C
REPORT OF: HEAD OF CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT
AUTHOR: FIONA CULLEN
TELEPHONE: 01737 276296
E-MAIL: [email protected]
TO: EXECUTIVE
DATE: 13 JULY 2006
EXECUTIVE MEMBER: COUNCILLOR J.M. ELLACOTT
AGENDA ITEM NO: 7 KEY DECISION REQUIRED: YES
WARD(S) AFFECTED: ALL
SUBJECT: INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
PURPOSE OF THE REPORT: TO CONSIDER ADOPTING AN INFORMATION
AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT STRATEGY FOR THE COUNCIL.
RECOMMENDATION:
1. To adopt the Information & Knowledge Management Strategy as set out at Annex 1 to the report.
Executive has authority to determine the above recommendation.
Background
1. Effective information and knowledge management is required to support the way the Council wishes to work in the future. The development of systems and processes for the sharing and retrieving of information is a key building block for organisational change.
2. The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) has also brought the issue of effective Information Management to the fore within public bodies, as information should be easy to locate and retrieve in order that requests are responded to within the required 20 working days.
3. The Council currently has a framework in place to handle information requests. However, in order to comply fully with the Act and reduce risk to the organisation, a formal records management policy and records retention schedule must be developed.
5. The Information and Knowledge Management Strategy provides a framework for Information Management within the Council and outlines the initial work needed during 2006/07 to form the building blocks for more effective and robust records and knowledge management in the future.
Statutory Powers
6. Various ‘Access to Information’ legislation including the Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection Act and the Environmental Information Regulations require the Council to provide information upon request within certain timescales.
7. As required under Section 46 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Lord Chancellor has issued a Code of Practice for Records Management in public authorities.
Factors for Consideration
8. There is currently no centralised corporate Information or Knowledge Management Strategy in place. Service Units are responsible for creating and maintaining their own information. As a result, there is limited coherence or consistency in the creation, storage and use of information.
9. An Information and Knowledge Management Strategy and Action Plan has been devised (attached in Annex 1) the purpose of which is to put in place a framework to help ensure that:
• we know what information the Council holds at a corporate level • information is always available and is reliable
• there is a reduction in duplication of information stored
• information is disposed of and archived in a controlled manner.
10. The high level objective of the Council’s Information and Knowledge Management Strategy is to develop our existing technologies to create an easily accessible, centralised corporate library of information assets, collective knowledge and good practice principally through the intranet.
11. In addition, it is proposed that an Information Asset Register is developed with accompanying Records Retention Schedules so that we know what information we hold and how long it should be retained.
As a consequence:
• information used to make decisions will be more robust as the Council will have an easily accessible evidence base
• less time will be spent searching for information
• the Council will comply fully with the Freedom of Information Act Code of Practice for Records Management.
12. The emphasis during 2006/07 is on the management of information along with a building block project to develop our intranet as a knowledge management tool. Further knowledge management initiatives will be developed during 2007/08.
Options
13. To adopt or amend the Information and Knowledge Management Strategy as set out in Annex 1.
Resource Implications
14. The projects arising out of the Information and Knowledge Management Strategy will be fully scoped and costed using the Council’s Project Management Methodology. Budgetary provision has been made in the Capital Programme as part of the Value for Money theme in the 2006/09 Corporate Plan.
Legal Implications
15. There are no legal implications arising directly from this report. Consultation
16. The Executive Member for Partnership and Community Liaison, with responsibility for Access to Information, has been consulted on proposed Strategy. The outline proposals have been considered by the Value for Money Policy Development Group as part of the development of the Strategic Action Plan. The draft Plan has been approved by the Executive for consultation. The Overview and Scrutiny Committee Chairman has indicated that the Committee does not wish to review this policy prior to consideration by the Executive.
Policy Framework
17. The Corporate Plan Value for Money theme includes a priority to develop and implement an Information and Knowledge Management Strategy and to adopt a common records management system across the organisation. The Strategy sets out the priorities and general direction for this stream of work. The Information and Knowledge Management Strategy is a level 3 policy in the context of the Council’s Policy Framework and therefore may be approved by the Executive.
