Southend-on-Sea City Council

Managed Print | Hybrid Mail | Cybersecurity

Local Government

Case Study | Southend-on-Sea City Council

Southend-on-Sea City Council has formed a strategic partnership with Ricoh and deployed a range of digital services to increase efficiency, make operations more sustainable, reduce costs and strengthen cyber-attack defences.

Executive Summary

Name	Southend-on-Sea City Council
Location	Southend, Essex, UK
Size	2,100 staff
Activity	Local government

Challenges

Support a ‘digital first strategy’ with service improvement
Rapidly increasing Cybersecurity threats
Make operations more sustainable
Replace slow, manual print and mail processes
Protect digital assets and information

Solution

Digital Services:

Managed Print Service
Hybrid Mail
Cybersecurity protection

Benefits

Supports councils drive to net zero by 2030
Reduces mail costs by 44%
Productivity up by 2 mins per person, per letter
Reduces postage costs
Cuts print volume from 3 to 1 million items a year
Print costs reduced by 17%
Makes print operations sustainable and energy efficient
Increases security and peace of mind
Supports local community social value

Case Study | Southend-on-Sea City Council

Challenges

When Southend-on-Sea became a City in 2022, it was a platform for the new City Council to develop a better, more inclusive environment for the City’s residents and visitors.

It prompted the council to develop a new strategy tasked with delivering several corporate priorities which include wise spending; digital-first investment; ensure services are diverse and high quality; security, and sustainability with the aim of becoming net zero by 2030. To help achieve these goals, Southend-on-Sea City Council has established key partnerships. One of the most significant is with Ricoh covering three key service areas: print, mail and cybersecurity.

Under a digital-first strategy, the council is using technology to transform the way it delivers services to the community. The council produces millions of documents every year for both internal administration and communicating with residents. To service this need, there is a reprographics centre and a network of printers across the city many of them old and not very eco-friendly.

Case Study | Southend-on-Sea City Council

The council wanted to streamline processes, reduce print volumes and steer staff towards producing and using more digital documents. As with print, the council was keen to make its mail operation less burdensome for staff and more cost-effective. These aspirations were focused on delivering best value and efficiency for city residents.

Digitisation is transformative; making services easier for people and staff to use. But digitisation also increases vulnerability to cyberattack as paper documents become electronic and information is held in computer systems, especially cloud applications.

Mark Crawshaw, security manager at the council, said, “Unlike many councils, Southend-on-Sea City Council has been lucky in that we have not suffered a major attack. Nevertheless, we get thousands of attempted attacks every month. We had 30,000 spam emails last month alone. It is a constant 24/7 threat for us. So we needed to layer up our defences to make sure we didn’t suffer an attack.”

One of the biggest threats for the council are invoices sent as email attachments. Because they are about money and often appear urgent, people are more likely to open or process them. Crawshaw mentioned one local council that suffered a ransomware attack and was still repairing the damage five years later.

The print services from Ricoh are vital to the council and services it delivers to the community. They are particularly important for regulatory services like printing and issuing births and marriage certificates and print devices in local hospitals for critical social care services.”

David Webb, Facilities manager, Southend-on-Sea City Council

Case Study | Southend-on-Sea City Council

Solution

As part of Ricoh Digital Services, the council has deployed three key solutions: production and office print, hybrid mail and cybersecurity.

The council’s reprographics centre is staffed and managed by Ricoh employees using Ricoh digital colour production printers and associated finishing equipment.

There is a fleet of 80 Ricoh Multi-function Printers (MFPs) distributed across the City in locations such as libraries, parks, registry offices and even on Southend Pier, the longest pleasure pier in the world at 1.33 miles.

The reprographics service prints and manages documents for the council’s legal and democratic functions producing items such as public meeting papers as well as general and specialised print work.

Reprographics used to print letters, but that is now handled by a Ricoh Hybrid Mail service. Initially the service was used by Revenue and Benefits, but now there is an ongoing process to roll it out to other departments with over 25 of them already using it every month.

Any letter or document that needs mailing is created at the council then sent electronically to Ricoh’s print centre in Birmingham where it is printed, associated flyers and documents attached, enveloped, franked and delivered to Royal Mail. In January 2023 the Ricoh service handled almost 10,000 letters for Revenues and Benefits and Buildings Control, 5,000 related to housing stock and 12,500 items from other departments.

Helping to tackle cyber-attack threats is Ricoh’s RansomCare cybersecurity solution. Currently, it protects on-premises systems and applications such as the file store but will be migrated to the cloud as the council moves most of its IT environment to the cloud. RansomCare monitors systems and applications for any unusual activity that could indicate an attack. When it does spot something, it will lock down the relevant device to stop the attack and enable IT to investigate.

