The Scottish Government

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Public Sector Projects

The Efficiency and Reform Fund provided funding to a number of projects across the public sector covering a range of initiatives, whilst contributing to the efficiency and effectiveness, shared service and continuous improvement agenda. Although the following projects were not governed in the same way as the Local Government projects under the themes for the purpose of this report we have categorised them in the same way where possible.

• Procurement initiatives (covered in previous section)
• Integrated ICT
• Shared Service Capacity
• Other

Integrated ICT

Common Performance Management Platform for Police Service in Scotland (ACPOS Platform Project)

The police service in Scotland has always recognised the need to be effective and efficient. Recent incidents, and challenges in allocating resources around them, have shown that a method of being able to compare statistics and information in various systems would be of great value in proving our Performance Management capabilities. Good performance management processes need accurate and up to date information if they are to run effectively and provide the information required. In the Police Service in Scotland, apart from national systems such as the Scottish Intelligence Database and the Scottish Criminal History System, police forces are supported by a wide selection of legacy systems which do not readily exchange information with each other. The Efficiency Reform Fund provided an opportunity for the Police Service in Scotland to contribute towards the government's efficient government agenda.

The original objectives of the project which are listed below have not changed, however the environment in which the project was being delivered was affected by the creation of the Scottish Police Services Authority and the emergence of the ACPOS National Business Change Programme.

Original objectives

• to deliver an effective and efficient common performance management software platform
• to work towards joined up performance management between police, government and criminal justice and community planning partners
• to improve police national, force and local performance management businesses processes
• to achieve increased effectiveness and efficiency by implementing effective performance management information and knowledge sharing.

The Project has been divided into nine stages, each of which will connect an additional business system. The first phase will be to draw information from Road Traffic Collision systems which will support the reporting of UK targets and ensure the data is robust and consistent. The next area will be Command and Control which covers all reported incidents whether major or minor. This will give officers the ability to obtain specific information very easily. An example of where this will benefit the public is in relation to community liaison where community officers will be better equipped with all the relevant information obtained in a fraction of the time.

The key benefit from the project is the added value provided to the police by providing an integrated and consistent source of information which will allow for more informed decision making and a better understanding of police performance in terms of resource allocation, best practice and areas requiring additional work. The level of information across Scotland will be of great benefit not only to individual forces but also to strategic planning. The net result will be more officers released from time-consuming research and able to undertake more customer-focused activities which will result in reduced crime levels and increased detections.

The project has slipped from its original timescales due in part to the project becoming part of the overall Business Change Programme and a resulting need to ensure due diligence and fit with the overall programme. Another contributing factor was the availability of certain dependencies. During the first half of 2008, the Project Team conducted one of the biggest consultation exercises across the Police Service in Scotland to ensure that the users contributed to the project requirement document at all levels.

The Performance Platform will not be complete until September 2010, but as this will be accomplished incrementally, individual iterations will become available gradually from June 2009, providing benefit to forces in advance of full completion.

The Platform Project Board continues to review other options available to develop the platform further, such as to provide citizen access to key statistical data - already available in other forces including in Albuquerque, USA. The Police Platform Project also has relevance to other areas of the public sector as the concept is based around more comprehensive statistical and management information that can be used to deploy resources and not only measure what has occurred but also assist in assessing what has been prevented. The Platform has been designed to allow easy interface with other emerging systems which will assist in the future in helping measure successes in joint approaches such as Single Outcome Agreements.

There has been a great deal of interest from other Forces in the UK and the rest of the world in the project and the Platform may well benefit in the long-term from future developments elsewhere, just as the Platform feeds back into existing solutions in Germany and New York.

OneScotland Portal

The aim of the OneScotland Portal Project is to set out a phased approach to the development of a citizen-facing portal for access to public services and information, and to develop and implement phase one of that portal. The phase one implementation will contain relatively shallow content and will act primarily as a signposting function out to content on existing websites. It will link to the citizens account, which is being developed through the Customer First programme, to enable citizens to access facilities allowing them to maintain their basic personal details and to personalise their services. Phase one will concentrate on services and information delivered by the Scottish Government, its agencies, NDPBs and local authorities.