Conclusions
19. Records Management Policy and accompanying procedures must be devised to address the pressing issue of uncontrolled information growth through the controlled and systematic storage, retention and disposal of records.
20. The short to medium term projects arising from the Information and Knowledge Management Strategy will provide the building blocks for effective and efficient management of information and lay the foundations for longer-term information and knowledge initiatives.
Background Papers: Information and Knowledge Management Strategy 2006 – 2007
Information and Knowledge Management Strategy
2006 – 2007
Introduction/ Foreword
The Corporate Plan Value for Money theme includes a priority to develop and implement an Information and Knowledge Management Strategy and to adopt a common records management system across the organisation.
As an Information and knowledge rich organisation, the Council needs to create the channels, policies and systems which will enable the:
• one time capture of information and knowledge which is used many times • consistent and accurate storage of information and knowledge
• quick and easy retrieval and sharing of information and knowledge.
This paper sets out Reigate & Banstead Borough Council’s strategy and action plan for 2006/07 detailing a range of short to medium term initiatives to help us manage our valuable information and knowledge assets.
Before reading this document, it is may be helpful to refer to the ‘Glossary of Terms’ in Section 6.
The emphasis during 2006/07 is on the management of information along with a building block project to develop our intranet as a knowledge management tool. Further knowledge management initiatives will be developed during 2007/08.
The Council’s Vision for Information & Knowledge Management
The ultimate vision for information management within Council is that information is: • captured at the point of creation and stored in a centralised corporate library • tagged with the relevant metadata for easy retrieval and cross referencing • assigned security permissions and version controlled
• retained and disposed of in a controlled manner
and that knowledge is mobilised - shared within teams, across Service Units, and corporately and with partners.
We must build on our know-how to avoid duplication of effort and share good practice with each other. This will help us:
• improve efficiency, effectiveness and service delivery
• inform the corporate planning process through a centralised evidence base • comply fully with the Freedom of Information Act
However, this will be a long journey and therefore our strategy for 2006-07 is to lay the foundations for good information and knowledge management by embarking on some short to medium term initiatives to help us realise our ultimate vision.
Our current priority is to find out what information is held across the Council and to develop our existing technology to help us manage it as far as possible. Ultimately, we will need to invest in an Electronic Records Management solution but this is at least three years away.
In the meantime, we will develop our web Content Management System and intranet to create an easily accessible corporate information library and knowledge base.
Section One: Setting the Scene
There are a number of local and national drivers that make it necessary for the Council to develop and implement an Information and Knowledge Management Strategy:
National Policy
E-Government Agenda and Gershon
The E-Government programme has enabled the Council to invest in new information technology for web content management, geographic information and front and back office systems integration.
The Gershon Efficiency Review is now looking for returns on that investment through the exploitation of these systems to deliver efficiency gains which can be re-invested to deliver further efficiencies.
Access to Information Legislation
Various ‘Access to Information’ legislation including the Freedom of Information Act, the Data Protection Act and the Environmental Information Regulations, require the Council to provide information upon request and within certain timescales.
The Council currently has a framework in place to handle information requests. However, in order to comply fully with information legislation codes of practice and reduce risk to the organisation, we need to have a formal records management policy and records retention schedules in place.
European Directive on the Re-use of Public Sector Information
As of July 2005, public sector bodies were required to make their non-personal information available to the private sector for publication to a wider audience. Under the Directive, the Council is required to produce an Information Asset List showing the main categories of published and unpublished documents available.
Local drivers
Corporate and Community Planning
A centralised information repository will provide the Council with a powerful evidence base to support the development of the Corporate and Community Plans and
enhance service delivery. Partnership working
The Council needs to establish protocols for sharing Information with our public, voluntary and community sector partners to support them in their decision making and to add to our own evidence base.
