Top 10 Benefits

Transparency and accountability are the cornerstones of effective government. The Meeting Factory helps governmental departments adhere to their legal obligation to share information, and much more. It gives full control to help get the right people together, update and distribute the agenda for discussion, link to supporting documentation, track all decisions made, and report them back through the meeting’s minutes. It also offers the option of linking-up the intranet and internet, and control over publication of public and sensitive information.

Top 10 Benefits of Using The Meeting Factory

1. Helps to simplify and standardise Committee information
   
   
2. Reduces the time it takes to produce Agendas, Minutes and Forward Plans
   
   
3. Helps staff to manage and prioritise their workload
   
   
4. One-click web publication and PDF conversion of documents
   
   
5. Easy to find and up-to-date web information reduces enquiries and encourages self-service 
   
   
6. Makes Councillor details and roles more transparent to the public
   
   
7. Enables the secure sharing of sensitive information
   
   
8. Reduces printing and postage costs
   
   
9. Improves communication with all interested parties
   
   
10. Provides automatic management reports

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Helps to simplify and standardise Committee information

• The Meeting Factory provides customisable templates for creating Committees, Members, Agendas and Minutes
• Use of templates means that information is automatically formatted in a consistent manner and includes all required default items

Reduces the time it takes to produce Agendas, Minutes and Forward Plans

• By creating default agenda items, headers, footers and membership for Committees, it takes much less time to put together an agenda.
• All uploaded reports are automatically numbered. These page numbers are inserted against each agenda item on the agenda front sheet. Any changes made to agenda items or their reports are automatically corrected on the agenda front sheet, resulting in reduced errors and faster turnaround times.
• Reducing the time taken to produce meeting information means your staff will have more time to deal with other issues.
  

Helps staff to manage and prioritise their workload

• The Meeting Factory provides links to forthcoming and overdue tasks
• By highlighting these tasks on the Home Page of the admin system, Staff can see at a glance those items that require their attention. This helps to ensure that web information is kept up-to-date and deadlines are met
• The Meeting Factory can automatically generate an Agenda deadline report for Committee meetings, listing draft report, final report and dispatch of agenda deadlines. This report can then be emailed out to staff and used by Committee staff to manage their workload.
• From the front end of the system, print-friendly versions of calendars can be generated for each month listing all scheduled meetings. This saves Staff time spent manually creating an annual calendar of meeting dates.

One-click web publication and PDF conversion of documents

• The Meeting Factory automatically converts all jpeg images, MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents uploaded into the system into PDFs so Staff no longer have to convert them manually.
• The PDF format is more accessible to the public. 
• Councillor, Committee and Meeting information is published at the click of button onto the website, with all related information linked 
•  A lot of staff time is saved by removing the need to separately publish committee information within another system. 

Easy to find and up-to-date web information reduces enquiries and encourages self-service

• Improved committee document search facilities help the public, Council Scrutiny Officers, Staff and Members find the reports they’re looking for. 
• Because related information is linked throughout the website, it is much easier for users to navigate the site and find information. 
• Consistent, timely, easy-to-find information on the website reduces the number of enquiries coming into the office, allowing staff to focus on their core responsibilities.

Makes Councillor details and roles more transparent to the public

• Councillor details, including their membership, role, attendance at Committees, declarations of interest made and registered gifts are all recorded using the Committee Management System.
• All of this information is consolidated in the system and available for the public to view under the Councillor A-Z.

Enables the secure sharing of sensitive information

• Security can be set up on a Committee by Committee basis to restrict access to the Committee as a whole, or to any Section B documents associated with that Committee
• Security can be set on individual reports to restrict access to that document
• By securely sharing sensitive information via an Intranet, fewer enquiries come through to Committee staff, allowing them to focus on their core responsibilities
• Staff do not have to worry about sending Section B information to people that shouldn’t see it. By providing a link to the intranet version of an Agenda, only those with permissions to see confidential information will be able to do so.
• The Meeting Factory can be used for internal task or management groups. By putting this information on the Intranet, it is much easier to communicate and securely share information with group members.

Reduces printing and postage costs

• Paperless meeting and minute packs can be distributed via e-mail and automatically published on your website.
• Links to published agendas or minutes can be automatically e-mailed to all committee members and to anyone that has registered an interest on the website.

Improves communication with all interested parties

• The website allows people to sign-up for email alerts on Committee information.
• The Meeting Factory makes e-newsletters easy by providing an auto-generate option.
• The Meeting Factory allows you to set up electronic consultation pages. A consultation could consist of online questionnaires, an online poll or discussion forum.
• Committee members can have their own websites, which they self-manage. There is no limit to the amount of information they can publish, and they can even have their own blog.
• The Meeting Factory can be integrated with free e-Petition software, helping you to engage the public in the democratic process.

Provides automatic management reports

• At the click of a button, staff can generate an attendance report for individual Councillors, Committees or Political Parties.
• The Meeting Factory can create a Digest of Minutes by pulling minutes from all Committees marked to be included. The system will consecutively number all minutes before generating a table of contents including Committee name, date of meeting and related page numbers.
• Reports on all Declarations of Interest made by individual Councillors can be generated using the system.
• Reports on all Gifts and Hospitality registered by individual Councillors can be generated using the system.