Crawshaw has set up multi-level alerts and parameters to identify incidents but not stop people working when there are false positives. RansomCare sits alongside other cybersecurity solutions such as Microsoft Defender. RansomCare protects all 2,100 council staff.

Case Study | Southend-on-Sea City Council

Ricoh RansomCare is about peace of mind, knowing that our data is protected and it gives me eyes on the network that I did not have previously. It is our last line of defence. If some malware or ransomware manages to get past our other security systems, RansomCare is there to capture and stop it when it is activated.”

Mark Crawshaw,
Security manager, Southend-on-Sea City Council

Benefits

Ricoh is helping Southend-on-Sea City Council make operational and sustainability improvements across several areas of the organisation.

Working with Ricoh to refine the print contract, the council has cut its print volume from three million items a year to just one million. It has also managed to reduce the number of print devices it uses and has introduced more eco-friendly products that use less power, print more efficiently and have sustainable and recyclable consumables.

Ricoh also helps the council relocate the Ricoh MFPs such as from low to high use areas to make best use of investment. The Ricoh service has helped the council reduce its print costs by 17%.

Case Study | Southend-on-Sea City Council

The council is upgrading its print management software to implement more waste-reduction policies and practices such as redirecting large print runs from office printers to the reprographics centre where jobs can be produced faster, more sustainably and more efficiently. The Ricoh print equipment is also being used to digitise hardcopy documents to reduce physical storage space.

Although not part of the contract, the Ricoh reprographics staff will help the council sought out ad-hoc printing problems and avoid spending time and money bringing in getting engineers to solve simple problems.

David Webb, facilities manager at the council, said

The print services from Ricoh are vital to the council and services it delivers to the community. They are particularly important for regulatory services like printing and issuing births and marriage certificates and print devices in local hospitals for critical social care services.”

Case Study | Southend-on-Sea City Council

RansomCare is now a key part of the council’s defence against cyber-attack enabling the organisation to block attacks and stop them once inside the environment. Crawshaw said, “Ricoh RansomCare is about peace of mind, knowing that our data is protected and it gives me eyes on the network that I did not have previously. It is our last line of defence. If some malware or ransomware manages to get past our other security systems, RansomCare is there to capture and stop it when it is activated.”

Lorraine Goldsmith, benefits service manager at Southend-on-Sea City Council, said,

The Ricoh Hybrid Mail service is an important part of revenue generation for the council. It has made our mailing operation quick, cost-effective and less time consuming. Now I just press a button and it is done. Before I had to print the letter, put it in an envelope and send it to the mail room. That is probably a saving of two minutes per person. Also, it doesn’t matter where staff work because they get letters sent via the Ricoh service from anywhere.”

Case Study | Southend-on-Sea City Council

By using the Ricoh Hybrid Mail service, reducing staff time, lower consumable costs and better postal rates, the council has cut costs by 44%.

Tracey Nicola, benefits service manager for the council, said, “If billing and council tax letters do not go out on time income is delayed. There are also government regulations and what we send out has to be in a certain format and in a certain time frame. Having a company that can help ensure targets are met is important to meeting legal obligations and providing a high-quality service to our community.”

Ricoh has provided products and services to Southend-on-Sea City Council for several years and over that time has established itself as a trusted partner and adviser to the council. One of the standout features of the Ricoh partnership is level of service and support it provides, often above and beyond contract. In addition, Ricoh and its staff offer up their time to help the council with social value activities such as wrapping presents for the Southend-on-Sea City Council Christmas Toy Drive, an initiative that has given out thousands of toys to needed children and families in the city.

The Ricoh Hybrid Mail service is an important part of revenue generation for the council. It has made our mailing operation quick, cost-effective and less time consuming. Now I just press a button and it is done. Before I had to print the letter, put it in an envelope and send it to the mail room. That is probably a saving of two minutes per person. Also, it doesn’t matter where staff work because they get letters sent via the Ricoh service from anywhere.”

Lorraine Goldsmith,
Benefits service manager, Southend-on-Sea City Council

Case Study | Southend-on-Sea City Council

ABOUT RICOH

Ricoh is a leading provider of integrated digital services and print and imaging solutions designed to support digital transformation of workplaces, workspaces and optimise business performance.

Headquartered in Tokyo, Ricoh’s global operation reaches customers in approximately 200 countries and regions, supported by cultivated knowledge, technologies, and organisational capabilities nurtured over its 85-year history. In the financial year ended March 2023, Ricoh Group had worldwide sales of 2,134 billion yen (approx. 16.0 billion USD).

It is Ricoh’s mission and vision to empower individuals to find Fulfillment through Work by understanding and transforming how people work so we can unleash their potential and creativity to realise a sustainable future.

For further information, please visit www.ricoh.co.uk

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