Central Bedfordshire Council (CBC) expects to cut its claims processing time by half having signed contracts with IBS OpenSystems for a complete revenues and benefits systems, including document management and workflow, alongside a new citizen self-service portal. The new system is expected to go live this autumn with 130 users.
The newly-formed unitary authority, which begins public service in April 2009, is an amalgamation of Mid-Beds District Council, South Beds District Council and part of Bedfordshire County Council. As each existing district council was using different IT systems, the decision to install IBS OpenSystems was driven by the need to create a single, streamlined IT infrastructure for CBC.
Clive Jones, head of service for business transformation and customer services, Central Bedfordshire Council, said, “We were very keen to speed up the time it took for the council to process claims; with IBS we expect to see a radical reduction from 21 days to 10 days. We were also impressed with their integrated workflow system which lets users view a variety of customer details in a single view.”
Midlothian Council is also replacing its revenues and benefits systems with a suite of products from IBS Open Systems. The council expects the new system to be live in October 2009 for 80 users. The contract includes a number of IBS products, including those to support tax and benefits, performance management, contact centre management, customer portals and reporting.
Hillary Kelly, head of revenues and housing management, Midlothian Council, said, “With IBS, we were offered a fully-integrated system for revenues and benefits which allows processes to be streamlined and carried out in the most efficient manner for our generic staff. We are particularly impressed with IBS OpenExec for its reporting capability, which will ensure that management of statistical data is kept at an optimum level in future.”
