Perth and Kinross Council plan to spend nearly £300,000 on a digital mail scheme, which they claim will lead to savings in the long run.
The local authority were previously criticised by many politicians and some businesses for spending £10 million on refurbishing their headquarters in Perth, but they state this latest funding is necessary in order to transfer existing paper files and incoming mail on to a digital format.
Council chiefs will this week discuss the plan which would see funding of £288,500 drawn from the local authority’s transformation reserve. This money is proposed to deliver a ‘combined mail solution’ as an extension to the current corporate digital platform (CDP) transformation project.
A report on the issue, written by Chris Jolly, Perth and Kinross Council’s team leader for strategic planning, improvement and risk, suggests the project will result in “creating efficiencies” and recurring cost savings of £137,000 per annum, in respect of outgoing mail.
“The corporate digital platform project is necessary to implement a cost-efficient solution for the management of the significant quantity of unstructured records and data currently held, both in electronic and paper form, across the organisation,” his report states.
“This solution will enable the council to transfer existing paper files and incoming mail to a systematic and structured digital form, which is a key element of compliance with our statutory records management plan, and support modern ways of work such as mobile working.”
His report adds: “While undertaking the CDP project, additional opportunities for modernisation and cost efficiencies were identified in respect of digitising outgoing mail. With this proposal, daily routine mail which is currently produced, processed and sent out by council staff in the form of physical letters, would instead be created on the user’s desktop computer.”
Mr Jolly then explains in his report how this is sent electronically directly to the contractor’s printing facility where it is printed, enveloped and delivered to the addressee.
“The contractor provides the appropriate software solutions to allow the secure transfer of documents from staff desktop computers,” Mr Jolly says in his report.
“This reduces the upfront costs to the council in maintaining mail systems, services and facilities, as well as the back-end labour costs of operating the council’s current mail system.”
Mr Jolly underlines that the council’s delivery costs had increased due to “unanticipated” costs in respect of the procurement of mail scanners and offsite storage. He also states that if council chiefs agree to the £288,500 funding, it would see the wider CDP programme be delivered by 2020.
Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, said transferring paper files to a digital format is a “worthwhile exercise,” and stated he was surprised Perth and Kinross Council hadn’t already done so.
“However, spending nearly £300,000 on this programme when budgets are tight across the council is a significant investment and one that must be justified,” he commented.
“Additionally, with large-scale public IT projects known to be delayed and over-budget, the council must demonstrate that this one will be delivered on time and on budget.”