Case Study: London Borough of Islington achieves paper-free, cost-saving, sustainable working with Xerox DocuShare

Promoting sustainability through digital archiving at the London Borough of Islington

London Borough of Islington faced a paper-heavy records environment that hindered flexible working, threatened costly office space (about £6,000 per desk per year) and made meeting Freedom of Information deadlines difficult. To address this, the council partnered with Xerox DocuShare (supported by Xerox Global Services) to pilot a digital archive and replace desktop printers with Xerox multifunction devices.

Xerox DocuShare was deployed and managed by Xerox Global Services, scanning an initial 350,000 pages and growing to about 1.2 million documents by mid‑2007, with around 500 active users expected by year‑end. The digital archive sped FOI responses from weeks to days, eliminated misfiling risk, delivered environmental benefits and helped save hundreds of thousands of pounds (contributing to £8m savings in 2007); for example, converting 250,000 pages saves 12 m² of space (≈£2,400/yr) and reduced printing costs from 11p to 1p per page.

London Borough of Islington

Doug Goldring

Director of Operations