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The Care Services Improvement Partnership started to work with 13 local authorities in April 2006 in order to run individual budget pilots across all social care client groups. As part of this work CSIP needed to develop some guidance for all local authorities, should a nation-wide roll out follow the pilots. iMPOWER was brought in to support this work and develop a number of products to assist in the transformation process.
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Case_Study__Care_Services_Improvement_Partnership.pdf 
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The Laming enquiry into the tragic death of Victoria Climbie meant that the way local authorities kept children safe from harm would have to change radically. The subsequent “Every Child Matters” Act led to local authorities needing a more co-ordinated approach to ensuring the well being of children. As part of the Every Child Matters agenda a conceptual framework and practical toolkit called the Integrated Children’s System (ICS) was introduced. iMPOWER partnered with software supplier, Esprit, to implement and embed the new ICS system, known locally as Isis, at LB Havering
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Case_study_Havering_final.pdf
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Lewisham suspected that their current mobile phone contract, despite being an excellent service, was not providing value for money and procured iMPOWER to conduct a review. As a result of the review, Lewisham has negotiated significantly lower rates with their existing supplier, without comprimising service delivery. The renegotiated contract will result in a saving of approximately £90,000 a year for three years on a total annual spend of just under £500,000.
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All public authorities must produce a Disability Equality Scheme (DES) to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 by the 4th December 2006. Lewisham procured iMPOWER to project manage the production of their scheme. The project involved mapping across all directorates the extent to which services were already meeting requirements and then producing a three year action plan. It also involved an engagement exercise with community groups across the borough representing disabled people, in order to inform the priorities of the scheme and the action plan. Finally, iMPOWER designed a framework to help Lewisham prepare for their upcoming assessment against the Equality Standard for Local Government (ESLG), which will serve as a database of information across all equalities strands in Lewisham, making future production of equality schemes much simpler.
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It is often said that open source software is particularly suited to public sector use. Not only, the claim goes, does it offer considerable savings on license payments, use of open source software also reduces dependence on a single commercial supplier (the so-called “lock-in” effect). Faced with an ageing IT infrastructure for both staff and the public across the city’s libraries, Birmingham City Council investigated the realities of implementing open source technology.
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Birmingham_open_source_Oct_2006.pdf
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The provision of adult social care is typically one of the largest areas of local authority spend: the Wanless social care review found that local authorities spent £8 billion on personal social care in 2004/5. The way that social care is purchased and delivered holds enormous potential for driving out efficiencies: care markets are commonly supplier-led and there is scope for improving care procurement and contract management. Local authorities cannot ignore these challenges: they must find ways of balancing increasing demand with limited resources while also maintaining quality. However, given similar patterns of care provision, overlapping suppliers and standardised procurement and placement procedures, there are common solutions that can be shared across local authorities. Some local authorities are beginning to explore what these are.
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WLA_case_study_Oct_06.pdf
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Derbyshire CC has an ambitious vision for location independent working within the authority and commissioned iMPOWER to deliver the following:
- Establishment of the general feasibility of location independent working within the council and the e-government partnership
- Development of a business case to support the wider implementation of location independent working
- Identification of a potential service area in which to trial independent location working
- Development of a promotional strategy and implementation involving all parties.
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GC-Register is a set of components and advice that provides a single authentication mechanism for local authorities. Built on the Government Gateway, it provides a method for a citizen to have one username and password to interact with various parts of government without organisations needing to share data.
iMPOWER project managed the project on behalf of Sedgemoor District Council and Government Connect, and worked with Hampshire County Council, the e-Government Unit of the Cabinet Office, the BusinessLink programme of the DTI and the DCLG.
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There were two projects that ran in parallel:
Quality Audit Review
St Helens Children & Young People’s Services Department identified a requirement for some external support to review the quality of files and supervision within some key Children’s Social Care Teams. It was judged crucial that St Helens understood the full extent of any problems as soon as possible so any remedial action could be taken rapidly.
