Policy management tool key to complying with Data Protection and CoCo Regulation for Somerset County Council.

By Lynn Jennings

December 23, 2011

Metacompliance are delighted to welcome Somerset County Council as their latest customer. Speaking about why they needed to improve user awareness with policy management software, Information Governance Manager Peter Grogan explained: “To meet the recent challenges from central government Somerset County Council is undergoing a significant change programme; initiatives include a review of information governance and data security. This programme includes projects to meet the strict Government Connect requirement, for the Code of Connection (CoCo), and also the recommendations of a recent, voluntary, ICO audit. Whilst meeting the hardware controls required has been challenging, we also had to ensure that all our employees, elected members, contractors and volunteers working with our information, across a large rural county, had read, understood and would comply with our revised policies.

As part of a tender process, Somerset County Council investigated all the appropriate software solutions on the marketplace that met these requirements. Speaking on their decision to select MetaCompliance, Peter explained: “We carried out research to find a way to effectively and efficiently distribute and monitor the take up of our policies; following demonstrations, and testing the market, we came to the conclusion that MetaCompliance Advantage™ was the best product available to meet our needs within our budget. We were also attracted to the additional functionality of Advantage™ that allowed us to carry out surveys, align e-learning packages and tie in events to policies such as the use of USB devices or the running of executables such as Internet Explorer. We anticipate that inbuilt tests and logging of policy acceptance in the auditing functionality of the application will make policy enforcement far more effective. During the testing of the application we have been approached by other services wanting to take advantage of the application for corporate communications, HR and Health & Safety policy and guidance etc”

Speaking on behalf of Metacompliance, Managing Director Robert O’Brien added: “Somerset County Council should be applauded for their proactive approach to Information Governance and Data Protection. They join a significant number of Local Councils that have decided to automate these processes and implement a more efficient method of gaining and demonstrating employee understanding of internal policies and regulations regarding Information Security.”

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