Building Government IT
in Northern Ireland
LCIOC, London
Paul Wickens
05 December 2013
The background…….
Northern Ireland Context
• Population: 1.7 million
• 12 Government Departments, 25,000 civil servants
• Devolved Executive and Assembly since May 2007
Rating Reform
Local Government Reform
Education Reform
NICS Reform
Health
Reform
Welfare
Reform
2012/13 Achievements
• Delivered services to 23,000 finance, 18,500 IT customers and
30,000 HR customers;
• Processed over £12 billion of financial transactions;
• Delivered training to almost 14,000 people;
• Handled over 200,000 IT and HR service phone calls and over
50,000 service requests;
• Handled around 3.2 million information, light transactional and
directory calls through NI Direct;
• Handled almost 10 million visits to the NI Direct website;
• Provided facilities to 16,000 staff to manage around 20 million
documents; and
• Provided property management services for some 169 buildings and
over 350,000 square metres of office estate.
Guess what?????
It all needs IT
Strategic Direction
Mission
To make a positive difference to the delivery of public services
through being customer-focused, high-performing and innovative
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Values
Customer: focus on our customers
Leadership: Provide leadership with strong CLEAR direction
Ethical: Be honest, fair and equal in everything we do
Accountable: Be accountable and take responsibility
Results: Deliver best value for money
Governance
Leadership
Partnerships
Purpose
Providing shared services which enable our customers
to focus on delivering their core business
2009
• Separate and distinct Shared Service Centres (SSCs)
• Desire to create a new multi-functional Shared Services
Organisation (SSO)
• Significantly different levels of success and customer
satisfaction in each SSC
• Different governance structures – with different points of
accountability and Senior Responsible Owners (SROs)
• New CEO brought in to create the SSO – effectively
create and execute a Merger & Acquisition plan
2013
• 1 multi-functional Shared Services Organisation (SSO)
• Common approach to managing Customer Experience
across services
• Pragmatic streamlined approach to governance
structures
• Adding new services – Properties, citizen-facing online
services
Governance Arrangements
Accounting Officer
DFP Permanent Secretary
ESS Audit & Risk
Committee
Permanent Secretaries
Group
ESS Executive Board
ESS Strategy Board
ICT Service Board
Finance Service Board
HR Service Board
Management of Operations and Service Delivery
Relationship / Account /
Service Management
Operations
Performance Management
CHANGE
SERVICES
Strategy
Policy
Needs
Requirements
Perception
SLAs
KPIs
Quality
Finance
VFM
A little about IT Assist
What we wanted to do …..
Old Service Model
11 Departments
served by 6 IS units
associated with the
pre-devolution
departments, with
some services
provided by the
centre
New Service Model
Transform
Shared Service
Centre for common
ICT services. ISUs
focused on LOB
The objective was to
enable sharing
But the challenge was
one of dealing with
change
Lesson Learned:
The challenge of
change is 80% about
changing hearts and
minds!
Essential Components of
Successful Shared Services
(Butler Group: April 09)
IT Assist
•All 11 NI Departments came on Board (April 07 – Mar 09)
•DOJ 1 April 2013
•Now over 40 NDPBs
•Departments see themselves as partners/shareholders
Accommodation
People
Processes
Back Office
Technology
Front Office
Customers
Frontline Support
•Technicians role created and staff recruited
•Dealing directly with 30%+ of calls
•Excellent customer feedback
•Single ITIL compliant Service Desk
Accommodation
People
Processes
Back Office
Technology
Front Office
Customers
People
Successfully merged 220 staff
from seven organisations
Accommodation
People
Processes
Back Office
Technology
Front Office
Customers
Accommodation
•Refurbishment of Craigantlet Buildings &
Procurement of Data Centres
Accommodation
People
Processes
Back Office
Technology
Front Office
Customers
Processes
•Five processes initially implemented
•Service Desk & Service Requests live on time
•ISO20000 planned for 2014/15
•LANDesk Service Desk supporting all activity
Accommodation
People
Processes
Back Office
Technology
Front Office
Customers
Technology
•Resilient Messaging prioritised
•NIGov Domain in place
•Single Network, rationalisation and
virtualisation
• IPT huge success
Accommodation
People
Processes
Back Office
Technology
Front Office
Customers
Gartner IT Management
Process Maturity Model
Positioning in ESS
CEO Enterprise
Shared Services
Director IS/IT
Services
ESS Enterprise
Design Authority
HR & CAL
Finance
NI
Direct
Properties
IT Assist
IS Personnel
Service Planning
EDT
IM
IA
Admin, Finance etc
Service
Operations
Customer Service &
Service Control
IT Assist
Confidential
Quality & Admin
Facts and Figures
• 80% of NI households now have access to the internet
• Up from 61% when the recession began in 2008
• 60% shop online
• NI – highest take-up of mobile phone usage in UK – 94%
• 45% own a Smartphone
• 30% of households in NI own a tablet compared with less
than 25% in UK
• Two years ago it was only 2%
• NI has highest availability of fibre broadband in UK – 93%
compared with average of 56%
Since this time last year...
• Smartphone ownership up 33%
• Tablet ownership up 300%
• Mobile banking usage up 50%
However.....
• Only 48% of NI households use online
government services compared with 61% in rest
of UK
• 34% of NI citizens would prefer face-to-face
contact for completing government processes
compared with only 19% in rest of UK
• Only 23% of households use email or a website to
complete a government process compared with
43% in rest of UK
So....
• We are better connected
• We have more gadgets
• We shop and bank online
• We consume an increasing amount of information from NI
Direct
• BUT
• We aren’t yet using digital technology for government
processes
Source – Ulster Bank
Sept 2013
Programme for Government
HOCS - PSG Directive
Digital First: When developing new services or new
programmes, or reviewing existing services,
Departments/Agencies must seek to ensure that digital
online services / transactions are the primary means of
interacting with citizens or businesses.
NI Direct Preferred:
When Departments Agencies
are developing or refreshing programmes involving
online or telephone interaction with citizens or
businesses services, there should be a presumption in
favour of using the NI Direct programme unless the
approved business case determines an alternative
option
NI Direct Portal:
Citizens must be able to use the
NI Direct web portal to access all online services
provided by Departments/Agencies, even if
(exceptionally) such services are hosted elsewhere.
Working in
Partnership
with you and
your existing
partners and
suppliers
A flexible end
to end
framework
integrated
service delivery
models
Citizen Focus
rapidly
increasing the
range, quality
and uptake of
digital services
Flexible
payment
mechanisms
including
outcome and
transactional
Multi-channel contact services
Channel Shift
Shared
Face2Fa
ce
Telephone
Online
Smart Social
Phones Media
Assisted Digital
Connected Government Services
Payment
Services
In/Out bound
Mail Services
Fulfilment
Services
Shared
Services
Principles
NICS Citizen Contact Strategy
1
Promote ‘digital first’
2
Redesign services >10,000 trans p.a.
3
Develop digital capability across the public sector
4
Build common re-useable components
5
Design accessible and inclusive services
6
A single N.I. government website
A new NI Direct Strategic Partnership to improve access to
digital government services and accelerate channel shift
Re-useable Components
A consistent multi-channel experience for citizens interacting with government.
Agile and quick service development for participants including:
Pay It
Book It
Request It
Report It
Find it
Tell us
Fulfilment service capability such as in/out bound mail handing, verification and
validation services & debt recovery.
Thank-you