A Tight Ship

You probably wouldn’t associate the south end of an Essex village with the world of technology. From its humble beginnings, the now coastal city of Southend has come a long way. Today its borough council serves a population of well over a quarter of a million. Southend-on-Sea Borough Council (SBC) is a large unitary authority dedicated to improving the daily lives of its residents.

Through a diverse range of essential services, facilities, and programmes, it is responsible for managing and delivering universal services, social care and economic regeneration.

New Horizons


Time and tide don’t wait around, and SBC had arrived at the point where it needed to update its offering of customer, visitor and business services. Right across the Council, the challenges faced included the replacement of an end-of-life, first generation, Customer Relationship Management system. Amongst other cost-effective end goals, a move towards an efficient streamlined channel was a primary objective.

Feeling Buoyant

The implementation of new processes, CRM, Customer Account and Integrations with back-office and service systems were delivered on time and on budget. The channel shift saw high levels of resident sign-up with automation spurring savings thanks to reduced face-to-face and phone contact. Additional cost reductions were made through the development of a Programme Team, a high-functioning unit set up with minimal third-party support.

All hands on deck

Our first port of call was the development of design principles and core end-to-end business processes. Once agreed, we developed detailed business and technology requirements to inform the future solution design, procurement of a new technology supplier and opportunities to enable channels shift and digitalisation.

Plans to implement the 4OC programme along with project delivery methodology followed. The final stages comprised of a structured handover and support package.

Ship Shape

“4OC with their in-depth knowledge of public services have delivered in partnership with Southend-on-Sea Borough Council a significant change programme. Their team has the skills and experience to support different elements of any project or process review as and when required. They bring a flexible and adaptable approach to problem solving and understand the challenges of Local Government. They have helped us future proof our services and helped to build resilience in our own teams by sharing their knowledge and tools. They have demonstrated excellent client relations by being available and accessible as required, especially during key milestone periods. They are fun and professional but are also not afraid to challenge the norm.”

Ellen Butler, Head of Customer Services, Southend-on-Sea Borough Council

"They are fun and professional but are also not afraid to challenge the norm"

For more

If legacy tech is giving you that sinking feeling, we can offer a lifeline. Send us an SOS or message in a bottle to andrew@the4oc.com

If you’d like to find out more about how we delivered this work, or our approach supporting the sector, or you can check out more of our work in Local Government

The Challenge

In response to the Covid-19 outbreak, the government advised Local Authorities to set up ‘Community Hubs’ in each borough to support the 1.5m people considered to be ‘most at risk’ of severe illness should they contract the virus. As this ‘shielded’ group is required to self-isolate for at least 12 weeks, councils must be in contact with them to determine their needs and if they are being met. This approach reflects a new partnership approach between local and national agencies to support those in our communities.

Initial guidance of how to set up and run the hubs, from Central Government, was understandably limited as the new approach was develop with urgency and Councils have had to respond on a best endeavours basis to ensure that this vulnerable group are not placed at greater risk. It is recognised that the new support model will evolve to reflect learning from its implementation across the country. With resources already stretched, Harrow Council asked for our assistance.

The main challenge was the co-ordination and management of a very willing, enthusiastic and complex supply chain involving all Council services, multiple voluntary organisations and  Distribution Hubs.

Because of the scale and speed of response, normal governance,  decision making and prioritisation of activity would not be fit for purpose and so a new framework was required to ensure that there was clarity of about the purpose of the hub and how it would operate, in the short, medium and long term.

Getting a Community Hub designed, approved and delivered in just 3 Weeks

The Response

The Council had already identified a supply chain and quickly instigated some services. They recognised that the scale of the response required them to have robust processes in place so that the collective efforts of the many stakeholders involved are as effective as possible and no effort was wasted.

On the first day, we recognised that this hub may need to be in place for some time and that service user need would change and become more complex, so there needed to be mechanisms set up to track and monitor how the hub operated and the impact to the council and services users.

