Atos Origin is working to transform business performance in the UK local government sector, in line with the agenda set out by the Gershon Review. By working in partnership with local authorities, we aim to deliver sustainable change to enhance customer services, improve staff morale and create real efficiency savings with an immediate impact on budgets.
We do this by seeking robust and effective partnership structures with our local government clients in which:
- There is mutual and respectful challenge at senior level
- Joint working and skills transfer are a critical element of sustainabie, continuous improvement
- A degree of risk and reward is enabled as part of an agreed commercial framework.
The ingredients of any partnership programme are infinitely variable, however, some of the key elements are captured below.
Identifying areas for change
Before setting out on a programme of change, it is normal to make an assessment of the spend that can be influenced within that part of the organisation under review. This enables the partners to consider where intervention is likely to be most needed or will yield greatest benefits. An incremental programme of change can be built around this assessment.
Change management
As part of a transformation programme, we assess the organisation’s capacity to absorb change. This will largely depend upon the culture of the organisation and the experience of previous change initiatives. A business transformation programme will typically have a change management workstream at its heart, with relevant principles reflected in the subsequent effort.
Procurement reform
Procurement and supply chain management is one of our core skills. We have undertaken category management reviews across all areas within local government. This includes some of the most challenging fields such as adult social care, where decisions about the scale of reform are highly sensitive. Our approach to procurement is designed to generate early cashable savings. In pursuit of the Gershon agenda these savings can help to support wider transformation activity within the local authority.
Sustainable business process change
Our programmes of sustainable business process change can enable councils to drive out savings over time without compromising service standards. Linked to a realistic redeployment strategy, the change programme can gain all-party support and maintain constructive trade union involvement. Our approach includes:
- High level business process engineering to identify the best prospects for efficiency gains across the organisation
- Business case development to calculate return on investment and agree an implementation plan
- A joint partnership implementation team to ensure skills transfer and sustainable change
- Integrated programme management linked to a strong change management plan to ensure buy-in and stakeholder commitment.
We have experience of business process re-engineering across most parts of local government, including social care, housing, environmental services, financial services and corporate activities.
Operational design models
Our knowledge of local government customer service delivery processes, combined with our operational design expertise, ensures that we can support best practice customer contact and management in the public sector. Councils need cost-effective strategies that enable the delivery of customer services through different channels and extended infrastructures. We can help to translate these visions and plans into design principles for a future operational model, including design assumptions, technology requirements and a plan that will ensure successful implementation.
Our clients
We have made a significant investment in developing local government solutions and we have worked with over 20 councils over the past five years, including London boroughs and unitary, city and county authorities.
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