1. Challenge
The Home Office is the government department responsible
for leading the national effort to protect the public from
terrorism, crime and anti-social behaviour. In October 2000
the Home Office awarded Fujitsu a ten year Private Finance
Initiative (PFI) contract to provide IT infrastructure,
telephony and support services for 21,000 users. As part of
the outsourcing process, the Home Office wanted to
enhance its working practices and provide infrastructure to
meet its published targets for replying to correspondence.
Geoff Sampher, Head of Direct Communications Unit,
Home Office, explains, “The Home Office receives around 70,000
items of correspondence a year from MPs and the public. However,
the paper-based system that we previously used was slow and
time-consuming to manage and also prone to process and logistical
errors, as documents often had to be passed between the
Communications Directorate and up to 40 other Policy Units and six
Ministers' offices. So, we wanted to deploy an integrated correspondence
management solution that took advantage of 21st century technology.”
Solution
Following a full evaluation of three possible solutions put
forward by Fujitsu, the Home Office chose to implement a
Correspondence Tracking System (CTS) based on Meridio’s
Enterprise Document & Records Management (EDRM)
system and Metastorm’s e-Work Business Process
Management (BPM) solution.
Meridio’s EDRM technology is a secure, scalable, high
performance solution for the management and control of
documents, records and other electronically held content. Its
sophisticated functionality not only meets government
standards, but also brings all data under the control of one
system. Metastorm e-Work is the leading BPM solution for
defining, automating, managing and controlling unique,
people-intensive and paper-based processes and extending
the traditional point-to-point connectivity of departmental
and office applications, so users get the information that they
need when they need it.
Geoff Sampher says, “We chose the solution based on Meridio and
e-Work because it offered everything that we wanted, was fully
integratable with our Microsoft Office environment and was flexible and
adaptable enough to meet our ongoing needs. It was also fully supported
by Fujitsu, so we didn’t have to rely on any third parties.”
Following initial trials the new CTS was introduced in April
2003 to monitor and track replies to correspondence from
MPs and Peers (excluding immigration). In July 2003 it was
extended to cover letters from the public and e-mails were
included on the system from December 2003.
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“In my view, the Correspondence Tracking System developed
by Fujitsu is the best system of its type in Whitehall –
nothing else comes close.”
Geoff Sampher – Head of Direct Communications Unit, Home Office
CASE STUDY
HOME OFFICE
SUMMARY OF KEY FACTS
Organisation
Home Office
Services delivered
The development, integration and ongoing enhancement of a
Correspondence Tracking System
Key metrics
• 50,000 Ministerial letters and 19,000 public letters and e-mails
a year
• 2,900 users in around 40 locations
Benefits
• Enhanced customer service – has increased customer satisfaction
for the timeliness and quality of responses
• Compliance – performance increased by over 250%, so
consistently exceeds published targets and helps ensure
compliance with the Freedom of Information (FOI) 2000 Act
• Proactive management – full control over the management
lifecycle and the quality of information
• Improved collaboration – facilitates collaborative working and
information sharing across workgroups and departments
• Increased productivity – has improved workflow and removed
bottlenecks, which has reduced staff by a third
• Better resource usage – has removed the overhead costs of
storing and managing paper files for 5 years
