For a number of years, the strong message coming from the Better Connected studies has been that getting the website right is fundamental to achieving major savings for the public sector.

As a result of the severe financial cutbacks prompted by the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), many, if not most, public sector organisations are embarking on major transformation in the way that they deliver services. Yet the track record of such ambitious programmes in the public sector is poor as organisations struggle with issues of leadership, capacity and methodology. Here is one approach that is working.

Brighton & Hove City Council had begun a business process analysis programme in Children's Services. In the context of the Council Plan for “a council the city deserves”, and the requirement for increased efficiency under the Value for Money agenda, the overall aim was for a systematic programme of improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of processes and information handling within children’s services.

Making processes fit for purpose in the council of the future is not easy, but we have developed a highly structured approach which ensures that we take account of all the factors:

We have the skills and the tools to help you achieve a website that delivers for your council - that is a website that gives real value in terms of the services it delivers to your customers and the savings it makes for the council. We cover all that is needed, summarised below:

Most processes in councils have developed over the years for delivery by traditional means - by members of staff, using paper-based systems to deliver a service. These are inefficient and out-dated, error-prone, and not customer-friendly. They have no place in the council of the future.

For many councils, integrating the website with the back-office systems can be seen as complicated and expensive - in some cases giving rise to estimated costs of £1 million of more - but it doesn't need to be complicated or expensive.

Saving substantial sums of money must be at the forefront of every public sector manager’s thinking, and ICT is the enabler for almost every solution from customer self-service and shared services to flexible working and radical service redesign. The promise is there, but how to guarantee the benefits?

Doing things that are useful and not doing those that aren’t is a double win, and at the heart of lean thinking. Lean is an approach which turns on its head the idea that an imposed approach is a recipe for doing things better. It focuses on outcomes for the customer, rather than on processes for the provider.

"Applying Lean systems approaches, in their broadest sense – to question how best to achieve required outcomes, remove waste, and focus on customer need."