Wandsworth Borough Council

The Housing Department of Wandsworth Borough Council operates a 24/7 emergency control room to provide centralised monitoring of incidents that occur in and around Wandsworth.

Utilising outdated and disparate systems, it realised that to improve productivity through increasing the availability of information and statistics, and to enhance visibility of incidents, responses and response times, a new solution had to be found.

Wandsworth Council Housing Department realised that to be able to respond to the growing need for management information and statistics from Central Government, enhance the visibility of incidents and provide comprehensive emergency services, it needed to replace its ageing combination of systems with a single efficient application.

After initial research identified that an off-the-shelf package would not meet Wandsworth’s needs, a specification for a bespoke software solution was drawn up and subsequently put out to tender. A pressing time constraint of seven months was placed on both Wandsworth Borough Council and Dorset Software.

A key area of functionality in the new solution, SITREP, is to allow addresses entered by the control officers to be cross referenced with three other external systems. The integration is achieved by accessing external databases directly where possible but also by taking scheduled downloads of complete data on a regular basis.

Incident responses are also logged using SITREP. In depth analysis of the response times and actions performed at the scene is possible through SITREP reports. Information screens, continuously updated, allow management users to get an overall picture of control room activity.

Increases in productivity have been evident. More and better information is now readily available, enabling the council to quickly and accurately respond to Central Government’s changing needs for statistics and information.

The increased availability of information also offers enhanced visibility to aid management decision-making. The reliability of the solution is also paramount: Dorset Software has ensured that SITREP is always available to help provide emergency response to borough incidents. The solution is capable of not only solving current problems but also of facilitating the growth requirements of the council.

 

Technology Snapshot

SITREP was developed using Microsoft .NET technologies, connecting to a central MS SQL Server database.



 

“SITREP has exceeded our expectations. The system has proven to be much better than we ever imagined it would.”

Kevin Hayter, IT Project Manager, Wandsworth Borough Council