Implementing information management

Building Direct – part of the Property Division of Nottinghamshire County Council – piloted an information management project in three areas of its business. Following the success of the pilot, the project was extended throughout the rest of Building Direct in June 2007. This case study looks at how information management has helped the company clear its offices of filing and change the behaviour of staff.

• Summary
• Key learnings for other councils
• Background
• Who was involved?
• The problems and how we tackled them 
• Outcomes and impact
• What could we have done better?
• Next steps
• Contact 

Summary

Like many other firms, information was not managed to any degree in Building Direct’s office. Paper records were created and filed in an ad-hoc system. There was duplication and no-one, other than the creator of the files, knew what information was kept where.

Electronic information was no better. The majority of data was stored in ‘personal’ files and on ‘C’ drives. As a result, Building Direct piloted an information management project in three areas of the firm.

Key learnings for other councils

Piloting the information management project with a selection of work areas helped to gauge the impact of an information management programme. It also determined whether such a programme would have a significant impact on outcomes.

Training was provided to key members involved in the pilot and supporting literature and posters were produced to help promote the project to the wider teams.

To help start the project visible and practical initiatives were selected to encourage staff to get involved, that is, ‘dustbin days’.

Background

Inside Building Direct, a number of initiatives and requirements for change were affected by the lack of information management processes:

• ISO 9000 (2001) accreditation
• the integration of Property Division
• the desire for flexible and home working
• the need to make contribution to divisional year-on-year (Gershon) savings
• the need to reduce accommodation requirements by 40 per cent prior to office relocation.

Following the success of the pilot, the project was extended throughout the rest of Building Direct. This work began at the end of June 2007.

Who was involved?

The pilot involved three areas of work in Building Direct:

• general administrative support
• the Quality Management team
• the service agreement function.

These three areas were specifically chosen as the administrative support function cuts across all areas of the business. The Quality Management team had obvious reasons for progressing ISO accreditation. Service agreements, as a function, linked directly to outside contractors.

The corporate information management team provided initial guidance, particularly on corporate policies in place. A member of IT assisted with any technical issues the project met.

The problems and how we tackled them  

The project was scoped to include hard copy information as well as electronic data and ‘dustbin days’ were organised. This involved organising space where items for removal or relocation could be housed. In addition, service providers were required to remove and recycle non-confidential paperwork and destroy confidential waste onsite. Promotional literature was used and retention protocols were defined.

Existing office photocopiers were upgraded for day-to-day scanning. This also enabled better centralised printing to be set up, with individual printers being removed from desks, which meant it was no longer necessary to purchase and store multiple types of cartridges. It also prevented staff from printing unnecessarily as printing was no longer as convenient.

Seven floor-to-ceiling and a number of smaller, double-shelf bookcases were emptied and removed. More than 100 bags of paper were removed during the two dustbin days.

A 'functional file plan' was developed from existing electronic data using staff reviews and comments. At this point, security groups for access to information were developed. The default position was that everyone had ‘read’ access to all documents and ‘write’ access to all areas related to team functions. This access was then restricted, based on either business or confidentiality requirements – but with no single person having sole access to any information.

At the end of the process, a template file structure was in place ready for the transfer of data. Work then started between the information officers and their respective teams on reviewing the electronic information being held.

Any personal or non-business data was removed. Any unnecessary business information deleted or placed in a temporary ‘archive’ folder. Work also started on renaming documents to comply with the corporate guidelines and naming conventions.

Work was carried out in parallel to satisfy the relevant ISO 9000 requirements. It also realised business improvements which had been identified by staff while studying for NVQ Level 4 – business improvement techniques.

A major piece of work involved defining all business processes – including processes for the management of information – and creating ‘current state’ process maps. A series of how-to guides were created and active links created at relevant points in the process maps.

In addition, all ‘standard’ documents and templates were identified and set up as controlled documents. This involved creating a register of documents, finding ‘owners’ for these documents – for update purposes – and applying version controls. Work also began at this point on identifying retention periods for each document. Again active links within the process maps were created to take users to the correct document, should they require it.

A final piece of work was to take the technical and reference libraries from being in a duplicated hard-copy state to an electronic library. This consisted of either scanned material or links to websites, whichever was deemed most appropriate. This resulted in a further reduction of office furniture.

Once all the above work had been carried out, the decision was taken to ‘go live’. This involved group and individual training sessions for all staff in the new file plan and the relevant processes attached to it.

Information from the old file structure was then systematically transferred into the new structure and the old folders either locked down or deleted. With staff trained in the new structure, all work could now be carried out and saved within this structure. With processes in place to scan locally on a day-to-day basis the system is set to move from a project to ‘business as usual’.

Outcomes and impact

Over the two ‘dustbin days’:

• 35 sacks of confidential waste were removed
• 70 sacks of non-confidential waste were removed
• six four-drawer filing cabinets, various small bookshelves and a complete 13-unit rolling stack of filing units were removed.

During the course of the ‘dustbin days’, archive material was identified which needed to be retained for a number of years. This information was suitable for scanning. In-house providers, Solutions4Data, agreed a methodology. This included defining the retrieval indexes which enable three types of document to be scanned and stored in the corporate electronic document and record management (EDRM) system. One set of documents were scanned which reduced the need to keep the large shipping container which held these documents in over 100 storage boxes.

Throughout the whole process, change management techniques have been utilised by the lead project officers to manage:

• change of duties to information officers
• expectations of system users
• culture of the management teams and staff inside Building Direct.

What could we have done better?

Building Direct are extending this process out across the rest of the division but this time is taking a slightly firmer stance on the development. It needs to be suitable for a changing division so the functions require much clearer definition.

Second time around, the functions are more firmly defined and responsibility for correct use sits more firmly with users rather than information officers.

Next steps

The retention schedule is set to be based on the ‘Retention Guidelines for Local Authorities’. This paper was produced by the Local Government Group of the Records Management Society of Great Britain. Local adjustments were made to cater for specific business requirements.

Once the first round of audits has been carried out and any ensuing actions completed, a ‘lessons learned’ log will be compiled. This will assist the roll out of this project through other groups of the property division.

Audit processes have been written and the trained information officers have been designated ‘first stage’ auditors. The overview role is being carried out by Quality Management staff. Through the audit process, improvements to the system will be carried out. This includes updates of controlled documents and processes and any further training requirements.

Building Direct are extending this process out across the rest of the division

Contact

Karen Bullen
Property Analyst, Business Development
Nottinghamshire County Council
telephone: 0115 977 2085
email: karen.bullen@nottscc.gov.uk

Page published February 2010.