As an investigative office, you’re probably required to report certain data to an oversight committee regularly.  But while that data provides insight into the long-term performance of your agency, there are also benefits to reviewing results more regularly than the mandated once-a-quarter or once-every-six-months.   Here are a few data points that your case management software should be delivering to your inbox weekly.

 


 

 

Case Volume Data – This top-line data should be among the easiest information to access in the system. Keeping tabs on this information on a weekly basis prevents any unexpected surprises at reporting time – if you use your system regularly, you might want to put this one on your homepage or dashboard.  If you log in less regularly, it’s probably worth scheduling an email update.

Case Timeline Data – Top-line data on how long it’s taking to close a case can be informative; however, looking only at averages can also hide results for case types that are generally much faster or slower than average.  For some agencies, specific types of cases (sensitive cases, or financial cases, for instance) tend to be higher-impact and slow-moving.  Whatever factors impact how long a case should reasonably take to progress from phase to phase or to close, you should ensure that your case management software is tracking those case elements, so you can get automated reports based on them.

Financial Data – Agencies should obviously not ignore cases of abuse – even if they don’t have a major financial component attached.  But the larger positive financial impact an agency can demonstrate, the easier it is to justify the budget provided to them.  There are a couple of different ways to track the financial impact of investigation work.  One way is to track the “hard-cash” effects, such as restitution ordered as a result of an investigation, or cash clawed back due to corruption.  A few of our clients also track “Potential Economic Loss Prevented” for cases.  These projections may not be perfect science, but most anybody would have a hard time refuting reasonable, logically-determined numbers.  If this is not something you are tracking, we’d highly encourage you to consider it.

To learn more about how CMTS can help your agency track and report on results call us at 919.600.5102 or contact us online.