Anti-Social Behaviour Software Action Plan and Client Incident Reporting - Phase 3 of the SMS Project
Enfield Council, in North London, has now gone live with Phase 3 of the SMS Client-Reporting project which is to set Client-Expectations by sending the Action Plan by SMS (text) message, and then give them the opportunity to report further incidents by providing a link to an Incident Reporting form.
The Action Plan SMS is a highly compressed version of the Caseworks Page, but nevertheless provides a list of the actions to be carried out on the Case, the due date of each, and the person (member of staff or client) responsible for each stage. Users can re-edit the plan before sending, and then just click Send via SMS and it goes immediately. The Client who receives the SMS need only click on the hyperlink on the text and a Form (generated by Microsoft Forms) allows them to select the Incident Types, enter a description of the problem and the name and address of any known offenders. When they click the Submit button, the information is returned to the Caseworks system and a new Incident Record is added to their case. This creates an Alert for the Caseworker, and is added to their Caseload of outstanding issues. The Caseworker must review the newly received information and authorise the addition of any new persons to the system.
The Incident reporting form matches the Incident Page used by staff, but the wording of some of the items has been improved to make it more accessible to the public, and the structure of the Form allows the Client to initially choose the type of problem, and then to define its exact nature. The means that no Client will ever have to scroll through the very long list of Incident Options held in the Caseworks Anti Social Behaviour System. The structure also ensures the relevance of each question, so that no Client will be asked if an environmental issue like “Litter” is part of a Hate Crime, but this question will be asked if the main issue is personal bullying or harassment.
The new SMS system is a very quick and easy replacement of the old-fashioned “Incident Diary” form, frequently handed out as a piece of paper at receptions and frequently returned so late as to be almost useless. We will report in this blog, what the uptake has been on all the SMS facilities now in user at the London Borough of Enfield.