Department of Veterans' Affairs

After successfully providing mailroom services for the Commonwealth Department of Veteran's Affairs in Sydney and Brisbane, Decipha's contract has been extended nationally.

With offices in every state, the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) has a huge amount of incoming and outgoing mail to deal with on a daily basis. "The majority of DVA's veteran clients are World War II veterans and most of their contact is either via telephone or mail," explains Peter Loiterton, National Director, Information and Records Management, DVA. "Mail items include advice of changes in circumstances affecting pension entitlements and claims for various benefits or compensations."

DVA NSW started using Australia Post's Mailroom Solutions, as it was then called, in 1999. DVA Queensland followed in 2000. Early this year, after a national review of its mailroom activity, DVA awarded Decipha (an Australia Post business that offers integrated mailroom management and digital mailroom applications) a contract for providing manual mailroom services in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart.

The services include the manual processing of inbound and outbound mail, along with the movement of internal DVA mail; courier services through Messenger Post Couriers; mail security screening; and some ad hoc services, such as folding and inserting. "We were impressed with Decipha's ability to provide a consistent service delivery across DVA offices but, most importantly, the signing of a national contract gave us a single focus and relationship for mail and courier delivery services," says Peter.

Currently, Decipha is handling around 1.1 million incoming mail items a year and 1.8 million outgoing items a year for DVA. Additionally, it moves 215,000 internal mail items between DVA offices and handles 270,000 files. According to Peter, the benefits of working with Decipha include the early delivery of all mail. "When we were processing mail in-house, we would finish at lunchtime. Decipha has all our mail processed internally by 8.30 a.m."

DVA also uses Decipha's security processing of mail which ensures that all mail is security-checked via X-ray before opening. Messenger Post Couriers provides a daily courier service of client files required for processing by DVA. "We've definitely achieved cost efficiencies and process improvements by using Decipha. Handling our mailroom management in-house presented real challenges, in terms of ensuring staff availability, maintaining training and occupying valuable CBD space," says Peter.

Decipha's high level of security and credentials in privacy-related activity has also been important to DVA. "We have a large amount of confidential material being sent and received and require the highest level of trust with any third party. Decipha has the proven security credentials for us to feel confident in this regard."