FCO: Increasing speed of service in a secure environment
“From the outset we were impressed by CASE Manager. The FCO required a globally secure, agile and reliable data handling system, compatible with other secure Government systems. IIZUKA took the time to understand our needs, worked collaboratively with us and delivered within a challenging timescale.”
Project Manager, FCO
The legalisation team at the FCO checks the validity of official documents such as birth and marriage certificates by comparing the signature against official records. They then certify it as genuine by attaching an official stamp, or apostille. They deal with more than 1,000 requests every day; the highest volume service in the Government department.
The issues
Due to the high volume of requests, the service needs to be as fast and efficient as possible and flexible enough to cope with potential increases in demand.
Requests come in through the website for return by courier, through a walk-in counter service and, for business customers, through a high volume drop off service, so any solution needed to manage all three.
The FCO also required a secure way of storing and searching millions of public officials’ signatures within the system. In addition, the solution needed to integrate with public websites, payment solutions and courier delivery systems.
The Solution: Case Manager
Case Manager was configured to integrate with the Gov.uk website, where customers could apply for the service and pay the required fee. Once an application is made, the data flows into Case Manager, with its automated workflow features.
IIZUKA worked with Folding Space, a specialist document storage company to integrate their software, so that Case Manager provided the appropriate level of document verification security to allow the FCO to authorise signatures and apply seals through an online portal, making the process of legalising documents quicker and simpler, while ensuring all documentation remained secure.
The portal makes it easy to search millions of signatures and quickly check whether the signature on the document is official.
Client feedback
The new system has resulted in fantastic efficiency savings. David Rolph, Deputy Head of Legalisation Services said:
“With Case Manager, we’ve achieved a 30% efficiency saving compared to our previous process. The system is secure, reliable and easy to use and is allowing us to process more requests in a faster time. Customers are benefiting from an improved service due to the integration of all the background systems.
Despite the complex nature of the service, implementation was relatively simple. The team at IIZUKA were helpful and responsive and worked with us to make sure the system did exactly what we needed it to.”
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