SITUATION BEFORE THEINITIATIVE BEGAN
The first problem was that property management department was using several electronic land systems for different purposes, each had substantial shortcomings and lack GIS feature. The second problem was that land was allotted based on the role first come first served which result in unsatisfied customer and high number reallocation requests.
ESTABLISHMENTOF PRIORITIES
The priorities of the project were driven from AlAin Municipality'spriorities. They were selected based on a group discussion and brainstorming between the municipality group and the executive committee of the municipality headed by the GM and the members of the executive directors of the municipality sectors.
Priorities are:
1: Improve services provided to residents and community
2:Enhancing social stability
3: Thrive to build an effective relationship with the community based on cooperation and credibility
4: Adopt quality principles, communicate best practices and to have pride in providing differentiated services to ensure customer satisfaction
FORMULATION OF OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGIES
The objectives and strategies were set by the municipality group and the executive director of Municipal services. The main strategies that was adopted:enhancing and diversifying service delivery methods while decreasing customer dissatisfaction (about service time, improper land allocation) and increasing customer awareness about the system and its benefits, educate the customer about the land allotment committee and the roles and conditions for land reallocation.
MOBILISATION OF RESOURCES
· The first step was to setup and design the system it self by collecting all the fields used by the existing databases and filter the fields. This steps was done by ADSIC group and the Municipality group (The group consists of two departments: the property management department headed by Mr. Mohammed Al Ketbi and consist of 15 staff,10 males and 5 females, the other department is town planning which was headedby Mrs. Hessa Al Ma'amari and consist of 5 staff, 2 males, and three females)
· The second step was merging the DBs into one main DB and the above team also was responsible for this step.
· The new main DBs was uploaded to the new system by ADSIC group.
· The system was tested and DBs were verified by the municipality group
· The last step was solving the land allotment issue, which was solved by forming the land allotment committee.
PROCESS
During the DB merging a lot of information was duplicated and some of the information were missing and the municipality group was forced to check the files of the customer from several traditional archives (cabinet) and then update the system.
The other problem which was faced that the key number for search was the family book number, but for the widows and divorced women the family book were changed which was confusing and making some duplicates, the problem was solved manually and the permanent solution to the problem was by finding another key search which will never be changed, the ID number, already the municipality team liaised with Emirates Identity Authority and signed a MOU for the information exchange and within 2010 the problem has been solved.
The third problem was thee-archiving issue for all hard files and maintaining a softcopy of the file in the eLMS system for ease reference, this problem was solved by visiting Dubai Department of Land and Property and discussing with them the mechanizeand the process they followed in similar project executed by them recently. Also they provide us with the project charts and stages with their experience and lesson learned for every stage. At this moment the Municipality is in the process of tendering stage for the e-Archiving projectand it is expected to be completed with one year.
The last problem was the customer requests for a specific location at the allotment stage which could not be done in the system, thus the management decided to form a committee to study and set the ground roles and condition for land allotment and reallocation, also several local and international property departments were communicated to get the best practice and it was applied in the municipality.
RESULTS ACHIEVED
The Municipalities and ADSIC designed and setup a new solution, they proposed the land management system(eLMS) which addressed the key challenges and limitations of the previous used systems.
The other result achieved from using eLMS system is allowing the customer to request the services from any municipal office within the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
The system was launched inAl Ain municipality in June 2009, after an extensive training session to all the users and stakeholders of the program. The customers were also educated about the program, by distributing brochures and advertisement in media
In regard of the land allotment a committee was formed to study the customer request to reallocate their lands, headed by the GM him self, some of the executive directors, and the land management department division manager on June 2009. The committee collected the feedback and suggestions from customers and employees and set the roles, priorities and conditions to re allocate the land. The three main criteria’s for the reallocation priority are:
· The customer family and relatives houses
· Special needs customers
· Female customer(divorced, widow, or receiving financial support from social affairs).
· The job nature of the customer, which require that his place is near to his job (like doctors)
The number of lands distributed during 2009 and first quarter of 2010 are 1,676 lands and the number of pending cases due to location none acceptance was reduced dramatically from 592 in 2009 to 113 in 2010.
SUSTAINABILITY[Approximately 300 WORDS]
Al Ain Municipality projected a clear strategy based on a vision entitled, "A Distinguished Municipality and Sustainable development for the City of Oases". This strategy is expected to be implemented through "Providing such distinguished municipal services and advanced infrastructure to Al Ain City and the surrounding areas, by qualified staff and advanced systems, while taking into account the peculiarity and genuineness of the City", abiding in the same time by the values stemming from heritage, leadership, credibility,quality, innovation, participation and community service within the aims of this strategy. The initiative serve the sustainability by the following:
· e-archiving will reduce the use of papers.
· Merging all the DBs in one DB will reduce the electrical energy
· The procedures and roles setby the committee will be loaded to the system and communicated to our customers.
· The customer can request for most of the services of the eLMS through the web site
· The DB and system is accessed by all the municipal offices in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, hence the customer can get his application done in any municipal office within Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
· Develop a business model which ensures the short-, mid-, and long-term sustainability of the archive
LESSONS LEARNED
Ensure that policies and procedures for Land Management are documented and adhered to, thus the department has simultaneously developed in many of its procedures with the continuing growth of the city and compiling all the laws and policies and loading them in the system.
Identify the technology needs to ensure that the department processes are performed efficiently and cost effectively, thus the department computerized the real estate and mortgage registration process.
Generating a unified database for all the lands, this is carried out in a very scientific well studied method that effectively contributes to the UAE development.
a) And b) TRANSFERS
One of the municipality seven values is Partnership "Strengthen our partnership with both public and private sectors to better serve our community", thus the Municipality signed a number of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU's) with strategic partners, the main point of the MOU's was to facilitate knowledge, information,and experience exchange between us and our partners. Also the municipality signed two twining between Al Ain and Spain (Castile and León) and also another twining with USA (Sante Fe). Also the Municipality visited local Authorities in the UAE (Dubai, Ajman, Sharjah, and Ras Al Khema) to discuss their experience in similar projects. Finally the Municipality is a member in Dubai Quality group, and their provide us the access to the Global Bench marking network where we can get the studies, projects, and feedback of companies conducting similar project all around the globe.
RELATED POLICIES
In regard of the eLMSinitiatives all the laws and polices were loaded to the different site of the government and the municipality. Moreover, whenever a need a rise to modify or change a low or policy the recommendations are sent to the General Secretariat of the Executive Council for study and approval or discussion.
The second practice has been supported by AlAin Municipality general manager and as a result a decree of establishing the committee of land allocation had been made officially in the June of 2009. The land allocation policy has been changed to handle all issue related to land allocation to the committee. This law has positive affect on the number of reallocation request and cause it to decrease dramatically from approximately 600 to 113 case.
