The Developmental Welfare State Conference

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The Developmental Welfare State Conference

• A perspective from a Service Provider working on
  Co-ordination / Integration of income support,
  social services and activist measures at local
  level

Michael McLoone Donegal County Manager May 19,
2005
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National Context

• SMI, BLG, DBG, Information Society, New
  Connections, Integration of Local Government,
  etc. set the context within which Donegal
  Integrated Service Development (ISD) Project has
  developed.
• there is growing acceptance of the need for a
  greater internal e-government focus on
  streamlining background processes, facilitating
  cross-organisational collaboration, continuing to
  develop an organisational culture with a
  user-centric focus, and achieving the full
  benefits from the substantial investments in
  technology across the public service". (New
  Connections, March 2002)

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Development of new models of public service
delivery

• Building the provision of income support and
  services around the needs of the customer
• Developing a shared cross-agency view of the
  customer through shared information
• Achieving greater efficiency and effectiveness
  through the streamlining of business processes
  and elimination of overlap / duplication
• Providing the customer with a choice of access
  channels

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Slide 3
Decentralisation Programme
Opened June 2002
Opened Sept 2002
Opened Nov 2002
Opened Dec 2002
Corporate Headquarters
Opened June 2004
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Overview of Dependency on Income Support Schemes
in Donegal.

• Income support schemes 71,848 339.4
  millionMedical Cards 66,000 19.76 million
  Housing 5,754 Other supports 4,000 17
  million
• 50 of the population (137 ,000) of County
  Donegal receive payments or support from the
  State at a cost of 390 million on a current year
  basis
• These services are currently delivered completely
  independent of each other.

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Customer Overlap Analysis of some key means
tested services and their interdependence with a
view to rationalising delivery
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Data Overlap Rates
Impact (1) Reduction in data capture time (2)
Reduction in service fulfillment time
Conclusion Potential to eliminate
duplicate/triplicate collection of data within
services by using e-forms to collect once share
with other forms and sub-services
Source As-Is Analysis, DISP
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Current Deficiencies -based on findings of data
matching exercise

• Data 50 files analysed across 3
  Agencies/services
• 29 common to all three services
• Only 1 customers data matched across all 3
  services
• Remainder held inaccurate data, incomplete
  records, obsolete and contradictory data about
  the same customer
• Systems not capable of interacting with each
  other
• Manual data matching proved very time consuming
• People
• Duplication of effort - 90 service cross over
  with 100 duplication of effort

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Achievements/Research to date

• Building on the Public Service Centres (PSCs)
  Infrastructure and Inter Agency collaboration
• Independent Information and advice units as a
  front in each PSC
• First point of contact to services developed
  using PSCs
• Agencies relocated delivering services from the
  PSCs (i.e. CWOs, SWIs, Revenue Collectors,
  Placement Officers operating through PSCs)
• Study completed on 3 key service areas
  (Unemployment, Medical cards Housing)
• Study completed on Means testing
• Study completed into potential of Contact Centre
  in delivering services
• Reports completed for Reach Agency to inform
  development of Public Service Broker
• Review of Rent Supplement scheme with recommended
  changes
• Organisational structures and processes within
  Donegal County Council

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Partners
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Change Management Approach
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Next Phase - Objective

• To use the research carried out in Donegal to
  create an integrated income support and service
  delivery model to streamline service delivery
• Link income support and service delivery with
  Local Anti-Poverty Strategies and other
  initiatives using County Development Board (CDB)
  structures.

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What is required to get there

• Agencies agreeing to collaborate and dedicate
  staff and resources to phase 2 of the project -
  already in place from phase 1
• Experienced field officers released to review
  current practices for applications, processing,
  data collection, means testing and systematic
  review of eligibility - some are still available
  to the project from phase 1
• Accommodation - available in PSCs
• To develop systems and technology to prototype
  and move to to be situation - research is well
  advanced on networking databases/creating
  multiple views of the same customer.
• Live testing of the prototype (mimicking the
  functionality of a Broker) in a pilot area (e.g.
  Letterkenny Electoral Area with population of
  25,000)

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Next Stage of the LAPS

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CDBs - Strategic and Project Planning Going
Forward

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    Donegal Community Forum
 
Nasc Pobail na Gaeltachta
  Inishowen Community Forum  
Letterkenny Civic Forum  
Foram Pobail Dhun na nGall
South Donegal Community Forum  
East Donegal Community Forum
North Donegal Community Forum
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Donegal County Development Board
Donegal County Council
Convenors Group
 
 
  Electoral Area Committees
Strategic Policy Committees
 
Donegal
 
Sectoral Fora
Community Forum
 
Area Fora
Inishowen
Sub Groups
North
 
Gaeltacht
South
East
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What is required from Government

• Support for the next phase of the work
• Funding
• Establish appropriate links to national
  Government development so as to align work
  underway with national programme (e.g. links to
  ISPU, CMOD, Reach, LGCSB, etc.) in order to
  discuss service interoperability, technical
  interoperability issues and definition/proof of
  concepts
• 4 Offer to test features of the new NESC model
  for the Development Welfare State.