We reduced the workload of the Rescue Board by encouraging more people to use the e-environment

Background
To ensure fire safety, public building owners are required to conduct annual reviews on how fire safety regulations are being met. These self-inspections must be shared with the Rescue Board. The reporting process brings thousands of reports to the Rescue Board each year. If the report is sent via email or postal mail, it means additional work for the Rescue Board: the letter and the information on the form must be manually entered into the database. Additionally, the reports occasionally contain errors, which need to be corrected by seeking clarifications. All of this is time-consuming. As an alternative, the Rescue Board has a much more convenient e-environment for submitting reports. Completed reports are immediately saved in the database there, and many minor errors are identified during the submission process thanks to the validation process. This saves time for both the Rescue Board and the reporter.

What did we do?
The Praxis Policylab managed to accelerate the process of “moving” fire safety reporting to the e-environment. To measure the effectiveness of our solution, we ran a randomised controlled trial. We sent an email to all those who had sent their report via email last year. To one group, we sent a reminder that was also used in the previous year (ie the control group). To another group, however, we sent an updated letter based on behavioural science, offering support to those who might be hesitant to use the new environment (the intervention group).

Compared to the control group, the new reminder nearly doubled the number of people who decided to try the e-environment this year (16% vs 30%). Considering that switching from the e-environment back to email is exceptional, this change is likely to be maintained.