The primary benefit of phase one is to provide citizens with a single, memorable and convenient point of access to public services and public service information provided by the Scottish Government, its Agencies and NDPBs, as well as key local authority services. This will help citizens to find what they are looking for across existing citizen-facing websites without having to understand organisational boundaries or be familiar with the large number of public sector websites already in existence.

Subsequent phases are dependent on the development of supporting business cases and funding approval but are broadly conceived as follows:

• Phase Two - further content migrated into the portal, signposting to additional public service providers represented, introduction of the Citizen's Account to other/additional services, more strategic marketing approach aimed at people already using the Citizen Account
• Phase Three - a fully integrated one stop shop service, deep content, single seamless log on and authentication through Citizens' Account, delivery of shared services through the infrastructure, wider Scottish public sector representation, better control over public sector web-site development and governance, personalisation and high functionality utilising the existing infrastructure.

The Scottish Government is working with the Improvement Service to ensure that the National Infrastructure is fully utilised as a platform for an integrated OneScotland Portal solution, in particular converging with the development of the Scottish Citizen Portal.

Shared Service - Shared Capacity

Tripartite Fleet Management Project

The Tripartite Fleet Management Project was the first such collaboration between the three emergency services - Police, Fire and Scottish Ambulance. The management of the fleets is a mission critical area of support for all three services and continuity of service is vital. The three services currently operate and manage 5554 vehicles at a running cost of £54.8 million per annum and further capital costs of £24 million.

The original objectives of the project were around:

• procurement collaboration on vehicles, parts, tyres, oils, fuels - the project is looking to create a website of useful information and data that the public sector can utilise. The project is looking at framework arrangements for procuring the best vehicles for the job.
• support service reform through adopting best practice on vehicle insurance, accident reduction programmes, Fleet Transport Strategy and policies, developing best practice documentation and technical standardisation.
• transactional processing - some steps have been achieved in this area.
• green fleet review - The 3 emergency services in Scotland of which there are 17 organisations, have all signed up to have or have had a green fleet review.

Key achievements have been:

• the breakdown of communication barriers between the three services;
• a framework agreement for breakdown recovery and spot hire of vehicles and utilisation of national procurement contract;
• the creation of Fleet Transport Strategy and Guidance documents for the Scottish Emergency Services has also been created;
• the strategy documentation, along with other useful data from the project will be stored on the Improvement Services web page;
• a Tri-Service, Research and Development Group has been created through this project and will continue to evaluate the work carried out by the Fleet Scoping Project Team with members from each of the 3 services who will meet on a regular basis and continue to share data and communicate across their services.

The Ayr-Kilwinning workshop is now a Tri Service workshop official launched by Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, Nicola Sturgeon. The workshop will service and maintain over 250 vehicles operated by the Scottish Ambulance Service, Strathclyde Police and Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service.

There are a number of other workshop collaborations under way (Fife, Central, Tayside, Grampian, Dumfries and Galloway, Lothian and Borders and other workshops within the Strathclyde area).

Within the first two years of the project there have been savings of approx £1.6 million and the project is on course to achieve annual savings of £4 million from the cost of purchasing and maintaining vehicles. Every pound that is saved is reallocated into front line services within each organisation.

The Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill speaking at the group's communication day said "this is an excellent example of partnership working that clearly benefits the community as a whole. By working together, the emergency services are improving their operational effectiveness by consolidating vehicle workshops in appropriate locations, with better training and equipment for staff. This will reduce the time that vehicles need to be off the road for routine maintenance and repairs, delivering higher availability of front line vehicles and greater resilience, as well as better value for the public purse."

As well as savings on purchases and maintenance of vehicles, there is potential to achieve further savings on maintenance collaboration, further joint procurement e.g. equipment, IT, joint estate, fuel resilience, insurance and collaboration with other partners.

There may be potential for further collaborative procurement initiatives, such as personal protective equipment, uniform, equipment and other consumable items, through the tri-service partnership working.

