Warrington Borough Council

Local Authority Digitisation & Electronic Management Case Study

Background

Warrington Borough Council reached out to SPS 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 SPS was to find a solution which would be able to provide access to a wide variety of different file types and for this to be completed within a specific timescale.

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Key Drivers

Reduce paper records
Flexible access 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 an SPS 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 that met their data compliance needs and offered secure premises with enhanced fire detection systems to improve business continuity and back up paper records

How did SPS help?

SPS 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

SPS’s Project Management team captured the Council’s requirements for each document into a project specification, agreeing on 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 SPS’s Kodak high production scanners.
Large format drawings digitised using SPS's Large Format Canon M40 scanners.
Files were indexed by plan number, UPRN, and/or name of property by SPS's data entry team.
Information was uploaded into SPS’s Cloud Document Management System, Cleardox EDM, in the relevant folders with metadata assigned to enable searching via property address or URN.
Physical files were securely stored prior to approval for destruction.
Files were shredded using SPS’s industrial equipment, and a certificate of destruction was provided.

Cleardata provides document scanning services throughout the UK.

Customer Feedback

SPS have successfully digitised our Property & Building Services Files.

This dataset includes files which contain a variety of sizes & document types. 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.

SPS 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 SPS 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