Aberdeen City Council Encourages Remote Working with WinScribe Digital Dictation System

Aberdeen City Council is a modern, forward thinking local authority, delivering a full range of essential services to the 212,000 citizens of Aberdeen. The Council works in partnership with a wide range of public, private and voluntary sector organisations in the city and beyond, and prides itself on achieving value for money. Since 2001, Aberdeen City Council has moved towards the provision of neighbourhood-based services intended to bring those services closer to the community.

Aberdeen City Council used the WinScribe digital dictation since 2001, starting  with a small pilot in Learning and Leisure Services.  WinScribe has now been adopted as a corporate dictation product and offered to services across the Council with a significant uptake. Winscribe is installed in all Neighbourhood Services (North, Central and South), Environment and Infrastructure Services, City Development Services Community Services, and Finance and ICT Services. There was particular interest in the product in Legal and Democratic Services, where it replaced old dictation tape technology.

Increased Efficiency

WinScribe products streamline the dictation, transcription and workflow management process, providing the Council with a cost-effective and time-efficient solution.  The customisable software solutions also support independent devices from other manufactures.

“The software was installed easily, with minimal disruption.  Employees embraced the system - they only required basic training - and all grasped the concept very quickly.  The system has been gradually rolled out to a wider network of users,” said Sheila Joiner, Project Leader, Aberdeen City Council.

“The system has increased the manageability of overall workflow for both authors and typists. The latter are now able to view their work from a job queue, allowing them to see urgent work as well as the job type (letter, report etc,). “Typists have greater control over their workload and as a result, are able to manage their tasks more effectively,” explained Joiner.

Going Mobile

The Council currently has a mobile working initiative in place, in order to get staff out and about amongst the local community. WinScribe Anywhere has helped facilitate this for the Council, as authors can record and download dictation from anywhere at any time without the need for access to a PC.

“We are confident that the system can offer further benefits to even more users throughout the Authority and we’ll be looking to extend ‘roll-out’ when practicable, especially with the increased number of remote workers.

“Ultimately, the Council’s purpose is to provide the best possible service to its citizens.  WinScribe has helped officers to do this, and for this reason it has proven to be a benefit to the Authority, ” concluded Joiner.

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