Other Projects

Baseline Study of Corporate Services

The Baseline Study of Corporate Services is one of a range of initiatives, the purpose of which is to help public bodies to deliver better public services by improving efficiency and effectiveness and to provide clear evidence on which to base sound management decisions.

These initiatives are set against a background of a tight financial climate. Decisions need to be made to ensure resources are properly targeted to boost our economy, deliver investment in our public services and deliver high quality services that are valued by the people of Scotland.

The study will provide evidence for individual bodies to consider the relative efficiency and effectiveness of their own corporate service business functions. It will also act as an evidence gathering process that will inform and enable decisions about future efficiency and shared service opportunities for Scottish Government, Agencies and NDPBs.

The project gathers performance management Value for Money indicators across HR, ICT, Finance and Estates Management. At the same time, the Scottish Procurement Directorate is gathering Best Practice Indicators for Procurement. There were 35 participants across the central government family of Scottish Government, Executive Agencies, Non-Ministerial Departments and Non-Departmental Public Bodies that undertook the first phase of the study. The project will underpin best value by gathering cost, quality and effectiveness measures through self-assessment among the participants. This will enable a baseline to be established and will be a platform for future benchmarking to take place. The project will also enable organisations to compare themselves with others and consider where they can make Efficient Government savings by internal efficiencies and continuous improvement or by collective action.

Phase 1 of the baseline study collected data for financial year 2006/07 from 35 organisations. Data was collected on Primary Performance Indicators, Management Practice Indicators and Secondary Performance Indicators for the four corporate services. This initial exercise was treated as a pilot run.

Phase 2 of the Baseline Study is drawing to a close. This Phase collected data for the financial period 2007/08 and will become the baseline data. A total of 38 organisations took part in this exercise. The results are being analysed and will be presented to the Project Board and the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth on completion.

The Baseline Study of Corporate Service is not a fully costed activity/process exercise. It is the collection of data for four corporate services that will act as a first port of call in gathering evidence to enable decision making discussions. It will provide data for accountable officers and allow stakeholder comparisons.

Consideration is being given to increasing the number of organisations within the Scottish Government family taking part in the study from the period 2008/09 onwards, where it is cost effective to do so. This will provide unprecedented data for the four corporate services analysed. This data will be utilised in many different ways across the public sector, not only in benchmarking but feeding into other initiatives. This will ensure best value for money and best quality services at the front line.

The third phase of data gathering for the Baseline Study will take place in September/October 2009. We will then have two years data collected. At this point we will be able to identify the benefits of the study, identify the direction of travel of corporate services, discussions about shared services, continuous improvement and improved services can begin.

Scottish Courts Fines

Established in 1995, Scottish Court Service (SCS) is an Executive Agency of the Scottish Government and is responsible for the management of Scotland's supreme and sheriff courts, ensuring ready access to justice for the people of Scotland. SCS also has responsibility for the administration of Justice of the Peace Courts (formerly District Courts administered by local authorities). Prior to this project, within the justice system and the general public, there was an increasing lack of confidence in fines and financial penalties as a sentence, based on a perception that offenders could escape payment due to ineffectual enforcement processes used by sheriff and district courts. Whilst collection rates were relatively high it is the inefficient enforcement process where real productive savings could be made. The previous system was complex, rigid and resource intensive. There was an absence of proactive intervention and support for those who have genuine difficulties in paying their fines. There was also a lack of effective and prompt enforcement action against those who could pay but who played the system to avoid paying.

The Scottish Executive's Summary Justice Reform proposals paper "Smarter Justice, Safer Communities" published in March 2005 made it clear that Ministers believed that the courts establish public confidence in the fine as a sentence.

The aim of the Scottish Courts Collection and Enforcement of Fines and Financial Penalties project aimed to deliver improved procedure and processes that would lead to more effective and efficient systems for the recovery of fines and financial penalties. There are a number different stages and processes involved in the collection and enforcement of court fines and compensation orders as well as direct measures such as fiscal fines. The redesigned collection and enforcement system will strip out the number of process steps and also reduce a number of routine and repeat enforcement processes. This will result in time releasing savings. In addition to the time savings across the courts, judicial time savings will be made which will allow SCS greater flexibility to manage court programming effectively and allocate the time savings to higher priority court business. It will also achieve increased confidence in the Criminal Justice System and in the use of the fine and alternatives to prosecution. The latter will result in fewer cases being processed through the court system.

