Harlequin Solutions

Organisation Overview

Epping Forest District Council is an extremely well run organisation. It provides a wide range of services, many of them statutory, that have to cater for a diverse mix of residents. Efficient communication is essential to their success.

The Brief

Epping Forest District Council recognised that their commitment to providing an efficient online service required a content management solution. The content management solution had to allow the publication of content to be distributed widely around their complex and multi-location organisation.

"The most benefit we have got from Punch has been in time and efficiency savings. There are things we do in half an hour that used to take a few days,"

Rob Barwell, PR & Internet Manager, Epping Forest DC

The Harlequin Solution

Punch gives Epping e-services leapfrog

Epping Forest District Council will meet most of its e-government targets using Punch content management system that only took a day to get up and running. PunchCMS also prepared the council to meet its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act when it came into force in 2005.

The Punch content management system (CMS), developed by Harlequin Solutions, replaced an old-fashioned Web site that was cumbersome, costly and unattractive. Adopting the new technology has allowed Epping Forest to deliver services online that it could not have managed before. What's more, it can administer its online services quicker and with less hassle, but all at around the same annual price it used to pay to maintain a Web site that few people in the council bothered to use.

Rob Barwell, public relations and Internet manager at Epping Forest District Council, says Punch is "key" to meeting its e-government targets. "We wouldn't yet be anywhere near without Punch...we would have got there eventually, but it's speeded the process."

Epping Forest's Punch-driven Web site will also mean FOI will be easier to swallow. Punch will be Epping Forest 's main method of meeting its FOI requirements, says Barwell. "When we get the full scheme up it will be a fairly simple task."

Thanks to Punch, some crucial council services have become accessible through the Web. Council Tax, Environmental Health, Planning, and Waste Management all now have their own areas on the Web site where it was too troublesome for their considerable activities to be communicated online before. Since switching to Punch, Epping Forest has easily doubled the number of council departments that have their own dynamic areas hosted on the council Web site.

Next on Epping Forest 's online agenda is the opening of interactive services, such as council tax and rent payments, planning applications, and bookings for leisure facilities. To do this, Punch has to simply be hooked up to existing back office systems so that customer transactions are reflected instantaneously in each department.

Punch also uses Web templates, which make it easy to manage the key elements of site development and maintenance. Barwell says that even though different council departments manage their own areas of the Web site, he can use Punch to keep an eye on everything that is done, or being done, and so retains overall control. This has meant that Epping Forest's Web site is now kept up to date with more information that is meaningful to more customers.

Cost-effective

"The most benefit we have got from Punch has been in time and efficiency savings. There are things we do in half an hour that used to take a few days," says Barwell. If the council wanted to redesign its old site it would have to pay its agency more money for the additional work because it would be a substantial undertaking. With Punch Barwell can do a redesign himself in the time it might take him to eat his lunch: "I can play with the structure of the Web site. If I don't like the changes I can change it back again."

At a basic level, Punch has helped Epping Forest communicate simple information about its services more easily and accurately to its customers. Visitors to the site have said it is invaluable for finding out things like refuse and recycling collection times. This also takes the strain off the people answering the council telephones.

Punch has also brought the council closer to people living in its district. For example, Epping Forest's Country Care Wing has been better able to promote and organise volunteers for environmental projects in the countryside and community work with schools.