The Scottish Borders Council is the unitary authority for the Scottish Borders, an area covering over 1,800 square miles of beautiful scenery and home to over 106,000 people. One of the many responsibilities of the Council's department of Social Work is the management of offenders who are subject to a broad range of compulsory supervision.

Business Issues

Growing numbers of cases of offenders, which are managed by the Criminal Justice Social Work Team, provide a complex situation where large amounts of data need to be accessible concurrently by a variety of different functions within the department.

  • Social Workers for example need to evaluate how well offenders are keeping to statutory supervision conditions.
  • Co-coordinators need to decide what needs to be done, when, and by whom in order that allocation of cases, risk assessment and case reviews can be planned.
  • Team leaders need to access information in order that management reports are available to summarise case loading, scheduling and a variety of statistical data.

CAS solution

The application, written in MS ACCESS, manages data regarding the broad range of statutory functions including Diversion, Assessment reports to Court, Probation, Community Service and Supervised Attendance. This allows staff from different disciplines to co-ordinate, plan and manage large case-loads. CAS provides annual support for the system and, as needs change, updates the system to provide a better Criminal Justice Management System for use by members of the Social Work department.

Benefits

Benefits experienced include:-

  • Case load scheduling improves productivity
  • Improved communication between various functions allows for better case management
  • Management reports highlight areas where service delivery is falling short of Key Performance Indicators
  • Security access for different staff members ensures that data is only available to those who should see it

"CAS have provided a high quality support service through the technically challenging replication trial which enabled us to evaluate the system fully prior to deployment. CAS continues to provide timely and technically competent support for the application itself."

Elaine McKinney, Information Systems Manager of the Social Work Department.