It has been using LaserServe for 12 months and beta testing the new ver-sion, which has reduced its number of printed pages by 1m, since October. It has also created an estimated click charge saving of 20,000 annually.

The upgraded LaserServe can now meet the e-government requirements of local authorities, as well as other bulk mailers, by enabling output to print, e-mail, fax and SMS shifting the burden of printing away from the producer to the recipient.

Sue Townsend, operations manager for Bury Metro Council, said that by transferring large volumes of print online the whole process has been modernised in both function and look. We run five different payrolls for 7,500 employees, which are now all stored online. The documents would stretch to five feet tall, but by putting it all online, we can e-mail users to say it has been updated instead of them having to wait a week to receive a printed format.

Townsend hoped that a significant amount of print would be replaced with electronic formats but conceded that print would never disappear.