SIMUL8 Corporation has worked with Public Sector organisations since the company started in 1994, helping to improve working environments, increase efficiency and save costs – so we asked CEO, Dr. Mark Elder, would a merger of the Scottish record offices work?

Enterprise minister, Jim Mather, has requested the General Register Office for Scotland, the National Archives of Scotland and Registers of Scotland to investigate whether a merger of their organisations would be feasible. While his focus may be on saving taxpayers money, the staff and unions argue that service would suffer, and jobs would be lost.

Dr. Mark Elder’s team at SIMUL8 Corporation have worked with public and private organisations across the globe to answer questions just like this, but what sets them apart from the run-of-the-mill consultants, is the ability to test out their suggestions before they actually implement them. In essence, they offer evidence based decisions.

SIMUL8 Corporation designs and develops world class simulation software, designed to mimic real world processes to allow decision makers to test out changes in a risk free environment before they implement them in their organisations. The National Audit Office worked with SIMUL8’s consultants and development team to simulate the HMRC’s debt recovery processes and prevent the bottlenecks of enquiries that build up during peak periods. The analysis proved that using three separate departments to carry out data collection at different times of the year was inefficient and left staff stressed and overworked.

“We proved that by amalgamating the three systems,” says Dr. Elder, “the work load could be easily shared, leaving the current staff better utilised and more efficient.”

So could the same process be applied to the current proposed mergers within the Scottish Public Sector?

“Of course. Our consultants have built simulations for public bodies from the New Zealand Inland Revenue Service to the Criminal Justice system in Alabama and even our own Scottish Government. SIMUL8 software allows for accurate imitation of real life processes, and can be used to test any combination of scenarios again and again until the optimal one is found. With different bodies concerned about job losses, expenditure and efficiency, all options need to be explored to find an answer everyone will be happy with – and SIMUL8 can achieve that goal.”