Planting the Flag - redesigning local public services to serve the local public better
Last week in our first "Planting the Flag" briefing we examined why strategic collaboration is now central to ICT strategy for local public services and how you and your colleagues can best approach it. This week we look at Redesigning Services to Simplify, Standardise and Automate. What are the key elements to this?
- Collaborative delivery. Current practice is inconsistent, wasteful and not in the customers' interests. Government expects - and most customers want - local public services to be coherent and delivered seamlessly across the many agencies responsible, but current processes are usually tied to one organisation and frequently to one silo within that organisation. The heaviest users of services are often in contact with the most agencies, but there is little collaboration between them. In headline cases this results in high-profile tragedies but in millions of unpublicised cases there is duplication and inconsistency, wasting taxpayers' money and customers' time. Services must be redesigned to serve the individual customer better by coordinating the efforts of the multiple organisations working for them. Have you started talking to local partners yet, or even having 'talks about talks'? Remember, too that the penetration of smartphone technology into these low-income groups is much higher than you may realise.
- Lean thinking. Current services are flabby, expensive and inefficient. Most local public services, especially those delivered by councils, have developed organically over a long period, gathering layer upon layer of complexity thanks to organisational changes, managerialism, new computer systems and the demands of legislation and 'best practice'. Automation and simplification can reduce current resource requirements by two thirds to produce a cheaper and better solution. How many of your services would look very different - and work better and more cheaply - if they were redesigned with the modern world in mind?
- 'Digital by design.' Current practice is not designed for digital delivery. Most service delivery processes pre-date the digital age and when 'computerised' frequently fail to exploit digital technology fully. More than two thirds of UK households use broadband internet in their daily lives, and are increasingly accustomed to self-service and slick, innovative online services. Within two years, it is predicted that access to the internet through smartphones will overtake access from a PC or laptop - are you ready for that? Even the many services that cannot be actually delivered online could still work better for the customer and service providers if information was better managed and maximum use made of automation. A diminishing minority will not or cannot use online facilities, but that's no reason why your website should not be saving you a lot of money by pleasing the majority who can and do.
- Customer first. Current services are fragmented, poorly designed and built more to suit the organisation than the customer. Getting the public onside is vital if local public services are to survive. What plans does your organisation have to redesign services around customer needs, using customer insight techniques to examine customer behaviour and consult with partners and customer themselves, in order to ensure you deliver what customers want in the way they want?
Financial realities and a rapidly changing world demand the redesign of local service delivery on collaborative principles, using lean techniques and information technology to deliver what the customer wants rather than what delivery organisations are used to providing. We are keen to advise on and facilitate this process. Please contact me if you would to discuss how best we can assist you.