Background
DfE receive up to
100,000 comments and enquiries from the public each year. Prior
to implementing an innovative computer programme, each email and
letter needed to be read by a staff member, logged onto a
database, and assigned to the appropriate team for a response.
This required hundreds of days of combined labour and meant staff
had less time to complete other tasks.
The knowledge asset solution
Aware of how Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is used in the private
sector and elsewhere in government to make decisions about data
handling, DfEinvestigated how the
technology could help them when it came to organising enquiries
from the public. They undertook work to programme a robot named
ARNOLD
– ‘Automated Robot Negating the Onerous Logging of Data’ – to
streamline some of their processes.
This was particularly challenging given that emails are
unstructured data, and people do not write in a standard way.
ARNOLD
scans the content of emails and follows a series of rules to
prioritise them based on potential risk. It then enters the data
into DfE’s
database. ARNOLD
has replaced the manual data entry of emails and letters from the
public, improving productivity and increasing efficiency.
Who has this helped?
- The public: DfE
have been able to reduce the time taken to respond to queries and
concerns from the public which means they can offer a more
efficient customer service.
-
DfE staff: The
use of the robot has freed up time for teams to focus on
learning and development.
What impact has this innovation had on the team?
Owen Roffe, Head of Digital Communications and Public Enquiries
at DfE, was
delighted that ARNOLD
was quickly seen as one of the team. “Everyone is clear about
roles and where technology plays its part,” he said. “The robot
has taken away the need for manual data entry, which was an area
where the team felt they added less value. As a result, they are
able to focus on more rewarding work, develop their skills and
provide a quicker service to customers.”
Next steps
ARNOLD
made an appearance at the Civil Service Live roadshow in the
summer of 2023 to showcase how data logging can be streamlined
and the benefit this knowledge asset might have for other
government departments. DfE is continuing to look at
different ways for how technology can improve efficiency to
benefit staff and the public.
