Social Services system replacement and business process re-engineering

The project issues
Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council (WMBC) was rated 'poor' in its CPA in 2003, with Social Services being particularly referenced along with some other areas of the Council's work. At the time, the Council was already part way through a procurement process to replace its legacy mainframe-based client index system, seeking to obtain a system which would better serve the needs of practitioners and managers in their day to day work.

Immediately after the outcome of the CPA review, the existing procurement of a replacement social services system was stopped and started again from the beginning, with an internal project manager managing the project. Socitm was appointed as overall programme manager – the programme being not only to manage the procurement and implementation of a new system, but to bring about the necessary changes in practice and procedure to achieve significant improvement in service provision.

The Socitm Consulting solution
The project was undertaken over a two year period - the first year focusing on the specification, tendering, procurement, and implementation of the core system, and the second focusing on business process change and on the tailoring of the system to meet the identified business needs.

The Council already had in place a recovery plan for the whole council, seeking to attain excellent status by 2008, and Social Services also had its own improvement plan comprising some 90 or more individual projects. Core to a large number of these projects was the implementation of a case-work based computer system to support the work of the practitioners in all areas of the department's work.

The initial task was to develop overall programme and project plans for the work involved – although some plans had been developed in the council, these were neither detailed nor maintained. Following that, a robust approach to system procurement was adopted, based on the Socitm procurement toolkit, and ensuring transparency and objectivity at all stages in the process. On the contractual front, Socitm worked closely with an external legal firm assisting to draw up the contract, with Socitm drafting the schedules to the contract, and contributing to contract negotiations on behalf of the Council.

Socitm then undertook rigorous acceptance testing of the system, and planned and managed the transfer of data from the legacy system to the new one, with considerable data cleansing on the way.

With the system implemented, focus then switched to the business processes – these had been documented earlier, to assist in developing the specification of requirements for the system. Detailed process maps were developed of all current processes, and workshops held with staff to validate these and explore variations in practice between teams. Further workshops then explored the opportunities for change, and these were translated into detailed process maps of the new ways of working proposed for the service – and these in turn formed the basis of the configuration specification for the software.

The software itself was selected so as to be as flexible as possible – allowing for processes and procedures to be configured as required, and not be constrained by the design of the software itself.

The benefits to the client
For the client, the overall programme of work was effectively managed – with detailed plans for the programme and component projects being maintained at all times, and all work being managed according to these plans. In the course of the project, both the project manager and the manager of the IT section left, leaving Socitm to manage their roles as well.

The procurement was handled rigorously and transparently, and an outcome achieved which was based on objective assessment against the defined needs of the council.

Ultimately, the Council obtained benefit from the investment in the new system through the changes in working practice, and the ability of the system to support these changes.

Project identification
Council name: Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council
Client contact: Kelvin Dawson, Head of Business and Support Services, 01922 652701, dawsonk@walsall.gov.uk;
Lead consultant: doug.maclean@socitm.gov.uk
Project nos: 4291, 4588, 4802