Home » Testimonials » Isle of Wight Council

Isle of Wight Council –

ICT Service Review and Benchmarking

The Isle of Wight Council needed help to explore all the options for the delivery of efficiency savings, particularly in back office and central support functions, in order to minimise the impact of future budget reductions on front-line services. As part of this exercise, the Council needed to consider and assess the ways in which it delivered ICT Services with a view to how they might be delivered more effectively in the future. The Council engaged Best Practice Group (BPG) to help their ICT service analyse its operating models, technology platforms and service to internal and external customers. The overriding aim was to ensure that the ICT service could continue to support the strategic direction of the authority at lower cost but with greater agility.

ICT Service Review

BPG were instructed to undertake a review and options appraisal across all the Council’s ICT services; benchmark the service provision and produce a report highlighting performance improvement areas and a future service decision-making roadmap.

The review covered all areas of ICT service delivery across the Isle of Wight Council. One of the key deliverables of the project was the undertaking of a root-and-branch review of ICT services through a series of workshops. This was to allow for better informed options regarding service delivery to be fully considered in order to ensure that the Isle of Wight Council continues to deliver a fit-for-purpose service within the constraints of future budget cuts.

This work was undertaken as a joint project with BPG and Socitm providing detailed analysis of current As-Is processes as well as gathering and validating “the Vision”. The Council’s ICT service performance data was compared with core benchmarking data of comparable Councils to help inform the final report.

After many interviews with staff across different departments a workshop was undertaken whereby feedback from findings were given and time and opportunity to have a strategic health check on the ICT services, driving toward a consensus on the “vision” and the Council’s options for taking the service forward. A final workshop highlighted areas of good practice as well as addressing areas for improvement. An action plan for remedial works was contributed to by the entire group and options for future delivery were assembled.

It was agreed by all concerned that the exercise was extremely beneficial to the Isle of Wight Council bringing together departments which had hitherto ‘operated in silos’, facilitating joined-up thinking and working together to the benefit of the Council and citizens alike.

Outcomes

  • Benchmarking data provided to highlight strengths and areas to improve
  • Increased awareness of current service position
  • Prioritisation of options for near and medium-term
  • Stronger relationships/understanding between internal departments and ICT service
  • Improved understanding of Governance across departments
  • Action plan for immediate service improvements
  • Strategic ICT options identified and decision-making roadmap created