The Scottish Government

Project Name: NATIONAL CRM

Current Stage

SRO:

Vision

PM:

Project Commissioning

Project Initiation

DA Lead

Assets

Design

KM Lead

Construct

Implement

SE Lead officer

Estimated Project Cost

Operate

Estimated Start / End

What is the background to the project and the context in which it was established, what were the issues/drivers/opportunities which led to its inception- why?Background and context:

The National CRM Project was established to provide a scaleable CRM solution not only to the participating Councils but also to the remaining councils in Scotland. This could be a small island Council through to a large City council. It is being co-ordinated through The Improvement Service's Customer First Programme in partnership with West Lothian Council as lead council.

The project forms part of Customer First's National CRM Programme whose vision is:

" to increase the intensity of collaboration around CRM across Scottish local government that will result in demonstrable improvements in customer and organisation outcomes ".

The Customer First Programme and its constituent part, the National CRM Programme is actively taking forward a range of collaborative and practical improvement solutions, each with distinct purposes and objectives of their own yet, critically, which form part of an integrated whole whose common theme is focused on improving customer access and experience for all Scotland's citizens.

The National CRM project's objectives are focused around rationalising systems - and particularly CRM solutions - licensing, support & maintenance given that standardisation around common systems and processes offer significant potential for efficiency savings.

Each participating council has its own Customer Contact Strategy and current infrastructure reflecting local needs. These include providing access to services through contact centre, face-to-face and self-service channels via web portals and kiosks.

It was a requirement that the solution will be required to support Customer First's National Infrastructure and to align with other complementary activities e.g. single non-emergency numbers and other national pathfinder project.

A framework agreement has been reached with Lagan Technologies Ltd to use their Enterprise Caseload Management solution to handle customer interactions, service and information requests.

The agreement with Lagan creates a Best Value solution that ensures other Scottish Councils can benefit from a very attractive offer that would not be accessible to an individual council.

Objectives & Benefits -What are the aims/objectives/benefits & deliverables that the project is seeking to achieve, what improvements will there be as a result of this project - what?

• Helps councils personalise the delivery of services entitlements and transactions to/with customers;
• Rationalises the costs of product development software licensing models and support; and provide scaleable solutions for Scottish local government;
• Leverages buying power with the supplier community;
• Consolidates effort and skills to develop common requirements, procurements and deployment;
• Promotes solutions that support standardisation of processes and systems and thus the sharing of services across boundaries;
• Increases public value by public bodies working together rather than separately.

The project is seeking to achieve the following savings

Improvements / Benefits as a result of this project will be:

An improved customer experience - through a reduction in lost class, higher levels of enquiries dealt with at first point of contact (in line with national targets a 75% performance target will be established), some services delivered end to end at first point of contact.

A consistently high level of professional customer service across all service areas. 95% customer satisfaction is the target.

Direct access to services delivered at a single point of contact

Service delivery and information provision via their preferred channel with convenient hours of operation

Easier access by offering the simplest practical approach for citizens whose preferred method of contact is by phone

Reduction in time spent by citizens chasing progress or calling back when an engaged tone or no answer is received

Greater clarity by offering the simplest practical approach for citizens wishing to contact the Authority by phone

Improved access to the Authorities services for disadvantaged and socially excluded parts of society e.g. allowing minicom language line facilities for most council services

Stakeholders and governance-Which organisations are involved in delivering the project, what are their roles and responsibilities, and who is accountable? Who are the key stakeholders to whom the project is relevant?

Participating Councils -

12 Scottish councils, from an initial position of four, are now using the Lagan CRM solution.

Aberdeen City

Inverclyde

North Lanarkshire

Scottish Borders

West Lothian ( lead authority )

E Dunbartonshire

East Lothian

Perth & Kinross

Dumfries & Galloway

Argyll & Bute

Western Isles

E Renfrewshire

Stakeholders include customers ( citizens, business, non-residents, staff, elected members and other partners.

A steering group comprising representatives of the lead council (chair), the other participating councils and the Improvement Service has been established. The steering group reports to Customer First National CRM Programme, chaired by Alex Linkston, Chief Executive, West Lothian Council.

Progress and Issues-What specific progress has been achieved to date ? -Milestones met/achievements?

Have any issues arisen causing delays in the work plan? Is project delivery still on schedule?

What progress has been made?

1.A single requirements capture exercise and a single tender process on behalf of a number of Scottish councils.

