Digitisation in the public sector

Using technology to automate document-intensive processes offersimportant potential to reduce costs and improve service, says Anthony

Pearlgood, managing director at PHS Data Solutions

In November 2012, as part of the Government's first digital strategy, FrancisMaude, minister for the Cabinet Office, set out the commitment to become“digital by default.” This strategy included redesigning public services tomake them “so straightforward and convenient that all those who can usethem will choose to do so while those who can't are not excluded”.

One of the biggest drivers of this race towards digitisation is cost: the moremembers of the public go online to find the answer to their enquiry ormake a claim, the more employee time and therefore budget is saved. How-ever, with many users still basing their attitudes towards public sector orga-nisations on the experiences they have with customer service representa-tives, councils and other public-facing operations are still under an enor-mous amount of pressure to respond quickly and satisfactorily to all typesof interactions.

As such, for the public sector, the value in new initiatives such as auto-mated document management lies not just in their potential to deliver savings but also to support staff with faster accessto up-to-the-minute data. In turn, this can help them to improve the speed and quality of their interactions with membersof the public.

Government priority

Much work has already been done since the original ‘Modernising Government’ whitepaper back in 1999, with the resultthat electronic access to public services is becoming more commonplace.

As well as contributing towards much-needed cost savings, the use of electronic prescribing and electronic patient recordsin the NHS is expected to free-up time for staff. In fact, a PwC study reviewing the potential benefits of better use of infor-mation and technology found that these and other measures, such as more use of text messages for negative test results,could improve care and allow health professionals to spend more time with patients.

Elsewhere in the public sector, paper-based processes have been digitised at Revenue and Customs, the Ministry of Justice,the Department for Transport, the DVLA and the Ministry of Defence, all with the aim of creating more efficient systemsand processes.

One particularly high-profile announcement was the Government’s £160m plan to improve the speed and efficiency of thecriminal justice system. In July 2013, it announced the intention for courtrooms in England and Wales to become fully digi-tal by 2016 to end what it described as “an outdated reliance on paper”.

Operational advantages

As well as cutting dependence on paper records, the introduction and increased use of digitisation and paperless self-ser-vice technologies will also have an important role to play in helping various stakeholders within an organisation to extractrelevant data more easily. By centralising access to electronic documents, employees can store, retrieve and share fileswhilst adding ongoing updates more effectively.

Digital mailroom solutions in particular have shown to substantially improve business automation within document-inten-sive public sector organisations. Each document is scanned and distributed electronically as soon as it is received by the re-ceptionist, post room or outsourced document management firm, in some cases removing paper from the process at anearly stage.

From an employee’s perspective, this takes away the need to wait for post to arrive on their desk and open it before start-ing to process the content, which can in turn generate enormous productivity benefits. Where the system allows, the docu-ment may not only be received by an individual much faster than before, but also arrive in a process-ready electronic for-mat – scanned, prepared, classified and, in some systems, with the relevant data already extracted.

Collaboration across projects and departments also becomes easier because employees and authorised third-parties canall access data from a centralised source, resulting in better decision-making. Meanwhile, when adding new informationand files, the use of document classification enables measurable data to be quickly identified and instantly passed to theright business stream or workflow.

Significantly, the fact that document management systems capture data as soon as it enters the business means that errorscan be instantly flagged through data cleansing, rather than allowing them to become more widespread. As a result, anymistakes can be identified and resolved as quickly and cost effectively as possible.

Long-term vision

A key objective of the Digital by Default strategy is to deliver ‘a better, more personalised customer service’, with end-usersof public services benefiting from a faster, more transparent, right-first-time approach to service delivery. Here, the wide-reaching capabilities paperless technologies can deliver have much to offer the public sector, particularly in areas such ascompliance, disaster recovery, staff productivity and overall efficiency in records management.

www.phsdatasolutions.co.uk