Shared and local drives
There is a great deal of information stored within departments’ local shared drives and within the Council-wide ‘Corp Docs’ folder. Corp Docs is a repository of corporate information which can be accessed by all staff. It is estimated that Corp Docs currently contains 2,600 folders and 20,000 files. This is not a sustainable way to manage corporate information as there is no search facility, cross-referencing, version control or security in place.
Enablers
The Council has already invested in technologies that provide us with some powerful building blocks for Information and Knowledge Management:
Content Management System (CMS) and Intranet
The Council’s Tridion Content Management System allows us to store digital content such as web pages, documents and images within a central database repository and publish them to our website, members’ extranet and staff intranet.
Geographical Information
The Council has invested in technology to enable geographical information to become a corporate-wide information management tool. There are currently around 200 spatial layers available. Once this technology is fully implemented, our
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) will enable detailed analysis of spatial data via the intranet and will become one of the Council’s most powerful knowledge management assets.
Synergy and Local Land and Property Gazetteer
Synergy is a systems integration and business process re-engineering initiative that will deliver efficiency savings and improve customer service. Synergy enables the Customer Services team to access a range of different back office systems through one web portal.
The Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) is the Council’s definitive list of all property and land address within the Borough.
The LLPG is an integral part of Synergy as it enables all information about a property or piece of land to be retrieved from all the Council’s back office systems. This knowledge will then be used to provide a more joined up approach to service delivery.
Section Two: Current Situation
There is currently no centralised corporate Information or Knowledge Management Strategy in place. Service Units create and maintain their own information and, in some cases, do not share it with others. There is limited coherence or consistency in the creation, storage and use of information.
This strategy aims put in place a framework to ensure that:
• we know what information the Council holds at a corporate level • information is always available and is reliable
• there is a reduction in duplication of information stored
• information is disposed of and archived in a controlled manner • our tacit know-how is captured and exploited
as a consequence:
• information used to make decisions will be more robust as the Council will have an easily accessible evidence base
• less time will be spent searching for information
• office space requirements and space on the Council’s IT servers will be reduced
• the Council will comply fully with the Freedom of Information Act Code of Practice for Records Management
• the Council will retain its corporate memory.
Section Three: Strategy
The Council’s Information and Knowledge Management Strategy for 2006-07 is to develop our existing Content Management System (CMS) and intranet to:
• create an easily accessible, centralised corporate library of information assets, collective knowledge and good practice.
• develop an Information Asset Register and put in place Records
Retention Schedules and an accompanying Records Management Policy.
The Strategy has three interlinking themes. • Records Management
• Content Management • Geographical Information
The resulting projects will be supported by communications plans to ensure that the required culture change takes place to underpin our initiatives. Staff will need to be provided with the training and support necessary for their individual contributions. Consultation will take place to shape these themes and detailed Project Identification Documents and Project Briefs for each developed.
It is important to note that the focus for the 2006/07 will be on information management as this is a core building block for knowledge management. In addition, the Council has certain information management priorities due to the need to meet the requirements of ‘Access to Information’ legislation.
Our initial knowledge management work during 2006/07 will be to move towards the codification of what we already know, i.e. our explicit knowledge. From 2007/08, we will look at how we can use other knowledge management initiatives to help support the delivery of the 2006-09 Corporate Plan by making better use of the tacit knowledge that Officers possess.
Records Management
In order to comply fully with FOI and other ‘Access to information’ legislation the Council must develop a Records Retention Schedule with an accompanying policy and implement it. To help us answer information requests within the required timescales, we need to know what information we hold and be able to locate it quickly.
The Council also needs to update its FOI Publication Scheme and produce an Information Asset List to meet the European Directive on the Re-use of Public Sector Information.
We will undertake an information review to find out: • what we’ve got
• where it is • why we have it • who owns it • its purpose
• how long we need to keep it for.
This will also provide the foundations for the development of a corporate library of information and help inform the next steps we need to take towards this goal.
Content Management
We must exploit the capabilities of our web Content Management System (CMS) to ensure that the intranet becomes a central repository of information and a
personalised one-stop gateway to the information and other resources that staff need to do their jobs.
