THE Legal Services team at Nottinghamshire County Council’s will find out next month if it has won a second major national award for using new technology to revolutionise the way it operates and nearly halve its running costs.

The service has been shortlisted for a prestigious MJ (Municipal Journal) Award as local government’s Legal Services Team of the Year.

The accolade follows a similar shortlisting in the Driving Efficiency Through Technology category for the Local Government Chronicle LGC awards, where it was highly commended.

The nomination recognises the extensive work in changing the way the department operates, switching from mainly a paper-based system to integrated, digital solutions for managing documents, filing and communication.

The approach has led to significant financial savings, reducing the council’s expenditure on legal services by 46% in the last two years.

Complex child protection work to help vulnerable children has been brought back in-house — a move that looks likely to save £850,000 a year.

Working with the Nottinghamshire Family Courts Service, the council’s legal team has pioneered the introduction of electronic court bundles for use by judges and magistrates.

The electronic service for preparing court documents went live in January. All new cases conducted within magistrates’ courts are communicated and conducted electronically, replacing the previous system where paper bundles of documents of up to 15,000 pages were put together by hand for court cases.

The switch to the electronic system is a first for Family Courts in thie country and has attracted national interest.

Key changes included:

Scanning all incoming mail to create electronic documents.
Operating wholly electronic case files.
Standardising file saving and giving staff greater flexibility to work online from home or different sites
Using inexpensive, off-the-shelf software to create electronic court bundles without the need for printing and photocopying
Piloting the use of sending files securely by email.

The changes have reduced the number of photocopiers from four to one, meaning an 85% reduction in the amount of paper and toner cartridges used, and a 60% reduction in ‘back office’ administrative support.

Geoff Russell, team manager, litigation says: ““This is revolutionising the way that our Family Courts are run. There are tremendous benefits and savings for all parties, not to mention better outcomes for children and families as cases are conducted and heard in a more cost effective and efficient way.

“Changing the way we work has been hard work but the benefits are impressive, particularly the opportunity to reinvest some of the savings we have made which, in turn, yields furthers savings such as taking back in-house our specialist child protection legal work.”

Sorriya Richeux, team manager, Corporate and Environmental Law, said: “It’s been a real team effort to get here and our staff are just amazing. Without their resilience, willingness to embrace new concepts and at times, their patience, to take new ideas forward, this would not have been possible. I am delighted that our combined efforts are being recognised at a national level by the MJ.”

The winners of the MJ Awards will be revealed on 18th June.