16m cut in paper

National conveyancing company Countrywide Property Lawyers (CPL) is gearing up to take the lead in the race towards paperless offices when it sets up a multi-million pound document handling centre next month.

The 16 million venture, based in south Wales, will centralise the way the company's paperwork is handled by taking the process away from its five regional offices in Brentwood, Cardiff, Manchester, Northampton and Woking, and outsourcing the technical side to IT solutions provider Logica.

The centre expects to be processing some 10 million documents each year by 2008.

CPL technical director Roger Wilson said: 'We will have one national address so that every letter and document we receive will go to the one place and can be scanned in and relayed electronically to the five separate locations.'

Paula Rohan