Specifically, the project undertook a “a thorough audit of the quality, consistency and adequacy of casework files and record keeping for social care teams, with a particular focus on quality of care planning and decision making.” In addition, the project delivered a review of the quality and consistency of supervision records and the decisions that are made based on them.
Review of the Field Working Service
St Helens Children & Young People’s Services Department identified a requirement for some external support to review the performance of some key Children’s Social Care Teams. Concerns existed about the performance of these teams, particularly around the delivery of the core assessment and quality of service to clients. The work reviewed existing internal reports to build up an understanding of any trends and ascertain the success or failure of previous action plan and also looked at the current systems and processes that were in place. iMPOWER presented a set of clear recommendations and timescales within an improvement plan covering both infrastructure and organisational requirements.
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iMPOWER supported Hampshire County Council to procure a corporate CRM solution. By applying its expertise and experience of local government CRM implementations, iMPOWER was able to:
- Assist Hampshire to focus its procurement activities.
- Ensure that suppliers were proposing best value solutions for Hampshire.
- Support Hampshire to select a cost effective solution that will fulfil the council’s requirements in the short and long term.
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iMPOWER aimed to provide an external challenge to Cumbria CC’s current efficiency saving predictions. iMPOWER produced a report which compared high spending service areas with all other county councils and Cumbria’s nearest neighbours, based on a range of indicators defined by the Audit Commission. This report provided information that enabled Cumbria to challenge current efficiency estimates by offering a recommended savings target for the next three years. It also outlined areas where more efficiency savings could be made.
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The concept of local authorities working together isn’t new. But multi-agency working is an exciting new area for many councils - collaboration between schools and universities or the police and fire services has been largely untried by the majority of councils.
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NePP_mulit-agency_collaboration_2006.pdf
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The average metropolitan council spends £300k-£500k per year on language support services. By reviewing this expenditure, local authorities can expect to make savings of up to 40%, equating to a considerable £200k per local authority across local government.
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Lewisham_Translation_and_Interpretation_2006.pdf
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The London Borough of Bromley currently outsources its IT provision, Revenue & Benefits and Exchequer services. Bromley is committed to delivering services that provide value for money and as a result are starting to consider their options for when the current contracts end in 2009. iMPOWER was asked to deliver a report giving three options for the provision of IT when the current IT contract ends and to outline a road map for the options, setting out what Bromley would need to do between now and 2009 in order to implement each option. The report has been delivered and is being reviewed by the council.
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iMPOWER developed a set of impartial guidance to help local authorities understand the benefits of an e-marketplace, and the various players in the public sector market.
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e-Marketplace_review_2006.pdf
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Worthing did not see their district status as being a barrier to becoming a leader in customer contact and procured a light, bespoke CRM system, which is allowing them to deliver improved customer service for less expense.
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Lewisham’s recent re-procurement of their outsourced ICT contracts will generate an anticipated savings in excess of £2m on a yearly basis and proves that renegotiating large outsourced contracts need not necessarily be a risky business.
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Lewisham_ICT_re-procurement_2006.pdf
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Despite not being one of the original IRT trailblazers, St. Helens MBC has made extraordinary progress on the children’s agenda by implementing a multi-agency pilot to providing an integrated approach to effective safeguarding and support of vulnerable children in St. Helens.
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St._Helens_ISA_project_2006.pdf
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iMPOWER conducted an independent assessment of the West Midlands Procurement Portal (WMPP). The value of this portal needed to be re-assessed in light of new national initiatives before a decision could be taken with regard to the requirement for additional funding. The assessment provided the portal stakeholders with clarity about the way the portal was being run as well as a range of options for consideration for what the possible next steps could be, with pros and cons highlighted for each. iMPOWER made a justified recommendation for the future of the portal plus next steps for the stakeholders.
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Leicestershire is one of 66 areas that have been asked to develop a Local Area Agreement (LAA) through the county LSP, “Leicestershire Together”. Part of the LAA requires Leicestershire to think about the way it delivers services by “Agreeing and focusing on priority neighbourhoods” and “Developing and applying neighbourhood management techniques”.
