Margaret Ronayne, Admissions and Transport Manager from Surrey LEA, explains how Hometrack's SMART Online is helping them to meet e-government requirements.
History
In 1999, Surrey LEA realised the importance of moving towards e-government. However, when working with another software provider to produce an online admissions form, several problems were encountered such as legal timescales, ICT support and resources.
The project was therefore put on hold and revisited again in 2004. Surrey joined the West Sussex Consortium for Stage 1 of the e-Admissions National Project. The e-Admissions National Project is one of 22 e-Government projects, initiated by the ODPM to help local authorities with e-Government.
There was a requirement to work towards the minimum feature list which includes: online applications via transactional e-forms to cater for any school admissions application process managed by the LEA, and an email facility to deal with queries throughout the admissions process. Extended online admissions services could include a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) distance measuring service for the parents from home to school.
Solution
To meet the above requirements, Surrey developed their own online form and, in partnership with Hometrack, decided to offer an extended service (SMART Online) where parents could search for schools near their home address. Surrey LEA had used Hometrack's SMART desktop product for many years for admissions and transport routing and had confidence in Hometrack's software and development skills.
SMART Online is a web-based value-added service, which an LEA can make available to parents via the Council’s website to help them prepare for their child’s school admission process. It does not replace the LEA’s official admissions procedure. SMART Online enables parents to determine the nearest schools to their home. LEA’s can elect to show school distances either as-the-crow flies or along the road network, and school locations and routes can optionally be shown on a map. The added advantage is that map data from the LEA’s own GIS system can be utilised.
SMART Online will also show the catchment area or Admissions Priority Area of the chosen schools.
Benefits
- It is envisaged that applicants will be able to make more informed and educated decisions for school applications
- There is a potential for a substantial increase of efficiency of Council staff’s time and resources. The use of this tool by applicants will cut down on the number of phone calls with requests for nearest schools