We were able to get a plan in place within one day of starting work. This provided reassurance to the team that there was a clear way forward. Our team worked side by side with Council staff and within 6 days the team worked through and established:

  • A common understanding, across all stakeholders of the purpose of the hub and what services it was, initially, offering
  • How the hub would operate and where the hand-offs occurred across providers and council departments. This includes defining the outbound processes and how the hub responded to requests for support. We identified and mapped core business processes, and roles and responsibilities of individuals across the supply chain
  • A framework for capturing information and requirement specification so that systems can be refined for capturing this systematically on an ongoing basis
  • A continuous improvement process that captures real time lessons learned
  • Profiled resource across the supply chain
  • Developed daily, weekly and Cabinet reporting
  • Set up a risk management process

The Outcome

Harrow Council now have:

  • An operating model so everyone is clear what the outcomes will be, roles and responsibilities and how to communicate effectively
  • New Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to avoid confusion and double handling of work
  • A Resource Model and an understanding of how to deal with the impact of a self-isolating workforce
  • Consistent, useful reporting to the exec teams
  • A Continuous Improvement framework to allow the teams to be constantly tuning and improving how they deliver this service

With new information being generated every day, the structure of the service we designed and implemented allows decisions to be made quickly and the implications of them understood.

And finally, the impact assessment and continual improvement capability now allows the council to be responsive to the rapidly changing needs of their most vulnerable residents.

 

Jonathan Milbourn, Head of Customer Services and Business Services, added:

‘The 4OC team brought order and structure when we were at our most turbulent. They didn’t get in the way, they listened and then produced, taking pressure off our teams. They did this with no fuss, good humour and an empathetic ear. Their outputs and approach have given us all an increased level of control and confidence when we need it most’

 

 

The challenge

Prior to its merger with Notting Hill, the Housing Management service in Genesis Housing needed to ensure that their operating model could respond to the changes in the operating environment, but more importantly to the changes in need and expectation from their customers.

They outlined a series of objectives that would allow them to:

  1. Improve Customer Service for their 170,000 residents
  2. Improve and simplify the use of technology to provide a better online offer to customers
  3. Better support their frontline staff
  4. Drive savings from the non-value adding parts of the operating processes

This required a transformation of the current operational processes in parallel with improvements to the supporting technology.

Designed and embedded a new operating model and supported staff to own the change

The response

4OC put in place a team with experience of managing and transforming customer facing operations in a variety of settings including the housing sector.

We set out a clear plan to work with each team in the service to co-design a new Operating Model. This plan provided Notting Hill Genesis with a set of enabling activities that would support the transition of the teams from the existing to new ways of working, including changes in how staff and the business were managed.

We supported staff to own and drive the changes on an incremental basis and helped ensure that the new ways of working could be tested, and that information could be systematically collected to help with informed decision making on future changes or investment, making the business more responsive. 

What ensured that the changes took hold is that we emphasised the importance of designing the new ways of working with the staff, leadership team and customers, building consensus and really getting to grips with the realities of our Housing Management ambitions.

The outcome

We delivered a clear Directorate Vision and Plan, a significant redesign of the organisational structure and refinement of the Operating Model. This was signed off by the Genesis senior team.

Genesis subsequently used 4OC to support the restructure and relocation of the Customer Service Centre, and also to implement a performance management framework across Housing Management. This has resulted in remarkable improvements in performance, customer and staff satisfaction, and fundamentally changed the culture to one totally focussed on performance and customer. 

Some key metrics include:

  • Sickness and staff turnover levels at a record low
  • On course to deliver the projected savings in year one.
  • Improvements in customer satisfaction from 76% to 83%
  • A significant reduction in stress levels (judged via stress risk assessments undertaken before and after the project)

The ‘working alongside’ approach helped Genesis to develop the internal capability for managing change and performance, which has turned out to be as valuable as the design of the new ways of working.

The Challenge

Orbit Housing recognised that their Shared Service Centre (SSC) needed to improve and modernise the way it engaged with its customers. The way that a service centre operates has a significant impact on how the rest of the organisation can efficiently process customer contacts and more fundamentally how it can deliver on the overall customer experience. Orbit’s twin aims were to improve customer experience and satisfaction at point of contact, while ensuring that they could respond more quickly and effectively to customer requests.  

Orbit’s approach to customer engagement had been quite traditional, based primarily on contact via phone. This approach was failing due to outdated technology, increased demand and a lack of integration with their operational teams. 

£10 million of savings identified and delivered

The Response

We worked with Orbit staff at all levels, capturing their experience and insight, to create a new customer engagement model that used digital technology more effectively. The requirements of the customer and the customer engagement team were at the heart of the design process. We ensured we understood what they needed through delivering a combination of 1-2-1 meetings and workshops. 

