The Integrated Case Management System of the Office for Legal Affairs, Civil Service Commission: An Assessment for a System Enhancement

Abstract

Technology is an essential factor in organizational success, inevitably reflecting the structural behavior of organizations. Organizations are now employing increasing attention on their technology, driven by the belief that the more advanced the technology, the more it improves the workforce job performance. In effect, for effective and efficient work performance, People should willingly embrace changes in Process and use of technology. In 2013, the Office for Legal Affairs, Civil Service Commission had used the Integrated Case Management System to capture, create, store, view, and transfer the case documents from Records Section to the Action Officers, who performs the adjudicatory function of the Commission. This system converts the physical case documents into a digital format where the employee handling the case can easily retrieve and view the records of the case in digital form using the computer. The purpose of creating this system is to expedite disposition of cases, generate data for reportorial requirements and record all information relevant to the case, including all the people who accessed a particular case, as well as the action taken while at the same time monitor its status to ensure speedy disposition of cases and guaranteeing the transparency and accuracy in the data recording. However, the current Integrated Case Management System cannot generate statistical data or inventory of trials needed for the reportorial requirements of the Commission; it has unsettled technical glitches, floating of cases, the duplicity of action/case, lacking necessary features to address the needs of the Action Officers and have unserviceable menu icons. It should be able to cover all the Action Officers’ processes that will help them reduce their workload while at the same time maximizing their productivity and can utilize their time effectively to their other functions to develop an effective Integrated Case Management System. Therefore, to address these problems, the researcher assessed the system in terms of the three components for Improved Organizational Performance: People, Process, and Technology. People are doers/users. The Process helps People to accomplish their tasks based on the vision-mission statements of the organization, and technology automates the Process. The result of the study revealed several problems and challenges encountered by the Action Officer in using the system which needs to be addressed immediately. The researcher used the Descriptive Method and the Four Point Likert Scale to assess and measure the verbal interpretation of the answers of the Respondents in the survey questionnaire in evaluating the system in terms of People, Process and Technology. Said responses were validated in the Personal Letter Method. The result shows that despite its capacity to store and provide a facility to view the case documents in digital form, the continuous unresolved technical glitches and lacking necessary features useful for prompt disposition of cases manifest that the system has a gap that needs to be addressed properly. Hence, the researcher recommends the enhancement of the system into a Centralized Knowledge Management System, which will utilize the use of technology and to address the system gap.