We are concluding the Discovery phase of this review, and as we finalise our research, some interesting opportunities are emerging.
Final research into the problem space
We’ve shadowed key staff and completed the last few interviews to gather remaining insights into the challenges and it’s clear how dedicated and passionate the teams are about their work. By doing this we’ve amassed over 200 insights to help identify where opportunities lie.
We’ve investigated caseload data to understand the variation within Teams and Hubs. This has highlighted interesting facts around interpretation of the data and the impact of current ways of working.
We’ve delved further into the significant number of reports created, more than we first thought, and identified inconsistencies and lots of manual processes involved. This creates opportunities for standardisation and digitisation.
We’ve recorded activities across Admin Teams, which has given us a window into what takes up the most time. We discovered that data entry, arranging meetings and correspondence (mainly dealing with emails) were the most time-consuming activity types.
We’ve mapped the supplier/provider journey through from engagement to payment and established user needs. This identified the roles involved, assumptions made, manual processes undertaken and any challenges with the set-up process; all areas with opportunities for improvement.
Themes and opportunities
The insights amassed over the last 10 weeks have been grouped into 9 themes, reflecting the key problem spaces, which have propagated 14 opportunities where improvements can be made with the right solutions.
Quick wins
Our quick wins have been progressing, we’ve removed hundreds of unnecessary emails from senior admin staff mailboxes. We’ve successfully shifted agency timesheet approvals away from the admin role to relevant managers and arranged admin training sessions to enhance the effective use of MS Teams.
Children's Services transformation programme
We’ve ensured alignment with the wider improvement programme in Children’s Services. Many of the opportunities emerging from our work will also tie in closely with the findings of this programme and we must ensure that we are all collaborating effectively toward shared goals.
What's next
We now need to use our ‘How Might We’ statements to help draw out a number of solutions that will most effectively deliver the opportunities. We also need to speak to key stakeholders to understand which opportunities should be prioritised so that we can start to plan for the Alpha phase. Watch this space…
More like this
Read more detail on the Children's Social Care Admin Review Project to discover our opportunities, alpha projects and 'quick wins'.