The objective is that an individual is able to search for and retrieve the information the Council holds on a certain subject and be signposted to other information related to that subject.
There are three categories of intranet content: • Corporate information
• Staff information • Team information Corporate Information
The CMS will become the centralised library of corporate information such as policy documents, legislation, surveys, reports, performance issues, community liaison intelligence, press releases and information from sources outside the Council.
Where appropriate, our information and knowledge assets will be migrated from their various locations and into the CMS where they will have owners who are
accountable for them.
The Information Review will enable us to identify classes of corporate information which would be suitable for migration to the Content Management System for access via the intranet.
Staff Information
Staff information is relevant to all staff regardless of the job they do. It includes internal communications such as news items along with information from services such as Personnel, Training, Facilities, Business Solutions, Communications Finance and Corporate Development.
The intranet is our primary staff communication mechanism and an improvement in the quality of this medium will enhance the way we use it to communicate.
In the future, we will capture and share knowledge using the intranet through tactics such as online collaboration and managed discussion forums.
Team Information
This type of information relates to the work of a particular team. Each team will have its own personalised menu which lists all the processes they carry out in their work. Every process will have a web landing page giving a quick guide to carrying out the process accompanied by links to the resources available to help perform that
process such as the as full procedures, forms, tools, templates, contact lists and related processes.
Geographical Information
As one of our most powerful knowledge management tools, we must ensure that we fully exploit geographical information.
The presentation of data and information from both the Council and external bodies via GIS will provide us with a powerful evidence base for policy making and service planning and delivery.
We will develop a roadmap for the implementation of GIS across the Council. The Roadmap will identify our current position, including software and existing
capabilities. We will then map out future requirements that are needed to link into other projects such as Synergy and enable us to fulfil future expectations to inform Local Community Action Plans and other Corporate Plan priority areas.
The following section details the 2006/07 high-level action plan for the themes outlined above.
Section Four: Action Plan
Action Plan 2006- 2007
Further scoping out of these themes and the work involved is the focus for 2006/07 The high-level action plan overleaf outlines the key actions required to enable full strategies and projects for each theme to be developed. The information review that will enable the creation of records retention schedules will further inform our wider information management requirements.
Information and Knowledge Management Strategy – Action Plan 2006-2007
KEY ACTIONS/PROJECTS TARGETS/MILESTONES KEY MEASURES OF SUCCESS
Records Management
• Establish central co-ordination for FOI, DPA, EIR and PSI and develop an internal induction programme.
• Conduct information review.
• Devise and execute internal communications plan for initiative. • Create Information Asset Register.
• Use information review results to identify classes of information not exempt under FOI or DPA.
• Create new Publication Scheme and publish on web site.
• Use information review results to identify information assets that could be commercially re-used.
• Access to Information training programme in place for staff.
Pilot Information Review complete – Q4 05/06
Central co-ordination for Information legislation requirements set up and devising processes – Q2 06/07 Initial Information Review complete and updated Information Asset Register produced – Q2 06/07 New Publication Scheme sent to Information Commissioner – Q3 06/07 Access to Information training
programme in place for staff from – Q1 06/07
Managers informed about information review initiative and participating appropriately Updated Information Asset List produced.
FOI Publication scheme updated, approved by
Information Commissioner and published to the website, including PSI information.
• Devise PID/Project brief for Records Management project • Obtain RM resource
• Set up Records Management Taskforce of key officers from each Service Unit • Devise and agree Corporate Retention requirements.
• Devise and produce Records Retention Schedules • Devise and produce Records Management policy
RM PID/Project Brief produced – Q2 06/07
Obtain RM Resource – Q2 06/07 Begin devising Retention Schedules for Service Unit records – Q3 06/07
PID/Project Brief approved for implementation.
Records Management Taskforce actively contributing to the development of Records Management Policy.
