The Importance of Business Support For Local Authorities

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1 Business support Taking care of your back-office enabling you to focus on core and achieve strategic objectives.

2 Business support forms the backbone to service delivery Behind every service delivered by a local authority, there is a need for reliable and highly productive back-office operational processes. As councils face ongoing financial challenges as a result of the Government s spending review, the delivery of public sector is changing. Councils are being asked to deliver more for less, while improving and achieving cost savings. Capita s market leading business support is helping local authorities to streamline back-office processes across a wide range of service areas. By re-shaping processes and utilising technology, our proven model enables our customers to: Deliver more efficient and consistent back-office functions Free up resources to focus on front-line Benefit from increased productivity Generate sustained cost savings. Combining our scale, expertise and highly-skilled people, we are considered a trusted partner for delivering both everyday and transformational administrative. Key benefits Cost savings across the whole service through process re-engineering and using technology as an enabler Greater resilience across the whole Council through the provision of consolidated teams of multi-skilled resources Focus on core by releasing capacity within retained to focus on the front-line delivery Improved efficiency and consistency of processes - by eliminating duplication Improved visibility - of work volumes and management of service targets Reduction in accommodation space supporting local authority accommodation strategies and contributing towards cost savings Enhanced management information - to monitor key performance indicators Better staff morale and team work - through improved performance management, creating clearly-defined career paths and supporting staff in undertaking Business Administration NVQs.

3 case study Consolidating common processes at Swindon Borough Council Since 2007, Capita has been working in partnership with Swindon Borough Council to provide business support to the borough s children s social care team, in what has been the first such initiative of its kind. As a result of an overhaul of the Council s system, Capita has provided a number of solutions which increase the speed and accuracy of admin processing, while remaining aware of the sensitive nature of the documents being processed. Working together, administrative support for the Council s children s social care division has improved, creating jobs in the region while alleviating the administrative pressures which had been put on social workers, enabling them to now spend more time making visits to children considered at-risk and improving general service levels for residents. As a result of the business support, Swindon Borough Council has seen: A reduction in turn-around time for minutes of meeting paperwork from cases involving at risk children. An increase in the number of jobs with career progression opportunities created as a result of the administrative support roles. More social workers concentrating on social care duties as opposed to admin tasks Financial savings which can be redeployed back into the social care division.

4 Our business support We understand that all local authorities are different with changing needs and priorities. That s why our are designed to be fully-flexible to meet individual requirements. We can deliver anything from for a stand alone service to multiple functions across range of council directorates. Cross-council Stationery ordering PACE tapes and word processing ID badges Invoice processing Post and scanning Managing employee starter and leaver processes Event management Minute taking Filing Child minder registry Expenses and overtime processing Corporate complaints handling Report collating and analysis Customer satisfaction surveys Service specific business support Children s social care Children s quality standards Early years and pupil Legal Planning Social care Housing Transport Library Children s referrals; A front-door for children accessing social care ; we handle the signposting, assessments and brief intervention process. Foster and adoption ; Including the recruitment, training and supervision of foster carers and adopters. Safeguarding; Overseeing the child protection conferences and reviews of children in care. We run this independently of the social work teams to provide quality assurance of the child protection process. Children s community teams; To support social workers in producing care plans, reviews, care cost packages and other assessments as part of care planning for children in longterm care. Children in care; Handling the of placing of children in care, including monitoring and reviewing the child throughout the placement. Parent partnership; Offering parents and carers independent information and support about all aspects of their children s special educational needs, particularly during Statutory Assessments. Surestart ; Local schemes including childcare place development, guidance about the Ofsted childcare registers, support for quality development in childminding and out of school provision, recruitment and training for childcare practitioners, as well as running a number of children s centres. Family nurse partnerships; Administering the national evidence-based programme Health visiting; Administering the birth records and movements of children under five for clinic and home visits. Educational welfare; Working with schools and families to promote school attendance and the of permits and licences for children. Education psychology; Providing specialist support on the identification and assessment of pupils with learning or physical difficulties. Environmental health ; From noise and pollution to food safety and stray dogs. Legal word processing & filing Supporting the legal team and solicitors working across council. Trading standards Administration and enforcement support against organisations that are breaking the law. Planning applications Including application processing, consultation and assessments. Building control Handling checks to ensure building works meet the required legislation. Targeted mental health support Support, consultations and training to professionals to the impact on attachment parenting on mental health and increasing the awareness of risk factors among children and young people. Housing Including homeless service and sheltered accommodation, assessing housing needs, estate management, handling repairs and right to buy schemes. Car parking Administration of car parking, penalty charges notices and residential permits. Blue badges Administering the Government s disabled parking badge scheme. Concessionary travel Administering the National Bus Pass and mobility schemes for local residents. Highways and transport Handling the road repairs, planning, street cleansing, blockages and street furniture process. Library support To manage relief cover for planned and short-notice absence and other administrative tasks

