Authority #4

West London (1)

5 Areas of Improvement

7 Months

1. Project Recovery
SSD were engaged to address a near total ICT implementation failure.
A new ICT system roll-out over 3 boroughs catastrophically failed on launch, negatively impacting >2000 SEN passengers and their families. It was quickly identified that the new system wasn't fit for purpose and had no track-record in a similar environment. Robust solutions were quickly identified and implemented with no further interruption to services. Detailed claims against the provider delivered full cost recovery for the LA. 

2. Incident Review
A near fatal accident prompted calls for a full-scale independent review. SSD were selected to conduct this review and used AI (Appreciative Inquiry) techniques to identify issues that may have otherwise been overlooked. Following root cause identification a 25 point plan was immediately approved at the highest levels within the safeguarding committee without change or alteration, satisfying all aspects of the issue.

3. New Ways of Working
Failure of a core database had highlighted issues previously overlooked. SSD were engaged to identify the best options available to minimise risk. The solution identified enabled faster decision making, better customer care, improved safe-guarding and increased capacity. This allowed 4% more customers with increasingly complex personal needs to receive a high quality service provided by the previously under-capacity team. All this was achieved while reducing unit costs by 18%.

4. Improve planning
The task was to design more effective services. An existing under-utilised database was optimised to deliver better social care 'triage' activities. Initial changes saw data entry repetition eradicated & error reduction result in less re-work, increasing capacity to plan 'rounds' prior to final approval. Data was exported to GIS via ‘middle-ware’ to visualise all rounds, saving over 18% of costs, while reducing journey times, particularly for under-eleven’s. We also created spread sheets and alignment documents including BLiSS (Base Line Spread Sheet) to create a 'one time manage all rounds' process, which included a consolidated invoice payments process, saving a further 4% of costs.

5. Increase Capacity
Improve Day Centre Transport Design; Journeys to a day centre had been ‘out-sourced’ to a provider to self-manage but quality of service had been questioned. SSD were asked to intervene. We analysed journeys enabling more people to be transported with quicker journeys, meeting more of their preferred day / slot requests, for 22% less than the original costs. This saved over £95,000 per annum from just six days design activity.