Web based CAFM demonstrates excellence in Scottish Courts
The Scottish Court Service (SCS) was established in 1995 with the stated objective to help secure ready access to justice for the people of Scotland and ’deliver a high quality service for the people who use the courts.‘ SCS currently employs over 800 people and has an estate comprising buildings throughout Scotland, valued at around £300m, broken down into three regions; North, East and West.
The estate, along with all SCS central services, is managed from the SCS head office at Hayweight House in Edinburgh, by the Property and Services Unit. This unit, has among its chief responsibilities, the refurbishment and rebuilding of the courthouses in Scotland under SCS control, as well as being responsible for procuring goods and services, managing Health and Safety procedures and implementing current legislation such as the Disability Discrimination Act across the property portfolio.
SCS is also responding to the Government‘s stated agenda for the modernisation of public services by introducing new technologies extensively throughout its working practices. According to a SCS spokesman, new technology offers the perfect solution to some old problems. ’One of the biggest challenges we used to face was getting information on what was happening in the properties,‘ he says, ’which was exacerbated by the fact that some of our court buildings are extremely remote. Taking, logging and responding to phone calls was time consuming and didn‘t allow us to manage data easily.‘
The SCS has now implemented a web-based Computer Aided Facilities Management (CAFM) System across 52 of its remote sites. The way that it works is that the Sheriff‘s clerks at each location have access to online reporting software, in this case Service Works Global's QFM package supplied and managed by Glasgow based software provider Walker Martyn.
The report is logged on to the QFM website and flagged up (via a secure server in Edinburgh) on the systems of the Property and Services Unit and, at the same time, to the systems of both the SCS main facilities services provider and its principle sub-contractor. The data is verified, acted on and stored for future analysis. In the case of some extremely remote buildings, the work may be further sub-contracted to a local firm to ensure that response times and disruption are kept to an absolute minimum. One of the stated aims of the SCS is to maintain a 9 to 5 service at its court buildings, so the ability to deal with facilities issues as they arise, underpins the strategic objectives of the organisation. One of the great benefits of providing system access to SCS, and its managing agent, is that high priority calls can be actioned much faster. By using the software application in this way, the system provides three levels of reporting from just the one call. In addition, SCS has access to real time data and therefore the reports that QFM provides are very accurate. There is no need to wait for an extended period of time for paper work to be processed; the data and the jobs are updated immediately. The result is that SCS has an accurate and clear picture of service provider and contractor performance. In turn, the service provider has the ability to maximise the level of service provided, by having instant access to jobs as they are logged.
The use of a software management tool has allowed the Property and Services Unit to anticipate issues and resolve them before they arise. ’One of the main benefits of having QFM is that it allows us to spot patterns,‘ says the SCS spokesman. ’It means we can be proactive in dealing with similar issues in other buildings and in some cases develop solutions to completely resolve the issues before they crop up in future. It also gives us better reporting procedures, allows us to budget and allocate resources more effectively and to demonstrate an added value case for the work that we do. All of this results in measurable man time cost savings and increased efficiency for SCS.‘ The system is currently being rolled out to other SCS sites throughout Scotland.