CABINET. Monday 2 April 2007 CUSTOMER SERVICE AND ACCESS STRATEGY - RESOURCES. Report of the Deputy Chief Executive (CR)

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1 CABINET Monday 2 April 2007 CUSTOMER SERVICE AND ACCESS STRATEGY - RESOURCES Report of the Deputy Chief Executive (CR) RECOMMENDATIONS It is recommended that Cabinet (1) Reaffirm the approach to implementing the strategic priority Accessibility of services:extending and improving the ways people can receive our services through prioritising the improvements brought together in the COMPASS programme. (2) Approve additional expenditure of 113,000 in 2007/08 to progress the Programme as planned, to be financed from resources earmarked for the Community Investment Programme eg capital receipts. Summary The COMPASS Programme is a key mechanism of the council s Customer Service and Access Strategy to make services available across all established and emerging access channels. The main aim of this programme is to ensure that the experience and service received by EBC customers is better than expected, however they contact us. This will be achieved by identifying and implementing suitable business and systems based solutions to support all of the projects in this programme. Eastleigh Borough Council (EBC) has procured to support their CRM (Customer Relationship Management) requirements the Frontline application software from Lagan Technologies. The purpose of this document is to request the resources required to deliver the continuing rollout of COMPASS / CRM to the service units of Eastleigh Borough Council. A paper was presented to the Council s Management Team on 08/11/2006 and various options presented. The chosen option 2 (Additional Resources) is the one presented in this paper. COMPASS1 1

2 Statutory Powers Local Government Act 2000 Part 1 Local Government Act 1999 S.2 Local Government Act 1992 S. 111 Introduction 1. COMPASS is an acronym and stands for: Customer Oriented Management of Processes, Access, Service & Support. The COMPASS programme includes the following projects: Customer Relationship Management, Electronic Document and Records Management, Customer Access Strategy. 2. The COMPASS Programme is a key mechanism of the Council s Customer Service and Access Strategy to make services and information available across all established and emerging access channels. These channels include communication by written, face to face, telephone or electronic means by residents, partners or business contacts. 3. The main aim of this programme is to ensure that the experience and service received by EB customers is better than expected however they contact us. 4. Cabinet considered a report on 12 January 2006, titled Procurement of Customer Relationship Management Computer Software, and approved purchase of a CRM system from Lagan Technologies. CRM is a computer system which records interactions with customers by whatever means, including telephone, , face to face, etc. It enables efficient and customer-responsive service delivery and provides management reporting for operational and in formational purposes. At the same time as implementation, existing service processes are analysed and redesigned to be more efficient and customer-responsive. 5. System implementation has begun in several units. As k knowledge and experience of implementing the system has been gained, this has resulted in a better understanding of the resource needs to carry out this work. It is clear that with the existing staffing levels in the COMPASS team, roll-out across the Council will be slow. Addition al staffing is therefore sought to speed this up so we can achieve the benefits within an acceptable timescale. 6. The COMPASS Programme will be subject to a review in July The review will consider the initial implementation of then Programme, and options to accelerate delivery to the remainder of Council services. This report and request only covers the currently authorised work and a timescale of the next 12 to 18 months and will be subject to further refinement following the July review. COMPASS1 2

3 7. An options review has been considered by the Council s Management Team and this presumed that the following planned work items being undertaken y the COMPASS team will continue until completed. Development of Direct Services CRM implementation Continued support for and development of CRM in Environmental Health Maintenance update of the current CRM system incorporating required changes due to roll-out to Economic Development and Environmental Health Development of Management reporting using CRM Business Intelligence Module Upgrade of the system to the latest version of Frontline CRM 8. In order to deliver the items in the previous paragraph, the core COMPASS team must be maintained. The team includes two Business Analysts whose salaries are currently funded t the end of 2006/07. Provision needs to be made for continued funding during 2007/08 for the amount of 82, Additional work is required in 2007/08 in order to deliver the previously identified business benefits and work plan from COMPASS. These are: Reshaping of the Reception/Town Centre Office processes (including CRM) Development of common Council-wide processes that affect customers across all service units Investigation and development of new customer service standards and complaint procedure including in formation capture and lessons learnt process Implementation of enhanced security to RM Initial development work for additional service units identified following the CRM where next? Review Support for the CRM where next? Review 10. The range of options included continuing with the current staffing resources and various levels of additional staffing. Management Team agreed to support Option 2 which comprises: An additional Business Analyst. The individual will be a specialist in Business Process Re-engineering rather than a CRM specialist. Their work will concentrate on the Common Process/Reception/Complaint elements COMPASS1 3

