Warrington Borough Council

Local Authority Digitisation & Electronic Management Case Study

How Did Cleardata Help?
Client Feedback

Background

Warrington Borough Council reached out to Cleardata looking for a solution to digitise their property files. This was due to a forthcoming move to a new build office, where the emphasis would be on flexible & agile working, with the main objective being to reduce the Council’s office accommodation costs.

As part of this move to agile working, the offices were designed with a very limited amount of storage space. The brief for Cleardata was to find a solution which would be able to provide access to a wide variety of different file types & for this to be completed within a specific timescale.

Key Drivers

Reduce paper records
Flexible acess for remote working
Find information quickly
Improve compliance
Ensure customer queries were dealt with quickly and to the customer's satisfaction

Windsor Forest Colleges Group has been a Cleardata customer since 2010. They initially considered storage offsite following a fire at one of their own buildings which led to some data loss.

It was important to select a company who met their data compliance needs and offered secure premises with enhanced fire detection systems to improve business continuity and back up of paper records

How did Cleardata help?

Cleardata digitised property files for Warrington Borough Council and provided flexible access via the Cleardox Electronic Document Management System. This enables staff to securely access records from any location using a web browser.

The solution

Cleardata’s Project Management team captured the Council’s requirements for each document into a project specification, agreeing document output format, resolution, indexing and destruction requirements. The digitisation process included:-

Files were securely collected and transported.
Paperwork prepped ready for digitisation, including the removal of plastic wallets, clips and staples.
Intelligent preparation provided for splitting of property files and land terrier files.
A4/A3 paperwork scanned using Cleardata’s Kodak high production scanners.
Large format drawings digitised using Cleardata's Large Format Canon M40 scanners.
Files were indexed by plan number, UPRN, and or name of property by Cleardata’s data entry team.
Information was uploaded into Cleardata’s Cloud Document Management System, Cleardox EDM in the relevant folders with metadata signed to enable searching via property address or URN.
Physical files were securely stored, prior to approval for destruction.
Files shredded using Cleardata’s industrial equipment and certificate of destruction provided.

Cleardata provides document scanning services throughout the UK.

Customer Feedback

Cleardata have successfully digitised our Property & Building Services Files.

This dataset includes files which contain a variety of sizes & document type. For example, some documents were in small card format & others, within the same file, could be AO sized architectural plans.

There were also historic deed records and old maps ,some of which were in old bound books which were much more difficult to scan.

Cleardata dealt really well with the wide variety of documents and the Property Team are now able to easily access high quality versions of these records, via the Cleardox EDM system.

This was an ideal solution for our forthcoming move to agile working in our new offices, but it was also key in our ability to adapt to the new Covid-19 requirement for the team to work from home. The Cleardata team have always been helpful and professional in their approach to this project. It has run smoothly and, more importantly, was delivered on time.”

Property Information Officer, Warrington Borough Council