Social administration in Denmark given efficiency boost with speech recognition

At the beginning of August 2011, the Local Government Denmark (LGDK) published ten proposals in Computerworld, Denmark's leading IT magazine, about how local authorities in Denmark could use new technologies to save money, while also increasing the efficiency and the quality of their work. At the top of the list of recommendations, was the introduction of speech recognition technology. This was the first official endorsement in Denmark of the use of this technology in public administration. It resulted in the successful introduction of speech recognition at the Fredericia local authority, a deployment which could set an interesting precedent for local authorities across Europe.

Cost-effective yet high-quality services
The borough of Fredericia is on the east coast of the Jutland Peninsula in southern Denmark, and it is home to 48,000 people. The public service employs around 4,500 staff, working in childcare and eldercare, at the job centre, in libraries and in other areas of social service. The Fredericia local authority is constantly striving to save costs, while also offering its citizens a consistently high level of customer service. Fredericia is committed to efficient working practices, especially with several experienced staff set to retire in the near future without being replaced. The number of staff working in administration will therefore drop, while at the same time the anticipated increase in the percentage of older people, will put social resources under greater pressure to do more, with less. It’s a problem not unique to local authorities in Demark; outside of the country, many local authorities are facing a similar dilemma.
 
Less bureaucracy, more dialogue
In anticipation of this, some time ago, Fredericia’s local authority began looking for ways to reduce the time spent on administrative tasks in the public service arena, allowing time to be spent more productively on tasks that deliver more value and better services back to citizens. The authority teamed up with IBM Global Business Services, to implement Nuance’s SpeechMagic Solution Builder speech recognition platform.
 
In a video about the project, Marianne Rasmussen, director of the department for trade, IT and public services at Fredericia, speaks of considerable increases in efficiency since deploying speech recognition technology: "To date, we have saved around DKK 1.5 million, with those departments in which speech recognition has been implemented also playing their part," says Rasmussen. She explains the departments are allowed to keep a proportion of the money they have saved, and use it however they see fit.
 
The benefits to productivity are tangible. Thanks to the new solution, the number of words per minute input by an employee on an average working day has risen from 59 to 205, which represents an increase of around 250 percent. "Now we can work more quickly, which leaves us more time for dialogue with our constituents," she says. In the long term, says Rasmussen, each member of staff will be able to process more cases thanks to the increase in efficiency.
 
Greater productivity equals more satisfaction
"Speech technology allows staff to do more in less time. They can be more productive without compromising on job satisfaction," says Peter Tscherning Moller, project manager responsible for introducing the solution at the Fredericia local authority. He explains that working conditions have also improved, because staff use the mouse and keyboard much less than before. Anja Morsing, a member of the admin staff at the Fredericia citizens' centre, states: "I find it easier to speak than to write everything down."
 
According to project manager Moller, reporting quality has also improved because staff can now complete reports using speech recognition directly after consultation with a member of the public, which allows for a greater level of accurate detail to be captured in a shorter period of time. "Some of our staff have changed the way they work thanks to speech recognition," says Merethe Juhler, project manager at the coordination office responsible for digitization. “Prior to the implementation of speech technology, they would write up their reports once a week. Now they take care of a report straight after consultation with a member of the public.”
 
Potential for multiple social applications
In Fredericia, there are around 68 admin staff working with Nuance SpeechMagic Solution Builder; at the job centre, the department for senior citizens, the citizens' centre and social security office. In a survey of 65 admin staff, 90 percent said they were able to work much more efficiently thanks to speech recognition. Before speech recognition, staff at the job centre needed around 25-30 minutes to write up a consultation, which has now been reduced to five to six minutes. "With the introduction of speech recognition, we are setting an example, because this is a technology with diverse social applications. For instance, it could be used in schools or in care for the elderly," says Marianne Rasmussen. "The potential is huge. Speech recognition is the future."
 
While it might be the future for Fredericia, it remains to be seen how quickly local authorities in other countries embrace speech recognition as a solution to their requirement to increase the quality of service they offer their citizens, against a backdrop of reduced headcount and budgets. If the results achieved by Fredericia are typical, then the future can’t come too soon for other local authorities.