An article in the Birmingham Post today reports that £6million of lost savings are due to the delayed launch of the council’s new corporate website, which went live last month.
Glyn Evans, the council’s Corporate Director of Business Change, addresses the points made in the piece…
The report contains two fundamental inaccuracies. First, the website being launched later than originally planned has had no impact on Business Transformation savings.
Second, benefits that are not realised this year will be carried forward to next year – they are not lost.
Some movement between years is inevitable in a programme as large and complex as business transformation but the programme overall remains on course to achieve gross cashable benefits of over £1.5billion in the next ten years.
Additionally, the improvements in terms of web services that will be delivered over the next few months simply wouldn’t have been possible without the launch of the new platform. So although the site was delayed, its introduction was essential.
The new platform, from a technical/functional perspective has already been rated as the UK’s fastest-ever improving website according to independent review organisation Sitemorse.
It is anticipated that the new functions (only made possible by the new website) which include the ability to create a customer account that lets citizens track any queries they make to the council will go live early in the new year.
Each month the council reports on the status of business transformation savings using a Red-Amber-Green ‘traffic light’ system.
Between months two and four of the current financial year the Red-Amber-Green benefits situation has improved.
A total of £2.062million of benefits have moved from Red to Amber, while £1.75million has moved from Amber to Green.
Red status does not mean that the benefit will not be achieved but that significant work needs to be done to secure them.
As this work is completed more benefits will move from their current red rating to amber, and ambers will be converted into greens (benefits which have been secured)
On a basic factual level, the article also says Voyager was installed “last year” – it in fact went live in October 2007.
Reference is made to the system being “supposed to deliver efficiencies in the authority’s finances”.
These efficiencies are in fact being achieved. So far, primarily thanks to the launch of Voyager, the council has realised savings well in excess of £40m per year. These are not one-off savings but have been removed from the base budget of the council.
Moreover, the financial services of the council have greatly improved. For example, managers and politicians receive accurate and timely financial information, enabling issues to be known about earlier and addressed far more readily than was the case before Voyager.
And the council’s suppliers have benefited too; following some initial teething troubles, Voyager now consistently pays 95 per cent of bills within the standard terms of 30 days.
Voyager has from the start processed invoices correctly. The issue raised at the scrutiny committee relates to the issue of “compliance” – in simple terms whether people within the council are procuring items in the correct way.
If the correct budget code is not assigned to a transaction, this means the council does not know if an order is being placed on or off contract. This does not automatically mean that something is being bought off contract.
This particular issue has been the focus of extensive work by the council’s corporate procurement team.
In the period between months two and four of the current financial year (April to July), the percentage of spend definitely on-contract has gone up from 27 per cent to 47 per cent, with further improvement forecast when the month five figures are announced.
In summary, the council has never underestimated the challenges that the business transformation programme poses.
However, the challenges for the council if it were not undertaking transformation would be far greater and every effort is being made to deliver the improvements that transformation will bring about.
Making no change is not an option. The council is proud of the progress it has made on its journey towards excellence. Business transformation is a core aspect of that journey, delivering improved services at less cost.
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Thanks for the direct quote.
Where within it does it specifically say that the new website is in some way responsible for the re-phasing???
Am I missing something here?
Oh, dear.
The late delivery of the new council website has delayed the roll-out of online services for council customers, and this means that some savings envisaged for this financial year cannot now be achieved.
The Customer First programme is being re-phased (that is, put back).
The quote from Steve Morey, as requested: “There are significant issues with customer first savings. The programme is being re-phased, there is £6 million worth of benefits ranked as red and it will be extremely challenging to deliver them.”
As an observer of all things journalism, just a couple of points:
1. If Steve Morey had said something of such note, why is there no direct quote from him?
2. Why is there a presumption that the Customer First savings won’t be made – and that the council’s projected overspend will remain at £26million? I’m not saying it will reduce or enlarge, just that it is probably nowhere near as simple as the reporter states!
3. Reference is made to 47 per cent of cash being spent using the proper contracts. If you read Glyn Evans’ article, it says that they are starting to get this problem under control. Is the glass always half full in journalism land???
4. In journalism land, if someone spells a word incorrectly, who is to blame? The reporter, their computer or the sub-editor? Compare that to Voyager and have a think…
Glyn Evans says: “The website being launched later than originally planned has had no impact on Business Transformation savings.”
This is the exact opposite of what head of city finance Steve Morey told the finance performance scrutiny committee last Friday.
Mr Morey said delays in getting the website up and running meant that the Customer First business transformation programme would have to be re-phased and that meant £6 million in savings planned for this financial year would probably not be made.
He did not say, and neither did the Birmingham Post, that the savings could not be made in 2010/11.And whilst Voyager was installed in Oct 2007, it certainly could not have been said to be working effectively until March 2008 after the council managed to clear a backlog of 30,000 invoices.