Following the success of Norwel’s LAUG meeting at Leeds City Council in March, the London Borough of Camden hosted another meeting in September. The event gave Norwel the chance to interact with clients on an informal basis and provided the authorities with a forum to discuss current issues and future developments.
The meeting included presentations from Somerset County Council System Administrator Lucy Wilkins and Finance Officer Dawn Bissell who discussed their archiving and billing processes which resulted in the members discussing each local authority’s office practices and their procedures relating to various topics such as completing timesheets on time and billing.
Another highlight included a presentation by Liz Hall, Borough of Poole’s Business Support Manager, on how she uses Prescient for non legal cases such as Freedom of Information, Recruitment and Education Appeals matters. They also have current measures in place to extend Prescient into Democratic Services for committee meetings and agendas.
Liz’s back ground is commercial not legal or local authority and she has introduced some interesting business process mapping to the authority which she was happy to share with others.
Liz added “I couldn’t live without Prescient now, it’s the first thing I open when turning on my PC each morning”
We were also particularly pleased to hear that one Council had recently attended an online training course with Central Law Trainingon Making the most of your Case Management System where Norwel received a commendation.
Norwel also launched the new version of their software Prescient + which was received very well with comments of “it was more user friendly and softer on the eye.”
Attendees were thoroughly impressed with the LAUG meeting and were happy to express their comments;
Lincolnshire, Chris Jones
I found the meeting very useful, especially because Lincolnshire is relatively new to using Norwel. Having the opportunity to see what other authorities are doing gives us the scope to save time "reinventing the wheel". It is especially important so that collectively we as users can identify our wishes for development of the system and tease out those issues which cause us problems.
I found the meeting very useful, especially being able to interact with other Local Authority users who have the same resource constraints as us and as a comparison to how other Authorities use the system and what information and reports they can produce.
I found the meeting very useful, especially meeting with other local authority representatives and seeing how they use Norwel. It was a good way to get ideas or to just to compare processes and perhaps feel the way you do things is better for you.
I found the meeting very useful, especially when given the chance to discuss issues other users are experiencing as it enabled us to share knowledge and/or any solutions we may have.
If you would like to attend the next Norwel LAUG planned for April 2010 or you would like to host a meeting at your council offices, please contact Caroline Facey on caroline.facey@norwel.co.uk
