There is a need for greater efficiency and effectiveness
in government, and as such theOperational Effectiveness Programmeis
a step in the right direction, writes Mike Zealley, associate
partner at
Atos Consulting.
It is good that the government recognises the need for
innovative use of IT, and the need for further rationalisation and
collaboration in procurement to enable this initiative.
However, given the current economic climate, the associated
increase in demand for and expectation of government services, we
believe that the OEP may not fully meet the challenge. Current
plans focus on "more for even less" when what is needed is "much
more, for many more, for much less".
Departmental thinking needs to embrace:
1. A customer-centric view of driving
operational efficiency, considering new inter-departmental
operating models, with lean, IT-enabled processes extending into
the government's supply chain. Too often, we see "silos" of
efficiency in isolation. The processes seem streamlined, but they
disregard the customer interaction across silos. This is
particularly true as the role of private sector and the third
sector in delivering public services increases.
By taking an end-to-end view of the customer journey, more waste
can be eliminated and the focus put on valuable customer
interactions.
2. Adoption of innovative technologies to
support the customer-centric target operating models could
include:
- Use of technologies such as Web 2.0 for collaboration between
departments
- Use of social technologies for engaging citizens, Government
Gateway for secure identification and transactions, and the
provision of more information through portals
- Better business intelligence and predictive analytics to
support policy development and predict service demand, particularly
in volatile markets where speed is key
- Leaning IT provision through shared services, use of carbon
neutral technologies and encouraging the use of cloud computing and
virtualisation technologies
- More consistent and joined up adoption of open standards e.g.
open source
Through innovative use of IT, departments will be able to
improve efficiency to a greater extent than with conventional
thinking.
3. With the substantial changes that are needed
to deliver OEP and the wider promise, it is vital that sufficient
time and effort is invested in ensuring cultural, behavioural
change and capability needs are also addressed. Governance and
ownership through life of the projects is vital well beyond
'go-live', and greater rigour is required around the management of
the portfolio of projects both within and across departments. We
continue to support the work of MPRG and the Gateway Reviews in
raising visibility of these risks.
To be sustainable, departments need to take an even broader view
of benefits realisation. Not only must benefits be fully realised;
each project must also embed a culture of continuous improvement to
ensure that the inevitable future cost and efficiency challenges
are met.