Centralised system that offers linking opportunities across all areas at operational, strategic and corporate levels
Background
Shetland is an Island which lies north east of mainland Britain with a population of 22, 410 and is the most northerly part of the UK. Shetland Island Council is one of 32 Local Authorities in Scotland, with 22 elected members serving on six three-member wards and one four member ward.
The Council is split into 6 different departments: Corporate Services; Development Services; Children’s Services; Community Care Services; Infrastructure Services; and the Chief Executive Services. The Safety & Risk team sit within Corporate Services and is made up of 5 distinct functions: Risk Management, Insurance; Health & Safety; Road Safety; and Community Safety ‘“ all of which have, at their core, a particular focus on the management of risk. The Service therefore deals with a very wide range of issues and needed a secure system to record information such as Personal Incident Notification Forms (PIN’s), Insurance Claims, Risk Registers, Project Risks, and Risk Assessments and to be able to report accurately on this information. ‘JCAD provide software which enables me to obtain information I want in a swift and efficient manner. It is now an important factor in the day-to-day flow of information across our whole organisation’’“ Stan Semple Dip CII, Insurance Officer Previously PIN Forms were being submitted on paper by individual departments to the Admin team who then had to key the data onto an access database. Since there was a significant amount of data to be keyed in, a more efficient process was required in order to manage the system effectively.
The ideal system would chiefly allow the Council to:
- store a wide range of information securely
- produce accurate and informative statistics and reports
- produce key financial information on the cost of risk
- hold all associated information relating to incidents and insurance claims
- offer a remote web option for use by all Council staff.
Solution
The Council embarked on a procurement exercise and drew up a clear specification of needs which was then put out to tender. Key staff from Safety & Risk Services also carried out site visits across Scotland to talk to other Local Authorities users and to witness, first hand, the various systems in operation, to understand the benefits and limitations of each. Of the providers who submitted bids in the tender process, JCAD best suited the needs of Shetland Islands Council, and offered a robust multi-optional system within budget. ‘JCAD is a very user-friendly system which assists me to do my job more efficiently. I have a great working relationship with the JCAD team they are very easy to speak to and will help me very swiftly with any queries/ amendments I need to make to the system’ ‘“ Catherine Christie, Technical Assistant
Results
Shetland Islands Council now has a fully effective reporting system for all Personal Incident Notification Forms (PINS), Insurance Claims, Risk Registers, Project Risks, and Risk Assessments.
The main benefits of JCAD from Shetland Islands Council’s perspective are:
- Keep all relevant claim/incident information together
- Improve the recording of vital information
- Better use of officer time, allowing efficiencies to be redirected to other tasks
- Instant access to claims/incidents/ documentation
- Easier extraction of statistics
- Use crystal reports
- Enables remote data entry and viewing
- Streamline the log-in, recording and reporting processes
- More user friendly especially the management module
- Save money
- Users across the organisation can access and produce reports on risk data within their own areas, thus reducing demands on Safety & Risk Staff time
- Import and attach documents into relevant claim and PIN files
- The Diary System enables us to keep track of claims progress and remind the section when tasks need to be done
- Integral emailing from diary system
‘It was important to me, as manager of a service containing such distinct disciplines, (all of which have the management of risk at their core) that we had a system that could streamline the process for everyone, whilst also mapping the linkages and correlations across all areas at operational, corporate and strategic levels, as well as the impacts to the individual, the business, and the wider community. JCAD gives us that ability with updates and improvements at regular intervals.’ ‘“ Sandra Pearson, Team Leader
The future
Shetland Islands Council is now focusing on going live with some of the other modules that JCAD offer. The Council also keeps in regular contact with JCAD with regards to future upgrades and now has a number of ideas to help improve the system for themselves and other JCAD clients.
