Business Process Improvement

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Business Process Improvement

• Colin Whitehouse
• Senior Advisor
• Local Government Modernisation and Efficiency
• Communities and Local Government

2
Policy context - a tipping point?
Service Transformation
LG White Paper Strong Prosperous Communities
Shared Services - Varney
Competition contestability
expanding choice
Transformational Govt
national/ local arrangements to align with
different customer need.
Public services reform the 4 core principles
CSR07 3 efficiency p.a.
local engagement
customers, customers, customers .and all they
really care about are outcomes and council tax
Health White Paper Our Health, Our Care, Our
Say Every Child Matters Closer to People
and Places (LGA)
Frontline staff are there to deliver services to
the user .productive time can be reduced if
people are having to spend too much time
servicing the organisation rather than their
customers.
Sir Peter Gershon
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Key areas for improvement

• Better information and intelligent analysis
• Business Process Improvement Service Redesign
• Procurement
• Asset management
• Use of new technology
• Shared Services

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How do we improve our Business?

• By
• Understanding our drivers
• Understanding what works
• Having a planned approach
• Having the drive to see it through
• Making decisions based on solid information
• Assessing our capability in a standard way
• Developing the capacity to make informed make or
  buy decisions

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Recent Research on Business Process Improvement
Headlines

• BPI is considered to be a vital tool in
  supporting service improvement
• 80 of LA respondents think BPI is critical to
  the modernisation of public services
• Almost 90 believe their BPI projects to date
  have been successful
• Over 70 of projects have generated cashable
  efficiency gains
• There will be a switch from authorities using
  BPI to deliver incremental improvements to
  supporting more extensive transformation.
• Most (BPI) studies discuss improvement in
  narrative/qualitative form. Financial information
  is often sketchy
• Baselines are critical to an accurate assessment
  of efficiency gains and returns on resources
  employed these are rarely cited (perhaps
  because they dont exist)

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• overall a compelling case
• for a co-ordinated approach to supporting
  Business Improvement for councils to transform
  services
• for strengthening capability through the
  National Improvement Strategy to make it
  happen!

we will further support effective use of BPI
techniques through a project() we are carrying
out in partnership with local government. We
will ensure that the lessons learnt from this
project are fully shared across local government,
as part of an integrated package of improvement
also covering technology an collaboration a
Business Improvement Package.
Strong and prosperous communities
The Local Government White Paper
Chapter 7
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• Sustainable business improvement
• research indicates need to address inter-related
  issues

2. What is already happening in the community,
what is it achieving

1. Identifying whether which elements of local
service delivery might benefit most from
business improvement
whats preventing greater/faster progress
3. How to compare contrast consistently
4. The type level of investment needed to
implement ensure improvement is sustained
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• Following an exploratory workshop with
  authorities
• bpi best practice pathfinders set up involving
  around 25 councils
• reflecting a wide range of business improvement
  ambition (vision for change)

Work tailored for District councils.
Waste management
Democracy community (public protection)
Infrastructure (highways transport)
Business support (corporate) processes (. HR,
Finance)
Housing management
Revs and bens
Adult social care
Childrens services
3 projects running across 9 London authorities
looking at social care activity bpr (1 in child
protection, 2 in adult care processes for common
assessment joint commissioning)
Group of 14 authorities in the North West
GMEP/NWEGG
Cambridgeshire CC project to cost shared
services approach e.g. with other County in
other region.
LB of Lewisham (Plus NPIP project admin.)
Chorley process architecture/ organisational
blueprint for district councils. Plus technical
standards convergence piece.
Sedgefield Borough Council
Common deliverables from each pathfinder
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Business Improvement must consider the whole
journey
Understand/capture As is processes
vision for change a better result being
delivered.
Plan and implement Change Programme
Perform Gap/ Change Analysis
Process review
Process review
Create To Be processes
in order to identify the practical options for
business change
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NPIP Phase 1 common deliverables
Clearer national picture - the case for bpi work
across all local services. Whats the ROI from
deploying bpi method/capability
Each pathfinder

• definition of processes to be examined
• (end-to-end LA and wider activities to be
  examined to better understand scope/costs for
  greater integration/collaboration)
• as is and to be for each process
• projection of efficiency gains for each process
• methods used (process mapping activity costing
  conventions plus analysis methods including
  treatment of organisational overheads etc)
• products from practitioner bpi capability
  training
• e.g.
• applying variety of standards e.g. mapping
  notation)
• Including how to do activity based costing and
  use results to drive process redesign
• How to overcome barriers/change management
  lessons learned
• How to realise savings/hard and soft benefits
  projected (ROI)

Overall synthesis national implications
integrated marketing of NPIP (bpi) tools with
others tools E.g. e- Government take-up,
channel options and framework for collaboration
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NPIP - the various dimensions

• Providing effective service design tools
• Dissemination of generic maps to all local
  authorities
• (May 2006)
• Publication of first set of 10 high impact
  process improvement exemplars
• (Booklet available November 2006)
• Interactive web-based tool already on RCE website
  www..rcoe.gov.uk/BPI
• Process Maps
• Bpi exemplars
• Typical process volumetrics staff activity
  channel costs emerging from NPIP elsewhere

Developing consistent process analysis, costing
redesign methods Sept 2006 first NPIP workshop
for identification of priority processes to pilot
activity costing on as is and to be
processes. 3 Project Board meetings held Oct to
December 2006 (A range of to be scenarios
envisaged. From basic improvement to work
practices thru to collaborative ventures (shared
common services).

• Improving state of the nation data
• An up-to -date shared knowledge base
• (most authorities independently use bpi
  techniques) Database created)
• An organised local government bpi community First
  meeting- held 17 November.
• (around 50 authorities have shown interest)
• Wider Stakeholder interest group of OGDs. Audit
  Commission. CIPFA, IDeA/ESD toolkit etc. Invites
  due to go shortly for proposed meeting on 29
  January 2007

Sustainable/continuous business improvement
Ensuring adequate practitioner capability
Subject to funding, an NPIP Phase 2 to pilot and
develop bespoke support to transformation teams/
(in-house) business improvement capability
(practitioner) training ? organisational leaders
middle managers (early NPIP products already
available)
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Business Improvement Package a LG White Paper
commitment
SERVICE TRANSFORMATION tools best practice
guidelines
(BIP)
Market Shaping good practice
Evidence for Challenge
Channel Strategy development
Customer Insight tools
Workforce Strategy (Job design)
Customer Service Management systems
Strategic Commissioning Good practice
Collaboration Shared Services options
Benchmarked processes

Delivery Chain/ Process Analysis design
Procurement opportunities
Technology investment
Activity costing (on-costs)
Help with business cases
part of an integrated approach to identifying
and developing improvement tools that support
business cases and practical implementation a
Business Improvement Package (BIP).
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Barriers and Pitfalls

• Lack of baseline data
• Disparate understanding of project purpose
• Lack of buy in
• No real ownership or drive to deliver
• Lack of expertise/resource
• Unwillingness to take tough decisions
• Lack of trust and genuine sharing of risks

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Questions

• colin.whitehouse_at_communities.gsi.gov.uk