With this and the central government “double devolution” agenda in mind, Leicestershire Together decided to seek external support to establish specifically how to focus service delivery on neighbourhoods.
iMPOWER was commissioned by Leicestershire CC to develop a model or set of models for neighbourhood management. This included advice on governance structures for a neighbourhood, the roles and responsibilities involved and the step-by-step process that could be applied.
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Leicestershire_neighbourhood_management_case_study.pdf
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iMPOWER was commissioned by the National e-Procurement Project to develop practical guidance and advice to help local authorities and other public sector bodies to work collaboratively on procurement.
The multi-agency toolkit advises councils how to procure collaboratively with other agencies. These agencies include public sector bodies such as schools or universities, police, fire services and heatlh providers.
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EMCoE case study.pdf
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Worcestershire’s county and six district councils have been investigating the concept of sharing services. A shared services group with representation from all the councils was established to demonstrate their ambition to look beyond the saving levels recommended in the recent Gershon Efficiency Review and to explore ways of working together more effectively.
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Worcestershire_ICT.pdf
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Lincolnshire CC was looking to generate Gershon savings and acknowledged that procurement was an area ripe for improvement. There was no central corporate procurement function and most of the directorates operated in isolation with their own individual processes of differing quality. LCC asked iMPOWER to provide a clear picture of how procurement was managed across the organisation as well as to make any suggested improvements that would realise savings. Data was gathered via face to face interviews from 45 staff across seven directorates to provide a clear understanding of the current procurement situation, and to provide recommendations for improvement. The second part of the project was to convert the recommendations into a detailed business case. The final report and recommendations were presented back to LCC with special focus on the areas of people, processes and technology.
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The Hillingdon Improvement Programme (HIP) has been set up to identify where savings could be realised through modernisation of services, including business process reengineering (BPR) across the council. Hillingdon has a requirement for support in identifying some quick wins in three service areas within their Environment and Consumer Protection Directorate. The three areas identified were in the early stages of implementing a new IT solution. Within very short timescales, iMPOWER produced report which mapped out the current status of each of the three service areas and then against each of those, produced process maps for how these processes should be designed based on an implementation of the new IT solution and the rapid introduction of mobile working technology. A high level business case was produced and based on numerous assumptions, savings of up to £500 000 over 5 years were identified. The final report and findings were presented to the HIP steering group, Chief Executive and Leader of the Council for further consideration.
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As part of the regeneration of Bracknell Town Centre, Bracknell Forest Borough Council (BFBC) is relocating from its existing offices and library into a new ‘Civic Hub’. The Civic Hub will provide a single point of contact for town centre face to face contacts between the council and its customers.
BFBC required iMPOWER to analyse the types of customers that the council receives and formulate design recommendations that would accommodate their needs from a customer services perspective. In order to develop these recommendations, it was essential to meet existing customers and service providers to understand how existing customers interact with each department and to collect any specific requirements for departments. Due to the inclusion of the library in the hub, a detailed analysis of library customers was also undertaken.
After considering various options, it was recommended that the hub be divided into separate business and leisure areas, each with different zones based on contact type. Each zone was then examined and specific spatial and capacity planning recommendations made. A summary version of the findings and the vision for how the hub could operate was presented to the Corporate Management Team. Detailed findings were also available to support those recommendations and provide additional detail. These also aided the spatial planners in their work designing the hub.
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For the past four years, Lewisham’s core ICT function has been outsourced to external suppliers and to ensure best value, the Council wanted to review their current ICT function ahead of having to renew the core contracts in the summer of 2006. The aim of the review was to understand the effect of ICT on the Council’s business operations as well as to ensure that they continued to gain value for money going forward as they supported the 4,000 staff across the borough.
