaginable"
Along with the rest of the Council, the West Lothian legal team are in the process of moving to new offices in the new Civic Centre in Livingston. Whilst the move is intended to enable the seamless working across council departments, it also aims to gain efficiencies, including a reduction in the physical space needed.
"Iken has been very valuable in our office move as everything is stored electronically and won't get lost. The only physical storage required today is for older archived files created before we used Iken. We've already saved money on reducing our paper and print and over time we can envision additional savings being made from eliminating paper archiving costs too."
"Iken has changed the way we work, made us more accountable, more efficient"
Implementing a system is the beginning, rather than the end of a relationship with Iken Business. Every effort is made to protect investment and ensure maximum return-on-investment.
"The Iken team had a difficult job, coming into an office of established professionals with their own way of working. However, with considerate handling and thorough training, we now have Iken discussions in the corridor and an established Iken working group where we discuss how we're using it - I can hardly believe it!"
"Our enthusiasm for Iken is rubbing off on other departments too"
The Iken Case Management and Time Recording solution is making such a difference to the working practice, efficiency and transparency of the West Lothian Council Legal Team that other council departments such as Property Services are now reviewing the system for their own purposes.
For more information on Iken Solutions for Public Sector Legal teams, click here or call us on: +44 (0) 117 373 0790, or on 0845 450 9201 from the UK