Central Bedfordshire Council

Central Bedfordshire Council (and previously Bedfordshire County Council) have had a policy in place since 1992 to assist schools and other settings to plan, manage, seek approval and monitor their Educational Visits. The use of EVOLVE has been the greatest single improvement to those procedures.

Before EVOLVE

• A lot of paper including a 3-year working archive
• Incomplete applications
• A time-lapse (often weeks) from paperwork coming into the LA to letters of approval going out
• Time consuming collection of data for reporting to SMT
• Daily administrative support to record visits and competencies, training and qualifications of EVCs and Group Leaders
• Constant chasing of information via telephone

Since EVOLVE

• No paper
• Far less phone calls
• Complete applications
• Instant communication with EVCs and Group Leaders via EVOLVE Messenger and the visit form
• Highly detailed and customisable reports generated at the touch of a button
• EVOLVE stores visit history, staff competencies, staff history, evaluations of visits and gives instant access to all of these
• Administrative support has been greatly reduced

The system is totally customisable; CBC designed the visit form to reflect the paper form that was in place before and to ask all the relevant questions in relation to the policy. The support from eduFOCUS from Day 1 has been exceptional in every way. eduFOCUS staff are incredibly knowledgeable about the system and are able to resolve any concerns quickly.

Glynis Yates

Central Bedfordshire Council

www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk

Written in 2014