Software tool gives city a head start on keeping the
streets tidy.
A suite of asset-management software is being used to help to
keep the City of York clean and tidy.
The council's call centre handles 1,500 enquiries every week
about problems ranging from fly-tipping to abandoned cars, so York
is implementing a suite of applications from asset management
supplier Exor.
The call centre - York Pride Action Line - has been integrated
with Exor's Public Enquiry Manager and the council has stored
details of every property in York on Exor's Spatial Data Manager
database.
The cases generated in Public Enquiry Manager can be attributed
to individual properties, parks or wasteland, via a link with the
database.
The system can provide council staff with a range of management
information. Users can view, interrogate and analyse the data
generated by calls to the action line. Departments can set up
formats for the reports they want the system to produce.
Council officers can look for minor trends, such as in the
spread of graffiti, litter, fly-tipping or fly-posting. They could,
for instance, use the system to see how many times a particular
graffiti artist strikes, since they tag their work with a prominent
signature that can be recorded in the database.
Public Enquiry Manager has been set up to produce a report on
fly-tipping in an electronic format that can be submitted directly
to the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in
line with its requirements.
It can be adapted for types of crime and vandalism that are
occasionally the subject of targets set by central government.
Problems such as abandoned vehicles are managed from the first
call to the removal of the vehicle. The applications send e-mails
to the appropriate department or individual responsible for
removing them.
All of the city's contractors are managed within the system on
two Exor applications called Contractor Interface Manager and
Financial Interface Manager.
Although the system is currently run in a client server
environment, changes are planned for later in the year when further
Exor products are expected to be rolled out.
City of York spokesman, Keith Rowan, said, "The next phase will
provide the city with a fully web-enabled implementation
system.