Overview
Dorset Council is a unitary authority in England covering most of the ceremonial county of Dorset. It was created on 1 April 2019 to administer most of the area formerly administered by Dorset County Council and the district councils of Weymouth and Portland, West Dorset, North Dorset, Purbeck, and East Dorset. Since 2019, the Council’s democratic services team have administered a growing number of school admission appeals for over 140 primary and secondary schools in the county.
Situation | From manual to automated and secure
Dorset Council had been administering admission appeals in a manual and often fragmented way since its inception in 2019. Manual processes meant that staff would spend hours either updating standard documents or stood at a photocopier. More importantly these manual ways of working resulted in the potential for data security breaches with it being too easy for incorrect documents to be sent to appellants. The growing number of appeals led the Council to look at a more streamlined approach to improve internal processes and provide a better experience for parents and carers during the appeals process.
Solution | FCS Software AppealsPro
Dorset Council liaised with neighbouring authorities before Implementing the AppealsPro cloud platform. AppealsPro has helped utilise technology to solve the problem of long-winded manual tasks and insecure processes whilst also freeing up officer time to undertake other democratic services tasks. Officers are now able to manage the entire appeals process, from submission through to resolution on one all-encompassing platform. This allows for instant production of letters and appeal packs and provides appellants, schools and panel members with a secure portal to view the current status of their relevant appeals.
Results | Efficiency savings and outstanding supports
The simplicity of the appellant portal has led to an increase in electronic appeal submissions resulting in significant time savings for the appeals team. Parents and carers have been able to get instant updates to their appeal status with notifications via email and SMS. Paper usage has been significantly reduced through the use of the panellist portal allowing panel members to have immediate access to appeal packs without waiting for the post. The biggest time saving for the appeals team has been through the automatic letter generation tools within the platform. Being able to produce multiple appeal notification letters with a single click has been a game changer for the Council.
Save yourself some time! Speed up your process..
I can produce notification letters for as large a group of appellants as necessary, in no more than five clicks. Chris Harrod, Dorset Council
