The London Borough of Brent is working on a project to
provide a single view of residents' data which will allow the
council to improve customer service and the overall accuracy of
council records.
When complete in November, the project will allow Brent to
conduct customer profiling in order to improve council services and
offer additional services to residents. It will also help Brent
comply with the Data Protection Act, which requires that
information stored on an individual should be accurate.
Northgate, which is being implemented the project, will be using
the Identity Hub tool from Initiate Systems to build a master
database from the core council IT systems including the CRM,
housing, benefits, adults, council tax, children services,
electoral register, e-forms and library systems.
Tony Ellis, head of ICT at Brent, said the council was keen to
store accurate records but keeping records up to date was proving
difficult as each of the main IT systems used by Brent had its own
customer records. "We did not have joined up cross council
information on our customers, everything was in its own silo."
The project has involved mapping out which systems hold the most
accurate information. Customer data is extracted from the nine core
council systems each night. The Initiate tool then matches customer
records from each of these systems and links them together to form
a master index of all customer information called the Client Index.
Aside from building the master customer record the project also
includes identifying change of circumstances eg change of address
that have been recorded on council systems. All changes are passed
back to council departments to ensure their systems are kept up to
date.
Once stage one of the project has been completed in November,
Ellis said the council will be able to use this master index as the
customer database for its
Onyx CRM system. He expects this will improve customer service
as users will not need to search multiple systems in order to
respond to a customer enquiry.