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LB_Lewisham.pdf
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After previously working with Leicestershire to develop a high level business case for their corporate contact centre, iMPOWER more recently worked alongside the County to develop the implementation plan for the contact centre. The ambition was that the contact centre would eventually deal with telephone enquiries for services from the six departments. The first step was to develop a model of what the contact centre might look like and how it would work. iMPOWER then assessed the suitability of the departments’ services for inclusion within the contact centre as well as which services would best be included in the first release. Afterwards, an implementation plan was crafted with the following key aspects:
• The project management skills and capability that would be required to manage the implementation
• Assessing the most appropriate physical location for the contact centre
• The roles and responsibilities of the staff required
• The technology and ICT infrastructure needed to support the service
• How the services would have to be adapted for migration to the contact centre
• Operational planning
Leicestershire has appointed a project manager and implementation is currently underway.
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iMPOWER worked with Southwark Council’s Procurement Team to conduct an efficiency review of the approval functions which support Southwark in supplier selection during the tendering process. The Procurement Team manage the Approval Function and Approved List as a service to the council. The service ensures that any supplier that the council engages to undertake work meets the council’s minimum criteria around standards such as health and safety, financial stability and equal opportunities.
Through a series of interviews with relevant stakeholders and analysis of management information, iMPOWER was able to provide recommendations for quick wins and longer term solutions including
• Reallocating team resources involved in the Approval Function
• Streamlining processes to enhance the provision of service to council departments
• Improving the current IT systems to better support the enhanced Approval Function process
By the end of the project, Southwark Council had a clear picture of how the Approval Function was currently operating and clear plans for what improvements could be made. This included a new service level agreement outlining the provision of the Approval Function service by the Procurement Team to the rest of the council.
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The government connect programme is a major e-government initiative made up of a partnership of both central and local government. It aims to deliver a set of solutions and guidance that will enable local authorities to connect securely online with customers, other local authorities and government agencies.
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government_connect.pdf
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It is estimated that local authorities across the country accept over 256 types of payment transactions over the course of a year with a value of £46 billion. Local authorities are under increasing pressure from both citizens and central government to provide a variety of channels (web, kiosk, and phone) via which citizens can pay for services electronically.
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e-pay.pdf
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In September 03, a government consultation paper heralded the biggest reorganisation of children’s services in England in 30 years. The paper, Every Child Matters, set the aim of reducing levels of education failure, ill health, abuse and neglect, and crime and anti-social behaviour among children and young people.
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knowsley.pdf
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iMPOWER supported the Drug Action Exchange (DAeX) project team, in defining an IRT (ISA) strategy, operational processes and specifications for a technology prototype.
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daex.pdf
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iMPOWER have been involved with WSCC in a number of different projects involving programme management, the development of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions as well as the support to improve information sharing for the West Sussex Drug Action Team and its partners.
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westsussex.pdf
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iMPOWER was tasked with the design and development of the NWeGG organisation in order to create a successful partnership to further develop the e-government agenda in the North West. iMPOWER further supported NWeGG as the structure was of the organisation was put in place.
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nwegg.pdf
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BFBC contacted iMPOWER as they were looking for support in developing and implementing a customer contact strategy. They had twice commissioned consultants to help them address this requirement. Whilst on both occasions a sensible strategy was delivered, this never progressed beyond a heavy report sitting on a number of directors’ desks.
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bracknellforest.pdf
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The LB of Enfield aspired to transform the quality of the services they offered to the public and were looking to the private sector for partnership opportunities. iMPOWER helped Enfield to become an Informed Buyer by entering into partnership discussions with potential partners by understanding their own requirements and objectives as well as the real potential that the use of partnerships might have across the organisation as a whole.
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enfield.pdf
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iMPOWER was engaged to find out the level of awareness of CRM in local government, to identify relevant best practice, and to design a step-by-step toolkit for use by councils when procuring CRM implementations.
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odpm.pdf
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Suffolk County Council is working in partnership with two of the District Councils (mid Suffolk and Coastal Suffolk) to address issues of accessibility for the local community. The councils share an ambition to deliver public services that make it easier for users to obtain the information and services they need in a seamless, helpful and simple way.
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suffolk.pdf
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for case study (pdf).
