Scottish Natural Heritage’s (SNH) is the government body formed to help care for, conserve and manage Scotland’s wildlife, habitats and landscape. Their primary role is to look after the natural heritage, help people to enjoy it, and encourage people to use it sustainably.
Much of SNH’s work is done in partnership with others – local authorities, Government bodies, businesses, community groups, farmers and other land managers, and a wide range of representative bodies. It operates nationally and locally through a number of “units”, with much of its day-to-day work being carried out by 11 area teams with offices throughout Scotland.
Its priorities are set out in a corporate strategy, which includes the development of policy, provision of grants, conducting research, providing advice and information, handling a wide range of casework, providing licenses and supporting interpretation. It also helps to implement a number of national strategies, such as the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy, which is seeks to reverse biodiversity loss in Scotland.
Improving Information Management
A critical part of SNH’s work is communication with a wide range of organisations and individuals to educate them on the importance of managing the natural environment properly, encouraging them to use it sustainably and supporting them in action. Information created and received from many sources needs to be effectively managed in order to use it in a meaningful way.
In 2005, SNH selected Objective to provide them with an electronic Records and Document Management (eRDM) system. As well as encouraging collaboration across the organisation and giving SNH the tools to be able to disseminate information more effectively, the system was also implemented to facilitate compliance with various Scottish Government information management initiatives.
Alan McKirdy, Head of Information Management, SNH explains: “We are in the information business. Everything we do and say has to be supported by up-to-date, accurate information. eRDM has helped us manage our information flow and ensure that all our records and documents, both high profile and routine, are readily accessible to all who need to consult them.”
Benefits Realised
SNH has developed a corporate memory, or repository, for all its documents, emails and records. This has been carefully structured in a very logical manner to align closely with the organisation, so fewer resources are required to manage the information, enabling this time and money to be re-allocated to areas of the organisation where they can add more value.
Used by all SNH staff across multiple locations, Objective has also driven significant improvements in operational effectiveness and collaboration, by allowing staff to have authorized access to appropriate information when they need it, Thereby, enabling SNH to deliver more effectively on its corporate and natural heritage goals.
Alan McKirdy explains why this is so important: “Part of our responsibility lies with monitoring the changing natural environment. We can only do this effectively if we preserve information in an accessible way, which has been a challenge for us in the past. Our Objective eRDM solution allows us to perform more effectively by managing information for the future and providing us with a complete corporate memory.”
Transparency with the general public
SNH is now using Objective to make all information, that is not confidential or subject to the Data Protection Act, available to the general public. It is well on the way to achieving this and has been hailed as an example of the way the Scottish public sector should become more transparent.
“Placing a greater emphasis on effective information management enhances the collaborative sharing of information both internally between different teams and externally with the general public. Enabling us to comply with Freedom of Information legislation and importantly, helping to improve the public’s perception of government handling of data,” continued Alan McKirdy.
Alan McKirdy concludes: “SNH is very proud of the progress we have made in making the majority of our information available to the public and pleased to be demonstrating transparency in dealing with our customers and the wider public. Our hope is that people will be able to use the information, see their natural environment anew and help support us in protecting it.”
BENEFITS AT A GLANCE
• Improved communication with external parties
• Increased opportunities to collaborate
• Reallocation of resources to value-added areas
• Improved corporate memory
• Protection of information for the future
• Ability to make information public-facing
• Enhanced corporate governance
