Transformation Efficiency

Transformation & Efficiency: Working For You…

Efficiency and change have always been driving forces within East Renfrewshire Council.

One of our main priorities has been to continuously transform council services to meet the changing needs of our residents, customers and communities in the most efficient and effective way possible.

Our commitment to transforming and improving how we do things has resulted in major achievements across the Council.  In particular, some of our key successes have been:

  • In November 2006 the Council’s Customer First service became the first local authority customer services section in Scotland to be presented with the Chartermark accreditation, which celebrates excellence in customer service.The agreement with Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board to enter into a full Community Health and Care Partnership from 1 April 2006 to eliminate duplication and to provide a uniformly high standard of integrated, community based health and social care services across East Renfrewshire.

  • The ranking of East Renfrewshire’s Education Department as best in Scotland, with the 2004 HMIE inspection awarding the service maximum scores in all categories. A further HMIE inspection in February 2006 re-affirmed this sector-leading performance with all seven inspected Quality Indicators judged as excellent.

To build on these success stories and to pave the way for future developments and achievements, East Renfrewshire Council has defined Transformation & Efficiency as a specific framework that will support future Council initiatives to transform services.

What will Transformation look like going forward?

This framework is based around East Renfrewshire Council’s “Transformation Programme” which promotes four end goals as the main considerations for the further development of local council services:

  • Putting the customer at the heart of all we do

  • Building on a ‘can do’ culture and embracing change

  • Simplifying the way we work

  • Getting costs down

The goals of the transformation programme will become the main drivers for future council projects – working for you to deliver effective, innovative, easy-to-use, cost-effective services.

Already in 2007, East Renfrewshire Council has begun to implement a number of projects under the banner of the Transformation Programme in our Home Care, Housing Repairs and Roads Services.

The Transformation Programme brings common purpose to the different change projects/programmes that are already ongoing in the Council. It is designed to promote links between related areas of work; create new change opportunities and enable the Council to more effectively monitor and report the outcomes of transformation activity.

There are several layers to the transformation programme ranging from a council-wide corporate layer to a more departmental and service-specific focus.

What kind of transformation projects are happening?

The corporate transformation programme contains a number of individual projects and programmes of work. These include:

Participation in a pathfinder Local Outcome Agreement with the Scottish Executive, aimed at giving us greater flexibility in our spending arrangements, in return for delivery on core target outcomes.

  • A leadership development programme for our Heads of Service

  • Implementing a ‘systems thinking’ approach to business improvement, looking at services from a customer perspective. Pilot projects are ongoing in Home Care, Roads and Housing Repairs.

  • Ongoing development of our Customer First programme, which aims to provide one-door access to council services.

  • Implementation of Covalent performance management IT system to help us manage our performance information and plans.

  • Development of e-planning and e-records management.

  • Implementation of e-procurement and partnership working through Scotland Excel.

  • Implementation of mobile working solutions to enable our staff to have access to files, forms and work instructions while on site visits.

  • Investigation of various shared service initiatives with other partner agencies.

  • Developing a corporate approach to managing our asset portfolio.

  • Supporting our staff through a corporate approach to project management and ongoing change management and communication initiatives.

What part does Efficiency play?

The Scottish Executive’s Efficient Government initiative began in 2004 as a programme to “tackle waste, inefficiency and duplication in the public sector”.  Targets were set to ensure that significant savings could be generated, with the aim of redirecting resource back to frontline services.

East Renfrewshire Council’s plan for delivering efficient government has now evolved into the Transformation Programme. By striving to deliver on the 4 end goals outlined above, we will place ourselves well to respond to the challenges of efficient government. Guidance has been issued to all of our services to help them measure and quantify the efficiencies being made as part of day-to-day business and transformation projects.

For example, transforming the way we work may result in a faster, more straightforward service for our customers; lead to improved levels of customer satisfaction; enable us to continue to make the best use of Council resources and save money by reducing costs.

Once the benefits for each Transformation Project have been identified, these will be registered as efficiency gains within East Renfrewshire Council. These gains will be used to build on our past successes and strong position as an efficient, effective council delivering customer-focused services for the future.

East Renfrewshire’s efficiency statement for 2006/07 reports cashable savings of £4,304,000 and other non-cashable (e.g. time-releasing) savings of a further £171,000.

Further Information

If you would like more information about East Renfrewshire Council’s approach to transformation and efficiency please contact the Policy and Transformation Unit, Tel 0141 577 3075 or email .