 The new engagement model had to provide a return on investment, so once we had developed the new approach, we provided Orbit’s senior management team with a detailed analysis describing the cost, risk and benefits of implementation. 

The Outcome

Our approach ensured that both senior management and the customer engagement team were equally committed to the new vision for supporting their customers. Deliverables included a new customer engagement model, supported by a ‘Service Catalogue’ that describes the new way of working; a detailed cost-benefit analysis; and an implementation plan. 

51%

of all customer transactions are now completed digitally or online

Orbit Housing moved from 47th into the Top 25 Housing Organisations in 24 Housing magazine’s annual listing, in just two years.

The challenge

Peterborough City Council (PCC) were faced with the competing demand of improving service delivery for customers and service users against a backdrop of reducing funds. This required the reshaping of how services were delivered, how the Council was structured, the use of alternative delivery models and the delivery mechanism that it used to meet the challenges.  

A great deal of effort went into creating the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) and a range of projects were being delivered, but there was a lack of consistency in approach, outputs and outcomes. PCC required emphasis on providing clear, timely information to make informed decisions, understand their consequences and how they could be managed. 

Alongside this, PCC also delivered a number of core services in jointly with Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC), which added complexity to designing and delivering change. 

£10 million of savings identified and delivered

The response

4OC was awarded a contract to work alongside the Chief Executive and Leadership Team as a Transformation Partner to meet the challenge.  Our co-design approach began with a full review diagnostic review of existing objectives, projects, resources, and costs within the People and Communities Directorate (P&C). This was to quickly assess the root cause of were projects were not delivering and provide practical fixes to make immediate impact.  

Alongside the diagnostic, we provided PCC with a programme framework including the Design and Delivery controls and approaches, to deliver of the MTFS. A key part of the framework was the structured approach to designing change with staff and customers, and considered resource and cost planning.

The outcome

Our approach and response to this challenge led to: 

  • the identification and delivery of over £10million of financial savings within P&C 
  • the upskilling of staff to deliver change who now feel more confident to make faster, more informed decisions 
  • transparency and visibility of dependencies and risks to make informed investment decisions 
  • A fully designed and mobilised Local Authority Trading Company to deliver environmental services and provide PCC with future revenue generation potential

The challenge

Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) has committed to a long-term transformation of services to maximise use of resources, drive efficiency and improve the overall offer to existing and future students of the University, aligning operating costs and service outputs with its long term aims. This represents a significant programme of change for the University that will impact students, faculties and professional services.   

4OC were engaged to help ARU set out the scope of the transformation programme.

Together, we developed a Vision for the transformed University and agreed a high-level operating model

The response

We worked with the leadership teams across the University to:  

  • Develop an agreed and commonly understood vision for a transformed University  
  • Co-design, gain a common understanding of and gain agreement on a set of Design principles that set the framework for engagement and how the programme would be delivered  
  • Develop, based on 4OC’s transformation and change methodologies, an ARU bespoke transformation approach 

Our financial analysts produced a baseline of the operational financial performance, from which we were measured the impact of subsequent operational change as part of a formalised transformation programme.  

We conducted intensive and structured stakeholder engagement sessions to share and capture ideas for transformational change, tactical operational improvements and financial savings. By creating a safe space for individuals to engage with one another, discuss their own experiences of the organisation and address questions that they may not otherwise have the opportunity to consider, we helped the teams to start to take ownership of the activities and outcomes in the programme. 

The outcome

Using our experience of the HE sector and delivering organisational wide transformation programmes, we developed a narrative that helped the leadership team understand what some of the consequences of moving to a new operating model could be and how those consequences could be managed.   

This project established the framework and tone for the broader transformation programme.  We worked with the Transformation Leadership Team (TLT) to develop a Vision for the transformed University and agree a high-level operating model supporting efficient and student focussed services, setting out the activities required to affect and embed the change that will drive efficiencies and yield sustainable financial benefits.   

We provided and shared a detailed Risk, Assumptions, Issues and Dependency log (RAID), which included mitigation strategies. This helped to solidify confidence in the programme amongst the people who will be affected.  

Finally, during the Handover and Closeout stage we reflected with the client on the process, illuminating lessons learned to build capacity that would inform future projects and change activities as the TLT moves forward with initiating and mobilising the Transformation Programme.