Summary of Key Issues

I have produced this summary as a result of the follow up I made in relation to the outcome of the review on the system.

Date Stamp

The review identified that the icasework system (previously called NSG system) was unable to amend the dates of a case that is logged on the system. After consultation with the icasework system administrator she identified that there is a facility to amend the date. The reason I requested this was twofold:

A request might be received by the authority but for whatever reason it may have not been logged on the due date, therefore there was potential to gain more days when dealing with a request.
A request may have been dealt with and finalised however the case may not have been closed down on the system properly, therefore suggesting we had responded out of time.

Comment: The issue regarding the date stamp was not due to the functionality of the system but lack of understanding by the staff using the system, however this has now been amended and staff are now aware of the procedures in relation to logging and closing cases accurately. Access to the changing of dates is restricted to key personnel to prevent abuse.

Templates

Due to a recent upgrade of the icasework templates are now available. I have not managed to progress this any further due to priorities being linked to compliance with requests.

Email Alerts

These are currently in place, however we also proactively monitor and pursue requests from the central Information Team.

Reports

I received an awareness training session from the System Administrator in how to manage the data within icasework this has now enabled a more intelligent approach to the management of requests.

Library Site

My understanding of this facility would allow access to FOI responses - obviously it would be redacted for 3^rd party information. This would enable greater transparency in what information we hold and is available. This is a facility I have put as a key objective to implement, however my main priority is the focus on the sustainability of compliance of responses to requests, it has to be identified that this will be a key facility once enabled.

Payment Facility

There had been a misunderstanding by the project leaders on this request, all I wanted to do was identify on the icasework system that the appropriate payment had been made in relation to subject access requests under the Data Protection Act 1998, there was no requirement for the icasework system to have the ability to interface with the corporate finance system. This has been identified icasework does have the facility to record payments against requests.

Housekeeping

This was not an issue of the system this was due to no agreed process in place for saving documents to the icasework system - this has now been resolved.

Summary

The main issues that had been identified were resolved once discussion took place with the system administrator.

To clarify the comment made in the Internal Audit Report that initiated your request regarding `issues with the NSG system' The icasework system had received a recent upgrade to the system, when Internal Audit requested some reports from the system it was identified that the upgrade had thrown some of the reports out of kilter, this was reported to the software supplier and the problem was subsequently fixed. At the time of the issue it was unclear at that stage how long would it take for the problem to be resolved.