The findings of a pilot of a caseload management system for councillors have been published.
The pilot, which ran between December 2006 and March 2007 across four councils (North Lanarkshire, Perth & Kinross, Inverclyde and East Dunbartonshire), aimed to explore how councils could use software to improve elected members' caseload management.
Among the key findings are:
- Overall, the feedback on the idea of having a system to help track and manage elected members
casework was positive. - It was generally felt that Councillor's Office (the software package) could clearly perform the key functions required by councillors and officers for caseload management purposes.
- Several interviewees felt that the system had helped to organise their caseload work and to enable
constituent enquiries to be handled more efficiently. - Many of the project champions expressed an interest in rolling out a caseload management system
to new and existing elected members, after the pilot had finished. - Level of take up and usage of the software was lower than anticipated. (This was strongly affected by
technical issues and the timing of the election, which resulted in some councillors deciding to leave
office and others not having time available to test the new system). - The low levels of system usage during the pilot make it difficult to make any definitive conclusions
about the ability of the system to assist with caseload management.