5 Our approach At the heart of our service delivery is the need for highly-skilled and motivated employees. As a result we have developed a people-centric approach that combines state-of-the-art technology to maximise efficiency and productivity of business support process. Our service delivery model typically includes: Resource management People development Process redesign Technology enablement By implementing processes that deliver flexibility and agility, it provides resilience during peaks in operational demand and helps eliminate single points of failure. Our training and development plans guarantee a high quality and motivated workforce, to offer a balance between expert resources in specialised to up-skilling employees to work across multiple. Through reviewing and redesigning processes we maximise opportunities for enhanced efficiency and productivity. For example through the consolidation if common processes while protecting value-adding, specialist processes. By maximising the investment that a council has already made in technology and investing further where significant returns on investment can be made. Developing expert resources We recognise that process re-engineering often requires and element of cultural change and take great care in supporting employees throughout this process. We invest in fully-integrated training plans which include the up-skilling and crosstraining of employees to: Ensure resources have the skills necessary to deliver under the selected operational model Enhance the talent and development of our employees Widen the skill-set of employees to enable cross-working to enhance the resilience and continuity of Council during fluctuations in workloads and resource availability Deliver synergies and similarities between specialist provided to various departments. How we deliver Our business support solution has the capability to deliver a wide range of. However we recognise that due to the varying needs of councils and the sensitivities associated with certain, there is not a one-size fits all model to delivery. Therefore we listen and understand the specific requirements of the Council and tailor our delivery accordingly. For example, for certain, such as Adult s and Children s Social Care, the provision of locally based specialist support is important to maintain the administrative links with the front-line delivery teams. However for other central, such as procurement, an off-site or consolidated approach may be more appropriate and aligned to the financial and efficiency goals of a local authority.

6 Choice of delivery Our customers can use one or more of our resourcing delivery models depending on the provision of. Each of the resourcing delivery models are intrinsically linked to ensure that there is always suitable resources available to enable a resilient service to the Council. Specialist resources On-site teams of pooled resources to provide specialist functions Office resource hub Off-site multi-skilled resource teams delivering cross-council support Models of delivery Embedded For that are more effectively delivered by retaining them within a specific Council team case study Technology enablement at the London Borough of Harrow In 2005 Capita began a ten year partnership with Harrow Council to deliver its business transformation programme across the borough. Harrow set out to change the way its frontline staff deliver council to citizens to radically improve the residents experience. At the same time it wanted to save as much as possible on back office functions and procurement. To support the delivery of Harrow s business support functions we worked closely with the Council to implement new technology solutions to enable process re-design and improvement. This includes: The implementation of a new records management solution and workflow system to enable the use of electronic documents across multiple departments Paper documents are now centrally scanned and sent via workflow, to the correct department for processing Introducing the use of tablet PCs for operatives who work remotely to enable real time access to information on back office processing levels, providing increased flexible working The ability to access accurate management information (MI) from the system from each processes and department which is supporting further improvements and enhanced management of fluctuations in demand.

7 Find out more To find out more about Capita s business support service and how we can help your local authority please contact us by: Telephone: locgov@capita.co.uk You can also find out about our broad range of to local authorities by visiting our website: