Lewisham Council has received a Microsoft business award for use of environmentally-friendly mobile phone technology.
The awards, by Microsoft UK Ltd, are part of their People Moving Business Awards, which recognises organisations that are using mobile technology to enhance their businesses. Lewisham received an award for Contribution to the Environment through use of Mobile Technology.
Three years ago Lewisham Council was faced with having to look at ways to keep costs down, while still maintaining an efficient and reliable service for local residents. The Council needed to vacate two of its depots to cut costs and was also looking for a more reliable way of ensuring repair and maintenance jobs for council tenants.
The solution lay in the introduction of a new system that was introduced to Lewisham’s 200 maintenance fieldworkers team. All staff were issued with a PDA (a handheld computer) that enables staff to receive notification of jobs without having to return to the depot to collect paper copies.
Lesley Seary, Executive Director for Customer Services said, “Winning this business accolade is recognition that Lewisham leads the way in implementing innovative ideas that deliver practical management solutions. The system enables us to provide a better service to residents by providing faster response times, our staff spend less time travelling to and from the office, and they have all their jobs logged in one central, easy to access place. In addition it has enabled the Council to deliver real monetary savings at the same time as cutting our carbon footprint.”
The new system has led to a wide range of benefits. The consolidation of the depot network has led to significant energy savings for the Council. Fieldworkers are no longer travelling to and from the depot every day, which has reduced fuel costs. The use of PDAs to receive job information has also led to a large reduction in the use of paper. With fuel costs reduced by £5,500 per annum and paper costs by £6,000 per annum, Lewisham has lowered its carbon footprint by 18.2 metric tonnes per annum.
The system has also had direct business benefits; staff productivity has increased and margins of error have decreased. Tenants are receiving a better quality service since response times are now shorter (maximum of 10 - 15 minutes). Fieldworkers are so enjoying using their mobile devices they are using them for email, calendar and diary management, cutting down paper usage even further.
Staff from Lewisham Council received the award at a ceremony organised by Microsoft on 4 September at the new Wembley Stadium.