The performance objectives for the project included:

• reduction in fines enquiry courts by 60%;
• reduction in fines enquiry warrants by 60%;
• reduction in number of fines defaulters being imprisoned by 60% (estimated that 3,658 fewer fines defaulters will enter the prison system which equates to approximately 36 prisoner places); and
• eduction in number of fines defaulters receiving legal advice and assistance by 60%.

By March 2008 the original milestones, which included the design and delivery of an effective collection and enforcement system and processes, implementation of an enhanced IT system to provide improved information to sentencers about previous fines and the recruitment and training of 30 fines enforcement officers, had all been achieved. The extension of payment options to include payment by standing order has been delayed, with a pilot currently being trialled. There has been a reduction of 2,000 arrest warrants issued to the Police for Sheriff Court fines in the first year of operation.

The position on reductions in court time will be clearer during 2009/10 when pre-reform fines/penalties have been cleared from the system. The court time released from reductions in fines enquiry courts will be able to be applied to wider court business.

Young Persons Challenge Fund

The Young Scot organisation was contracted to administer the Young Persons Challenge Fund on behalf of the Scottish Government. The fund has been a successful initiative demonstrating the potential of pump-priming funding in taking ideas developed by young people and supporting them to make them a reality.

Each project had to improve public services and applicants must have been aged between 12 and 25 and living in Scotland. The young people involved in all these projects have evidenced increased self confidence, enhanced skills in a wide range of areas from web journalism to press relations to inter-generational work. Each of the five projects that were awarded funding has delivered a range of outputs and outcomes which have improved the image of young people and put in place new structures, resources and relationships which are being built upon to ensure the projects are sustained beyond the period of funding provided through the Young Persons Challenge Fund.

North Ayrshire Mobile Youth Centre

The Mobile Youth Centre (MYC pronounced Mike) is a versatile facility delivering a wide range of information and activities to young people in North Ayrshire. It provides a drop-in where young people can talk to friends and a variety of professionals should a young person wish guidance and support.

MYC supports work with young people across North Ayrshire but has a particular priority to address the needs of young people in rural areas and on the islands.

East Renfrewshire Community Radio Station - Pulse FM

The project involved a group of young people, supported by East Renfrewshire Council, developing a youth-led radio station broadcasting across the council area operating under 'Restricted Services Licences' granted by Ofcom. The project has developed links with Paisley University and Reid Kerr College and the project will be used in the future for student placements, with training links being further developed with a range of agencies such as the Prince's Trust and East Renfrewshire Voluntary Action.

Mobile Internet Café - Perth and Kinross

The project was developed from initial consultations with young people from the Letham area of Perth city. This developed into a larger consultation exercise undertaken across the Perth and Kinross area, which in turn led to the formation of a working group of young people to develop the idea for submission as a project under the Young Persons Challenge Fund.

The project involves portable computer equipment being set up in rural and targeted locations acting as a mobile internet café. This required the installation of broadband connections in a small number of locations and a range of software to allow games connections between youth clubs as well as links with the national Young Scot website and the local pages developed by Perth & Kinross Dialogue Youth.

Youth Information Screens - Strathmore Centre for Youth Dialogue

The Strathmore Centre for Youth Dialogue is a voluntary organisation supported by Perth & Kinross Council and covers the rural area of eastern Perthshire from the remote glens to the town of Blairgowrie. It is a one-stop-shop which is led by young people, provides access to information and is a signposting organisation for young people to agencies they may need.

Pedals not Petrol

There were three parts to the original project concept:

• The creation of a scheme to reward pupils for cycling to school by recording the number of times they cycled and rewarding them accordingly.
• The development of a Bike Doctor initiative in the school, where pupils could take their bikes to be safety checked, carry out repairs, and be taught how to maintain their bikes.
• The development of a website to promote the two schemes, including an interactive route planner showing safe routes to the school.

All of these projects have proven to be successful; more information can be obtained from Young Scot.

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