Toplevel BookingOffice to drive modernisation
at Conwy Registrars

Conwy County Borough Council has picked Toplevel BookingOffice to deliver a key element of a strategy to improve efficiency and quality of services offered by its Registration Unit. "We need to modernise how we deliver our service in-line with rising consumer expectations generally, but without losing the personal touch or reducing the level of service we currently provide," explains Bridget Jones, Business Registration Manager for Registration Services at Conwy. "With Toplevel BookingOffice, we will provide an even more efficient and accessible service to our customers”.

Covering an area stretching from the beautiful North Wales coast to the majesty of Snowdonia National Park, Conwy County Borough Council serves a thriving population of around 110,000. The council is currently re-organising its registration unit into a single district, and BookingOffice will enable that unified district to be administered centrally.

"We chose Toplevel BookingOffice for this project for several reasons," Jones says. "We were impressed by the professionalism of Toplevel's approach. We liked the capabilities of the BookingOffice software, which is one of the few systems out there that will meet with our requirements. And, with BookingOffice already being used by registration units in several other councils, we could leverage the expertise and development Toplevel had built up."

At present, registration officers in Conwy each run their own manual diaries, using a mix of paper records and the calendar facilities in Outlook. BookingOffice will allow officers to access colleagues' diaries, check their availability and arrange appointments when they are out of the office. In the longer term, BookingOffice will be integrated with the council's website to enable the public to request appointments online even when offices are closed.

BookingOffice will he used by Conwy to handle bookings for: notices of marriages and civil partnerships as well as ceremonies for marriages, civil partnerships, naming and renewal of vows; appointments for nationality checking and citizenship ceremonies; appointments for registrations of births and deaths, family history research and requests for copy certificates. BookingOffice will also handle room booking for various facilities managed by the council, and will be used to schedule registrars presiding at ceremonies away from their office base. Jones expects the system to handle in the region of 1500 appointments annually across the service.

BookingOffice will also provide the necessary management information for the council to report to the General Register Office as it moves to a self-assessment regime. “The system will produce reports which will be used to monitor our performance, standards, and continues improvement of our service to customers”.

In future, Conwy's BookingOffice may form the basis of a shared service centre used by registration units in several neighbouring authorities. "We are in talks with neighbouring Authorities about creating that shared service," Jones says. "We consider ourselves to be a progressive service and, as a busy unit, people look to us to be ahead of others in what we provide."