When the Lord Chancellor’s Department developed a national strategy to reduce the total number of Magistrates’ Courts Committees from 105 to 42 in the late 1990s, the seven established Magistrates’ Courts Committee’s based in the West Midlands were amalgamated into a single organisation, the Secretariat of which is now based at Newton Street, Birmingham in the West Midlands. There are 20 full time staff employed at this site and from here, 14 courthouses are covered where in total, 650 staff are employed.

When it was established that the seven Courts Committee’s were to be combined into one, it became apparent that assets from each site must be recorded in some way. It was at this point that a severe deficiency in record keeping and the tracking of assets was found and it was clear that a solution had to be found.

Staff of the new Magistrates’ Courts Committee began searching for a suitable asset management system and finally decided that the Hardcat System best suited their requirements.

Before the implementation of the Hardcat System, the records that were available were often incomplete and lacking in detail. A total overhaul of the current system, with a view to introducing a definitive asset tracking system across all sites, was required.

A Hardcat Project team attended all West Midlands Magistrates’ Courts Committee sites and carried out a full data-capture of all required assets, from which, the first complete database was built.

Once the initial data-capture of assets was complete, this information was fed into the Hardcat System. With the aid of the additional modules that the organisation purchased (Bar-coding, Helpdesk, Depreciation and Preventative Maintenance) and the handheld scanners, staff are now able to track, monitor and maintain approximately 14,000 assets.

Assets now monitored include IT equipment such as PC’s, printers, monitors and specialist office equipment including data projectors and desks. Derek Stone, Head of Facilities at West Midlands Magistrates’ Courts Committee commented, "With a comprehensive database of assets now bar-coded, it sometimes seems that about the only things that are not bar-coded are the buildings themselves!"

With the Hardcat System now installed, audits of equipment will be much more straightforward and the time taken to do the audits will be greatly improved. Over time, there will also be substantial financial savings, Derek Stone comments "I am sure that by using Hardcat, we will make significant cost savings, the reasons for this being, firstly, the simple process of bar-coding all our assets indicates that we have a record of an item and it’s location – this will discourage anyone from removing the equipment without permission and secondly, we now know what assets are held in store and available for reallocation therefore enabling best use to be made of all available assets before new items are purchased".

West Midlands Magistrates’ Courts Committee have been using the Hardcat System now for some time and the main benefit to them is that they have an accurate, comprehensive and readily available, record of all assets. The database of assets can be accessed by a number of users over a secure network and the whole system is a significant improvement on what they had before the implementation of Hardcat.

"I am very pleased with the Hardcat System and the support we have received from the members of staff involved in its installation. I have no hesitation in recommending the system to colleagues and look forward to seeing and implementing future additions to the software as new modules and features are released", remarked Derek Stone.