Glasgow City Council
A streamlined operation
From floristry, catering and wedding services, to refuse collection and meals at home, Glasgow City Council, one of Scotland’s largest employers, has overhauled its internal systems and processes. These changes are enhancing the services provided to the 600,000 population and customers of Glasgow and meeting the targets set out in the ‘Efficient Government Agenda.’ Improving Customer Service February 2003 saw the formation of a team of 20 staff, brought together to contribute to Glasgow’s vision of an empowered workforce to deliver better value, customer driven services. With an ageing infrastructure, 200 disparate legacy systems and increasingly complex reporting requirements, there was need for system and business process integration across the council’s 10 service departments.
Defining the project scope
What was originally a requirement for a HR/ financial system implementation became a complete enterprise solution as the initial scope was expanded. Incorporating expansion options has enabled Glasgow to capitalise on the integrated capability of the SAP product and incorporate functionality for other departments in the future.
Jenny acknowledges how Glasgow and Serco staff worked together. “We did have scoping issues but we got together around the table to sort things out and prioritise. “Serco’s consultants pulled out all the stops they could to ensure the system met Glasgow City Council's timescales. This was a team effort with Glasgow.”
The introduction of an integrated SAP software solution aimed to overhaul and rationalise the Council’s HR, finance, sales, income and procurement service provision. With a heavy reliance on manual processing, widespread duplication of effort and time-consuming inconsistent reconciliations, considerable financial resources had been expended in maintaining departmental systems.
The Financial Management stream was in a positive starting position resulting from a history of a strong corporate focus supported by departmental finance officers keen to embrace change. Optimum use had been made of existing, albeit outdated, software. However, it was clear from the outset that the implementation of an ERP solution and the associated businessprocesses would significantly reduce the amount of rework required, reduce duplication of input and most importantly, provide the benefits of integration critical to the ‘vision’.
“1 Business” was the back-office efficiency programme introduced by Glasgow City Council to support the Finance, HR and payroll replacement programmes. Serco was brought on board in October 2003 to deploy an integrated SAP solution. Serco’s primary focus was on procurement, sales and finance and the ‘softer’ sides of HR.
Jenny O’Hagan, Sales Process Owner for the initiative, explains the value Serco has brought to the partnership. “Serco’s consultancy team was the translator between Glasgow and SAP to ensure the optimum solution was achieved within the given timeframes.” A shared service centre provided the vehicle to deliver Glasgow City Council’s “1 Business” programme.
As a centre of excellence, the aim has been to develop a culture centred around customer driven services and best practice. With consistent business processes across council departments, one point of data capture, the shared service centre is enabling the electronic management of critical business data.
As well as economies of scale, there is now transparency to the unit costs of back office operations. With a help desk and centre of excellence in business processes, Glasgow City Council has a platform to respond more easily to changes in the external environment. Ian Tully, Depute Director of Financial Services, states, “Serco has worked with us through its partners, The Change Network and Xayce, to drive forward our business change agenda, establishing new ways of working.” This has included the development of business processes for the operation of the Shared Service Centre.”
Building the foundation stones
As process owner of the sales stream, Jenny O’Hagan explains, “The first step towards achieving efficiency was to introduce a robust sales process with basic, however improved, functionality underpinned with standard, streamlined business processes - a platform upon which the future development agenda could be built. “Glasgow City Council and Serco have worked together to develop a system that provides a multi-dimensional view of the customer where time to input and access information has reduced.”
Following a successful go-live in November 2004, the council now has a single sales order system. Customer records have reduced from 125,000 contacts to 25,000, with SAP now acting as a single corporate customer database for Sundry Revenue.
With over a quarter-of-a-million invoices and a diverse range of services, sales can now be managed across the council’s enterprise from initial contact to invoicing and debt collection. There are now automated processes for authorising sales and generating standard invoices. The results? Increasing sales income, improving recovery rates, shortening billing cycles and a reduction in administration.
Glasgow City Council piloted SAP’s functionality for the uploading of bank statements for two bank accounts. This has resulted in increased automation and process streamlining, particularly around the areas of clearing and reconciliation. Jenny acknowledges, “What Serco and SAP have brought to treasury has been the electronic update of bank statements with the reconciliation process streamlined.” The pilot will be rolled out across 50 accounts to rationalise the council’s current complex banking arrangements.
Turning transactions into business intelligence
Jenny summarises, “We now have a corporate view of information on customers and how they are trading with us.” Prior to “1 Business”, there was a varied approach to debt recovery. Through SAP, Serco has enabled a corporate perspective on debt. With a streamlined and accelerated timetable for the follow-up of outstanding debt, KPIs are improving:
Prior to SAP, 37% of invoices were paid within 30 days. This figure, for periods 1 - 11 (2005/06) stands at 75.5%.
Reduction in the sale to pay cycle
Whether citizens are ordering flowers, booking the People’s Palace or paying for nursery places, the new sales system has increased the speed of issued invoices and the collection of sums overdue.
Financial Savings
Identified cost savings for the sales stream stand at £700,000 from November 2004 to January 2006 – anticipated savings at this point in time were not expected. £1m savings have been identified by 2006/2007 and £1.7m expected by 2008. Following a successful go-live in November 2004, the council now has a single sales order system. Customer records have reduced from 125,000 contacts to 25,000, with SAP now acting as a single corporate customer database for Sundry Revenue. Customer records have reduced from 125,000 contacts to 25,000, with SAP now acting as a single corporate customer database for Sundry Revenue
Where we are today
Acknowledging the achievements made, Jenny states, “We now have a user friendly, controlled, corporate sales system that provides a much more structured approach to revenue. We now have transparency of processes and procedures that were previously departmentalised. “For the first time, we have ownership of the sales process and can analyse the interface with the customer from all angles.” How are customers benefiting? Invoices are more user-friendly, complaints are analysed to identify where the process has broken down and customer training is enabling frontline staff to provide a consistent approach.
Enhancing HR operations
As well as the sales stream, the HR change programme is producing results. Over 70 business processes have been redesigned resulting in reduction to costs, lifecycles and errors. A structure now exists to enable the production and monitoring of statistical information across services, with the ability to now instantly report. The payroll element of SAP is now live, serving over 30,000 Glasgow City employees and has reduced payroll processing costs by £1M.
The Future
Glasgow City Council continues to build upon its strong foundations. Just as quantitative measures are being implemented to improve service, developments to enhance the customer experience continue. Future project phases include internet payments, customer self-service, e-billing and online shopping. The credit management pilot will be going live by early 2006.
Serco provides a wide range of services that help local authorities transform their operations to make efficiency gains and achieve strategic goals. Numerous councils throughout the UK rely on Serco’s expertise and breadth of experience to help them deliver higher quality services to the citizen at a lower cost. The payroll element of SAP is now live, serving over 30,000 Glasgow City employees and has reduced payroll processing costs by £1M.