4 Extension of the existing Programme Co-ordinator contract post, which is due to finish in April 2007, for a further year. Funding for the Programme Co-ordinator extension can be met from within the programme. 11. These additional resources will be required in order to deliver the items in the previous paragraph. Illustration of Current & Planned Work Schedule Current Planned Work Est Finish Date with Current Resources Est Finish Date with Requested Resources Direct Services October 2007 October 2007 Enhanced Security November 2007 October 2007 Self Service Development March % complete March % complete Environmental Health March 2008 December 2007 EDRM Feasibility April 2008 April 2008 CRM Version Upgrade November 2007 October 2007 EDRM Project Reception TCO Next Major Service Unit Not currently resourced Not currently resourced Not able to start until Q1 2008/09 April 2008 December 2008 Commence October 2007 Underlying Rationale 12. The extra Business Analyst would be first deployed to address issues in Civic Office reception and Town Centre Office. (Principally telephony and light touch CRM deployment). This approach is used because of an assumption abut training/experience of Frontline. 13. Additionally a low risk approach to deployment of RM is taken double analyst resources are used to support Direct Services training and roll-out. This follows lessons learnt by the team in earlier deployments. 14. If additional resources are available within the team the workload will be more balanced and allow for earlier development o Environmental Health processes. COMPASS1 4

5 15. After Direct Services roll-out additional resources would allow for faster commencement of the next service unit development. 16. The Project Co-ordinator would be able to supporting reporting developments plus self service development for customers to access and request services via the EBC website. 17. The EDRM (Electronic Document and Records Management) requirements and Project Initiation would be enabled. There is no resource available for this currently without an extension to the contract of the Programme Coordinator, which expires at the end of April By the end of 2007/08 the following CRM implementations will be enabled; Economic Development, Direct Services, Environmental Health, Cross Functional Processes, Reception, Town Centre Office. Limitations 19. This request increases the resources deployed to support the COMPASS Programme. It has the following limitations: Any slippage in delivery of currently planned work could have a medium impact All current in-scope CRM modules are implemented without extra technical resources above those agreed with IT Services Risk of slippage is moderate given current levels of supplier support/delivery/technical performance Financial Implications 20. At present the COMPASS Programme has an approved capital budget of 297,000. Additional funding of 82,000 is required to meet the costs of the Programme as currently agreed. 21. A further 31,000 will be needed to meet the additional Business Analyst for Option 2, as reasoned above. (This is pro-rata 9/12 of the annual cost of 41,000). 22. A total of 113,000 is therefore required in 2007/08 to enable the Programme to progress in accordance with Option 2. It is recommended that this be financed from resources earmarked for the Community Investment Programme. 23. During 2007/08 a full review of the budget requirements for COMPASS will be undertaken and a further report submitted to Cabinet in due course. COMPASS1 5

6 Risk Management 24. The COMPASS Team and Project Board carried out a detailed risk analysis at the start of the process, in October and will refresh this regularly thereafter. 25. If additional resources are not secured, it will take a long time for the project to be implemented. This will mean we will not be gaining any practical benefit from our investment and also the project as a whole will lose impetus. 26. Additional business resources within COMPASS which lead to an increase in the pace of development may have a knock-on effect and demand greater IT Services development resources than are currently available. Conclusion 27. It is strongly recommended that, in order to maintain the momentum of this programme, additional resources be allocated as indicated in this report. 28. Additional budget of 113,000 will be required in 2007/08 to meet the estimated cost of progressing the programme as outlined in this report. Civic Offices Leigh Road Eastleigh Hampshire SO50 9YN CHRIS REED Deputy Chief Executive Date: 29 March 2007 Contact Officer: Paul Mitchell Tel No: paul.mitchell@eastleigh.gov.uk Appendices Attached: None Report No COMPASS1 LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1972 SECTION 100D The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report or an important part of it is based and have been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report: None COMPASS1 6