Portsmouth City Council is using business process management (BPM) software to to adhere to the Freedom of Information Act.

The authority decided BPM technology would best ready its infrastructure to deal with ad-hoc requests for information from the public while minimising the impact of extra work on its administrative resources.

The council is using web-based workflow software from BPM supplier Metastorm that integrates with its existing helpdesk and call centre systems. It automatically assigns actions and queries based on pre-defined rules.

A dedicated team to handle all the requests that come in as a result of the new legislation.

'We wanted to make sure the resources used to answer requests didn't impact our existing organisation,' said Joy Shewring, Portsmouth assistant IT head.

As well as minimising the amount of extra resources the council needed to allocate to deal with the Act, the software is designed to reduce the likelihood of penalties for not processing information requests within the required 20-day response period.

'It was a major benefit being able to design the system and processes together,' said Shewring.

'The council's business processes led the design, which underpinned the process of dealing with requests.'