''The LCF allows Landfill Operators to contribute a portion of the monies paid as Landfill Tax directly to projects that improve the lives of communities living in the vicinity the landfill site themselves. Our role is to regulate this process, and we needed a system that would allow us to do that effectively and provide Environmental Bodies (EBs) - our external customers - with an intuitive and effective method of providing information to us without increasing their administrative burden.''

Historically, the vast majority of ENTRUST’s processes were offline; Entrust wanted to develop a system that flipped this ratio so that most processes could be moved online.

“We spoke to a number of firms about developing a system, and chose Spark, not only because their technological experience was excellent and the package was very competitive, but also because they were able to complete the job under the very strict timescales we had in place - we only had a short amount of time between tendering and Go Live. And Spark was able to produce a solution by our deadline.”

Spark’s solution was a system called ENTRUST online, as Lee Fedder director at Spark explains.

“ENTRUST online is a system that allows organisations to enrol as EBs, register projects and submit data to ENTRUST. Before ENTRUST online was implemented, 80 per cent of applications were received on paper forms and the data had to be manually inputted. Now, this has been completely reversed, with at least 80 per cent of applications now received online. Now that most of the applications come through the new system, the time needed to process them has reduced significantly"

Sue comments on the final system: “I am incredibly happy with the results - customer service has improved and feedback from our external customers is very positive. Customers like how intuitive the system is and the ease at which they can receive information back from ENTRUST. I would definitely recommend Spark Data Systems and will continue to work with them going forward.”