The Housing Department of Wandsworth Council operates a 24 hour 7 days a week emergency control room to provide centralised monitoring of incidents that occur in and around Wandsworth and may require rapid response by the council.
Wandsworth needed a solution that would ease the logging of incidents, automate key processes for response and enable comprehensive monitoring and reporting on incidents, responses and activity.
The Challenge
The housing department realised that to be able to respond to the growing need for management information and statistics from Central Government and provide comprehensive emergency services, it needed to replace the 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.
The Solution
The Housing Department selected Dorset Software to develop a bespoke solution that would leverage its existing information systems and IT infrastructure, minimise the re-entry of data, automate email notifications, report on incident levels and provide comprehensive information and statistics to management. The Secure Incident Tracking Emergency Program (SITREP) was developed by Dorset software and deployed in the Wandsworth Emergency Control (WEC) and made available to management in the Housing Department. The solution was delivered on time and to the budget specified in the original tender.
The Benefits
SITREP has allowed Wandsworth to realise significant benefits. 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: Even if a Network or Server failure happens at the Council, Dorset Software had ensured that SITREP is always available to help provide emergency response to borough incidents. Dorset Software has developed a flexible and adaptable solution, which is capable of not only solving current problems but also of facilitating the growth requirements of the council.
The Future
The role of and reliance upon SITREP is growing. The council sees SITREP as a key part of the Housing Department's Emergency Response and future developments are planned. New modules already being developed by Dorset Software include one to deal with Anti-social Behaviour complaints and one to monitor calls related to lifts in council properties. Other modules are likely to follow, according to current priorities and dependent upon budget.
Technology Snapshot
SITREP was developed using Microsoft .NET technologies, connecting to a central MS SQL Server database