2.The tender resulted in the conclusion of a framework agreement in August 2007 for an enterprise caseload management solution - capable of scalability and expansion to all 32 councils - and a partnership with the solution supplier.

3.The single tender process significantly reduced the procurement life cycle and costs for councils. From the supplier's perspective, the tender process, from initiation to conclusion, represented their shortest UKtender exercise in 2007 and reduced their cost of sales.

What's been delivered?

1.From an initial four councils, 12 councils have adopted the CRM solution meaning that 1.6 million of Scotland's 5.1 million population are having their service, information requests and entitlements managed using the same, common platform.

2.As a council, on average, spends £60,000 on a systems tender exercise, the single procurement on behalf of a number of councils created savings for Scottish taxpayers.

3.A further 4 councils have taken advantage of the agreement thereby avoiding the need to use valuable staff time and resources running a separate tender exercise.

4.Another public sector agency in the housing sector has tapped into the nationally negotiated framework agreement - Glasgow Housing Association - recognising and taking advantage of the attractive terms available and the savings in procurement costs and time.

5.The framework agreement itself offers substantive procurement savings of up to 46% on the software and site licenses compared to the costs of an average, typical council procuring on their own.

6.The agreement offers additional application modules as part of the core license and significant savings on consultant day rates and integration adaptors.

7.It is envisaged that, during 2008, half of Scotland's councils will have converged onto the same CRM platform using the nationally-negotiated framework agreement.Support is being provided by the Improvement Service to gather requirements, assist with options appraisals and identify total costs of ownership. The councils involved reflect the demography of Scotland and include large city and urban councils, smaller island councils and mixed urban/rural councils.

8.A number of councils have deployed the solution in a 'live' environment including West Lothian, Perth & Kinross, Aberdeen City, North Lanarkshire,Aberdeen City, E Dunbartonshire, East Lothian, Dumfries & Galloway, Argyll & Bute; Western Isles, E Renfrewshire, Scottish Borders and Inverclyde are in the planning stages for a ' Go Live ' between August/September 2008.

9.AnEscrow agreement negotiated by Improvement Service on councils' behalf offers between 20.6% and 32% savings to Scottish councils deploying Lagan.

10.The full time national co-ordinator, in post since July 2007, with funding support fromthe Scottish Government has been taking forward a key role to promote across councils the sharing of learning; adoption of industry best practice; adoption of standard processes and classification schemes; sharing of scripting protocols and test plans.

11.Discussions are ongoing with a range of suppliers to secure discounted rates for adaptors and integration solutions.

12.Benchmarking with other award-winning successful partnerships to learn from others.

What the future holds?

1.The critical, growing mass of councils using the same common platform to manage and track customers' service & information requests and entitlements opens up significant opportunities:

·to standardise and simplify processes, Scotland-wide

·to conclude single support & maintenance agreements with suppliers

·to host the solution centrally on the Customer First national infrastructure i.e. a common platform which can host a number of nationally shared services and business applications to provide online services and to be able to issue customers with the new National Entitlement Card.( All councils have access and connectivity to the national infrastructure via the Scottish Schools Digital Network ( SSDN ) thereby avoiding the requirements for solutions to be deployed across up to 32 individual instances ).

·to create a nationally-shared resource and peer review capable of supporting local delivery to de-risk and accelerate delivery

·to integrate fully the solution with the Citizen Account infrastructure and National Entitlement Card Management System.

Budget-What is the overall budget for the project and how is this to be released? What is the spend to date, is this as forecast?- how much?

£100k Funding

The funding is to provide a national co-ordinating role to coordinate and help accelerate deployments and to share learning across all councils.

Overall total spent to date = £45,013.80.

Risks-What are the main risks in terms of project management, stakeholder engagement and communications, delivery approach and benefits realisation? What can be done to mitigate against these risks? - What if?

Risks

Impact/Probability

Actions

· Need to work closely with implementation councils and provider to ensure that resource issues do not impinge on project timescales

Medium

National coordinator represented on councils' local project steering groups.

· That success measures are not adequately defined

Medium

National coordinator working with Councils to agree and sign off success measures and how to measure them that can be used by other councils

Recommendation & Funding:

Would project Proceed in the Absence of Change Funding:

Yes / No

Financial Year

Revenue

Capital

Funding Period(s)

2006/07

2007/08

£100K

2008/09

Funding Not In Scope

Financial Year

Consequences of further funding being unavailable: