EHJ March 2004, pages 86-87
As the delivery date for stage one of the Parsol project fast approaches, EHJ reports on its online self-assessment

Environmental health departments are increasingly finding themselves swamped by paperwork as they face cutbacks in administrative staff and demands for information from government agencies. So it is heartening to report on an initiative that is designed to take the pressure off EHPs by cutting paperwork, as part of a strategy to deliver e-government by 2005.  

Wandsworth LBC is a lead authority on the planning and regulatory services online (Parsol) project which tackles regulation and licensing - one of four "streams" that make up the e-government initiative (EHJ, December 2003, pages 356-359).

The aim of this stream, likely to have the most impact on the profession, is to add planning to the wider regulatory and licensing process. It will provide a single IT link for businesses and individuals to local authority environmental health and trading standards departments, and to agencies such as the Food Standards Agency and the Health and Safety Executive.

Wandsworth LBC heads up several of the "stream four" components, including a self-assessment project which aims to provide traders and small businesses with multimedia assistance for self-assessing their businesses in areas such as hazard analysis, health and safety risk assessments, and houses in multiple occupation. The self-assessment group has developed website software to run the self-assessment, which will soon be available for other local authorities to use free of charge on their council websites.

According to Marie Whitbread, assistant head of environmental services at Wandsworth LBC and lead on the project, the self-assessment grew out of an alternative method of food and HMO inspections. This entailed sending paper questionnaires to low risk businesses asking them to provided details on their compliance with the legislation, which was assessed by EHPs in the relevant sections.

This approach has been piloted by several authorities and it seemed natural to extend it to the online self-assessment project, says Ms Whitbread. However, instead of asking businesses to send their paperwork back to the council to assess whether a business met the required standards, the idea was that businesses should be able to assess themselves.

By offering a service online, where businesses could access information on current legal requirements for food safety, health and safety and HMOs, they would then be able to decide if their business met the required standards. In cases where they did not, the self-assessment would tell them what they needed to do to bring their business up to standard.

However, it is not only businesses that Wandsworth LBC believes can benefit from the self-assessment approach. It is also anticipated that the project will be a significant labour saver for local authorities. If businesses can be encouraged to use the online self-assessment, local authority workloads could be substantially reduced, for example, less time spent chasing up and returning paperwork to local businesses. This would free up valuable officer time, enabling environmental and trading standards officers to focus entirely on their specialist areas. The online service could also strengthen communication between businesses and their local authority.

As Ms Whitbread points out, however, there is no requirement for a business to submit its self-assessment to the local authority once it has been completed. Even so, the self-assessment is still useful as an educational tool. As she explains, the theory behind the project is to encourage businesses to be responsible for getting their businesses up to standard. The self-assessment would not replace inspections, rather it would complement them.

The delivery date for the first stage of Parsol is 31 March, which is when Wandsworth LBC plans to roll out the self-assessment project. The project comprises three products or deliverables, which have been developed to help local authorities set up the service on their websites.

The first product is the process map and supporting documentation for each of the self-assessment areas - health and safety, food safety and HMOs. The maps are essentially question and answer forms which provide businesses with detailed information on what actions they need to undertake to meet the required standards.

The second product is the software that local authorities need to upload and run the assessment forms on their individual websites. Wandsworth LBC is currently working with two London authorities - Enfield and Westminster - and with Macclesfield DC to trial the software before it goes live. Representatives from four London authorities as well as representatives from the FSA and the Department of Trade and Industry were on hand last month to demonstrate the project at a workshop to decide the final structure for deliverables.

The third product is a CD-Rom of the assessment procedure. This information is static, as it only covers existing legislation. Individual local authorities would need to update this information whenever new legislation is introduced.

In addition to the deliverables, Parsol is producing several toolkits to help local authorities start up the self-assessment. These will comprise an IT toolkit explaining the software needed to upload the assessment forms onto council websites, and a technical toolkit explaining what is in the product. There will also be toolkits to explain how to implement the self-assessment and how to use it.

The key challenge is encouraging the end user to take up the service. Last month, Wandsworth LBC carried out a survey of small businesses in the borough. Preliminary findings showed that most had limited, if any, access to computers and the internet. The council hopes that, once local authorities have taken the project on board, they will make the self-assessment more accessible to small businesses and trades by providing IT facilities in council libraries and town centres.

Wandsworth LBC is holding a two-day workshop in Tooting for small- to medium-sized businesses later this month to trial the software and to find out how easy it is for businesses to use. The council intends to use feedback from the event to improve the usability of the self-assessment before it goes live.

The self-assessment project has been funded entirely by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, but this support is about to end. As Ms Whitbread explains, there are currently no plans for the ODPM to provide additional funding to help communicate the project to end users once the service goes online. Unless funding is forthcoming, Parsol will have to look at other ways to promote self-assessment in the community.

The environmental health department at Wandsworth LBC is already planning to use the self-assessment with its training courses to raise awareness of the service out in the community.

On a larger scale, says Ms Whitbread, EHPs and town centre managers could promote the service during inspections and visits and offer help with using it. The project is in its early stages but it clearly has the potential to greatly assist local authorities in their work.

For further information about the self-assessment project, e-mail Marie Whitbread at: mwhitbread@wandsworth.gov.uk  or tel: 020 8871 6145. Alternatively, e-mail Phil Carr, self-assessment project manager, at: pcarr@wandsworth.gov.uk