Information and Knowledge Management Strategy – Action Plan 2006-2007
KEY ACTIONS/PROJECTS TARGETS/MILESTONES KEY MEASURES OF SUCCESS
Records Management Policy devised and published – Q3 06/07
Records Management Policy and Retention Schedule produced, implemented and actively followed by Staff. All staff trained in Records Management policy and procedure.
Content Management
Corporate Information
• Set up an ‘Evidence base’’ team of representatives from Corporate Planning, Community Initiatives and Policy to inform contents and set up of corporate evidence base.
• Use info review to identify classes and locations of ‘corporate’ type information. • Hold consultation workshops with other staff to explore concept further.
• Investigate similar initiatives at other Local Authorities.
• Devise strategy for next steps in light of the above and devise a Strategy and Project Brief /PID for the work and resources needed.
‘Evidence base’ contents and other sources of corporate information identified – Q4 05/06.
Issues and options paper detailing requirements and potential solutions for VFM Board – Q1 06/07
Corporate Information and Evidence Base Strategy and Project Brief/PID devised, agreed and ready for implementation.
Staff Information
• Review current intranet content, design and navigation and make proposals for improvements.
• Consult with Information Champions regarding intranet improvements.
• Review the role of the intranet as an internal communications mechanism and devise tactics to raise its profile and encourage business units to contribute regular news items.
Initial improvements to intranet content, design and navigation identified and implemented - Q2 06/07
First round of intranet content, design and navigation
improvements in place and well received by staff.
All staff checking the intranet daily for new internal
Information and Knowledge Management Strategy – Action Plan 2006-2007
KEY ACTIONS/PROJECTS TARGETS/MILESTONES KEY MEASURES OF SUCCESS
• Set up content improvement project teams within Personnel and Support Services, Communications, Finance, Business Solutions, Corporate Development and other staff facing units.
and content.
All staff facing units have improved their content. Team Information
• Work with Business Solutions to explore Novell capabilities for personalising the intranet.
• Prepare an issues and options paper
Work with Business Solutions to explore personalising the intranet and timescales to do so – Q4 06/07
Issues and Options paper for a personalised intranet.
Geographical Information
• Produce roadmap for further implementation of current Browser GIS project. • Consult with Officers regarding Enterprise GIS requirements and devise strategy for
development and roll-out of Enterprise GIS.
Roadmap for short-medium term further deployment of Browser GIS devised with clear targets and timescales – Q2 06/07. Strategy for further rollout of Enterprise GIS and links with
corporate Evidence base devised –Q4 06/07
Enterprise GIS Strategy devised and approved.
Knowledge Managment
• Develop a strategy for a Knowledge Management programme to support the Council’s corporate plan.
Strategy for Knowledge Management initiated – Q1 07/08
KM Strategy developed and approved,
Section Five : Resources
The projects arising out of the Information and Knowledge Management Strategy will be fully scoped and costed using the Council’s Project Management Methodology. Project Briefs and Initiation Documents will be produced stating resources required.
Budgetary provision has been made in the Capital Programme as part of the Value for Money theme in the 2006/09 Corporate Plan.
Section Six: Glossary of terms
Information – information is data which has been interpreted and given meaning. Information may be structured i.e. within a database or filing system or unstructured i.e. documents on shared drives or email messages.
Information Management - the means by which an organisation efficiently plans, collects, creates, organises, uses, controls, disseminates and disposes of its information; and through which it ensures that the value of that information is identified and exploited to the support of its internal operations and its service delivery functions. (Office of Government Commerce) Knowledge – knowledge is created by making use of information so that some form of action can be taken. It is created by people and reflects their experience, learning and understanding. Knowledge can be summed up as ‘know-how’.
Knowledge Management – the creation and management of an environment that
encourages knowledge to be created, shared, learnt, enhanced, organised and exploited for the benefit of the organisation and its customers. (IDeA)
Record - any information created, received and maintained as evidence and information by the organisation and its employees in pursuance of its legal obligations and business
transactions. (ISO 15489).
Records Management - the efficient and systematic control of the creation, receipt, maintenance, storage, use and disposition (destruction) of records. (ISO 15489).
