Authority #2

South West

9 Areas of Improvement

9 Month Intervention

1. Fleet Services
Asked in to target £100K savings through vehicle servicing and management improvement.
3X large IT systems 'Linked' + 'No Repeat' data entry and vehicle tracking systems implemented.
Addressing systemic issues from 'Cradle to grave' (Procurement to Disposal) £6M capital was saved in the first 30 months + £1M / annum revenue was saved with no reduction in head-count. Overall savings >£15M over 5 years.

2. Passenger Transport
Asked to 'repair' a demoralised and dysfunctional team who had lost control of their systems and ICT
Addressed and improved route planning, automated previously manual payments, improved invoicing accuracy, increased coherent links with social care and adult social care.
18% savings including £300K saved in relation to utilising spare capacity equated to total savings of >£1M / annum

3. Housing
Rescue a 'stalled' project abandoned by previous consultants
Current State had been identified through analysis, but there was no 'Future State' (the authority had been told what was wrong, but hadn't been offered any solutions to correct it). SSD identified 'quick wins' injecting a new lease of life into the team seeing a range of improvements implemented quickly.

4. Room Bookings
A relatively recent review had seen a 'self-serve' room booking system established across the authority.
Many rooms were under-utilised (i.e. 3 people were using a room designed to hold 25). As a result the Authority was spending £600K per annum on external function rooms for meetings. A booking agent was employed saving over £500K per annum.

5. Parking Services
Address enforcement to hit budget / revenue targets
External consultants had 'cloned' an untenable policy causing each separate car park to work in conflict with each other. A 3 day training session with all parking leads eradicated the conflict saving £800K / annum, implemented within a few weeks. 5 work threads followed delivering £2M in year 2, creating 8 new positions and projecting a 5 year net saving forecast of £16M

6. Clinical Waste
Overcoming an inordinate level of admin for 'A man in a van'.
GIS visualisation of rounds identified the admin work carried out by an equivalent 'Full Time Employee' per week could be reduced to a few hours. Further analysis and planning identified 95% of all admin work being carried out was avoidable. £2M costs were subsequently identified as 'removable' as part of a wider waste and recycling project.

7. Council Values
    & Behaviours
An HR Organisational Development review identified Lean and Systems Thinking as a central aspect of a new corporate core philosophy, essential if the desired 'high performance culture' was to evolve over time. SSD linked with OD to create a powerful Behaviours Framework, helping the leadership style evolve from 'Carrot and Stick' to 'positive hearts and minds'.

8. Accelerating 
Transformation
Enabling a team of 4 lean practioners to grow in capability and influence.
Went from 2 under-performing interventions to 8 successful interventions following SSD 3 day course
2 years later 18 large scale interventions were running concurrently and producing results with links to the Police, NHS and Fire Brigade. The council purchased the rights to our course and put over 700 people through it, firmly establishing themselves as a 'Lean and Systems Thinking' Authority.

9. ICT & Systems
    Integration
Aligning Prince2 and Lean Systems Thinking Projects
SSD helped reconcile differences and implement systems to provide a framework. This saw L&ST methods used for emergent work and P2 for convergent work. This was facilitated via Sharepoint and better use of GIS and improved links between disparate data bases.
SUMMARY - The pace, engagement and appropriateness of SSD's VT (Visualising Transformation) approach for the council astonished them, helping many Heads of Service, Directors and Councillors re-appraise L&ST from being a bind to work with, to be truly the way to move forward.
The council released one Corporate Director and the Chief Executive while we were there, and yet their capacity to meet challenges increased, and they are now one of the most respected Transformational councils in the UK.