Independent strategic advice to elected Members

The project issues

Council Members were about to undertake an ICT review and were keen to obtain as clear and objective assessment of the ICT function’s performance as possible. Socitm Consulting was asked to facilitate the entire review process by providing an independent assessment of the ICT function and identifying areas in which ICT could improve customer service delivery in the context of wider Council strategy.

The Socitm Consulting solution
Socitm Consulting undertook a phased review process for the Council’s Scrutiny Committee. This began with the production of an initial briefing for Members of the Scrutiny Committee to explain the relevance of ICT to living standards in the borough, using examples to illustrate how ICT underpins key aspects of customer service delivery. The focus at this point was to help Members understand the overall role of ICT for the Council, and avoid over-emphasis on the technology alone.

A report was produced based on interviews with ICT Managers and identification of key areas where ICT had helped to make real progress in the improvement of customer services. This helped the Committee to identify areas where further improvements could be made in terms of the production of the next ICT strategy and its integration with overall Council policy.

The report contents prompted the Scrutiny Committee to request a Benchmarking ‘group of one’ report. This compared the Council’s performance on ICT and customer satisfaction, project delivery and costs and other key trends with 10 comparable local authorities, thus enabling the Committee to focus on further areas for potential improvement.

Finally, key outcomes of the whole process were confirmed at a meeting with the Chair of the Steering Committee.

The benefits to the client
Members wanted to ensure that the new ICT strategy would focus on business objectives which would directly benefit customers, rather than technology, and would challenge the ICT function to maintain performance comparable with peer organisations. By providing objective advice in ICT strategy, benchmarking and performance improvement, Socitm Consulting was able to give Members confidence that the review would achieve these aims.

Project identification
Client organisation: London Borough of Hackney
Client contact: Ben Vinter, Head of Overview & Scrutiny, 020 8356 3441, ben.vinter@hackney.gov.uk 
Lead consultant: stephen.howes@socitmconsulting.co.uk
Project no: 5932