The identity of the winner and the fact almost half of the submissions were Scottish provided a powerful testimonial for the continued influence and success of the Improvement Service.
As a result of the Improvement Service's Customer First Programme, 18 Scottish councils currently use the Lagan Enterprise Case Management solution – meaning 2.4million citizens have their service and information requests handled by the same common platform.
Renfrewshire's impressive submission was chosen ahead of four other finalists - the Impact Partnership/Rochdale Metropolitan Council, Exeter City Council, Dorset County Council and the City of Bradford Metropolitan Council.
Improved service delivery
Managing effectively the entitlement of customers is critical not just to the delivery of better quality public services but to the reputation of local government. This is even more important where the entitlements relate to customers with distinct needs.
Renfrewshire Council has reflected on these principles when reviewing the way the authority handles Blue Badge applications for people with disabilities. Individuals qualifying for Blue Badges are entitled to receive free car parking.
Gary Easdon, Renfrewshire's CRM/Citizen's Account Support Manager, accepted the winner's trophy during the Lagan User Group conference on May 18 in Edinburgh.
He said: "I am delighted and honoured to receive this award on behalf of the council. We have been very impressed with the capabilities of the Lagan system and its flexibility in use, allowing us to streamline two different processes and ensuring our service delivery is consistently good."
Benefits for Blue Badge users
Martin Brown, Head of Customer Relationship Management at the Improvement Service, Chris Owens, Head of Customer Services & Communications at Borough of Poole Council and Ron Hillaby, who recently retired after 28 years with Newcastle City Council, made up the independent judging panel.
Martin Brown said: "Renfrewshire's radical review of the application process has significantly streamlined the process for the customer. This has led to Blue Badges being issued quicker and reduced the number of appointments that are required to assess eligibility. In a period of financial restraint, the council's innovative approach has helped the council save money.
"As well as delivering benefits to the council and its own customers, we believe that Renfrewshire's approach offers significant potential for use within other Scottish councils."
Chris Owens said: "All the entries were very impressive and it was encouraging to see so many submissions when this is the first time the awards have been held.
"Whittling these down to five was difficult, and selecting the ultimate winner following the presentations they made to the User Group audience was almost impossible.
"However Renfrewshire's submission, demonstrating how Lagan has been used to make the issue of Blue Badges faster for citizens, reduce the number of therapist appointments required and enabled the council to save one FTE for deployment elsewhere, really stood out."
The other 10 Scottish submissions for the Lagan Innovation Awards were: Scottish Borders Council, East Renfrewshire Council, North Lanarkshire Confirm, North Lanarkshire Council, Inverclyde Optitime, Inverclyde Opentext, Inverclyde Multivue, Argyll and Bute Council, Renfrewshire Council and West Lothian Council.
FINALIST INFORMATION
- The Impact Partnership/Rochdale Metropolitan Council is on course to deliver £4.9m of cashable savings over five years following transformation of its Environmental Management Service.
- Exeter City Council has reduced the time to process residents' parking permits from 18 to 8 minutes and eliminated the equivalent of 17,000 pages of A4 per annum.
- Dorset County Council has removed 80% of the free schools meal workload by integrating information from different departments.
- City of Bradford Metropolitan Council is recording significant savings and improving service delivery times by issuing its dog wardens with mobile devices.
