Fast Process Reviews: quick wins that transform the council and transform lives
As part of the Time to Change survey, many of you told us that we needed to reduce bureaucracy and unnecessary admin, so that you can focus on more productive work that helps our residents live their best lives. Many of you also said that we need to improve the customer experience. So what changes can we make? And can we make them in just eight weeks?
That’s why we’re introducing a series of Fast Service Reviews in service areas across the council. Designed to enhance efficiency and reduce costs and time, the Fast Service Reviews will review current processes in specific areas to see what improvements we can make – for the benefit of our customers and our colleagues.
We’ve brought together a squad of specialists from across the council, each person bringing different skills, experiences and perspectives. The squad will be working closely and collaboratively with certain service areas. This is a whole new way of working together, designed to get quick, tangible results. Some changes may seem small in isolation; taken together, they could help transform the council, reduce unnecessary admin, and liberate staff. It’s all about collaboration, co-ordination and co-creation.
Work’s already started with the FOI and Complaints teams, piloting our approach and learning from it so we can then decide how we choose to take this forward in the future. If it works, we will refine it and prioritise other processes and services in the future based on feedback from our customers and staff, giving us a pipeline of improvements that will make a difference to all.
How will fast process reviews transform lives?
Put yourself in the shoes of our residents and customers: when you need to transact with the council, you want to do so as quickly and as comprehensively as possible. For example, if you want to make a freedom of information request, make a complaint or apply for a blue badge, it’s perfectly reasonable to be able to access the required service with the minimum of fuss. Currently, however, that’s not always the case, leading to understandable frustrations.
So how can we improve the customer experience? That’s what we need to discover. Can we use digitisation and automation to speed up the process? What about e-forms? Do we need to change our webpages so that they encourage self-service? These are some of the questions we need to ask ourselves.
How will fast process reviews transform the council?
If it’s time-consuming and frustrating for a customer to transact with the council, then it’s more so for our staff. At the moment, dealing with a customer complaint, freedom of information request or service enquiry puts a considerable strain on capacity. If we can automate or digitise the customer experience, we can make transactions more efficient – reducing admin, reducing costs, and freeing up our staff to do more productive tasks with the time they save.
Why do we need to change?
Consistent and positive customer experience - ensuring that residents can access the services that they need that allows information to flow into the service area and is improved on the current provision.
Processes that are more efficient, digitised, and automated - we need to embrace technology to ensure that we are using resources effectively. This could be taking advantage of automation or even Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Effective webpages that permit self-help - web pages that are easy to use for residents so information is easy to understand and it is clear what will happen next.
Digital or e-forms - to provide structured data and supporting integration into broader systems and processes.
One front door - ensuring the entry points to the council are consistent and unified so it is simple for customers to access our services. By capturing this information through one point will enable the council to better understand current demand.
Improved systems and user capability - users will feel empowered to speak up about issues that they have and create a continuous improvement process for the service.
Increased capacity in teams and services - allowing the service area to spend more time on value added activities, such as preventative measures or innovating.
James Alderson, project manager, writes:
"I’m really excited by the Fast Process Reviews, and really looking forward to working with the different service areas. I’m keen to stress that this is a pilot scheme, and nothing’s set in stone: this is very much a case of working with service areas.
"This is all about ‘doing with’ and not ‘doing to’ services. Collaboration is key. We’ve just started working with the FOI and Complaints teams, and I’d like to thank them for their help, support and insight, and for really throwing themselves into the reviews. It’s a great example of the council coming together to find those quick wins that will transform the way we work, and improve the lives of residents and customers."