Business Operations Transformation Programme

The Assignment

The Surrey County Council (SCC) Business Operations Service (HR, Payroll and Finance transactional services) had recently transitioned from a Shared Service arrangement. Upon repatriating there were a number of demands on the service provision which needed to be addressed. This included a challenging budget position with an overspent budget pressure of £1.2m and an additional Schools & Academies payroll trading provision at significant risk with a declining customer base.

There were historic performance issues impacting on the reputation internally, politically & from staff and customers.

A large number of processes were manual and needed to be evolved to take advantage of technology as a key driver for change. These current processes were taking longer, increasing opportunities for errors, and impacting the number of complaints.

Furthermore, a new integrated HR and Finance ERP system (Unit4) was due to be implemented moving from SAP, providing opportunities to streamline processes.

The Role

31ten was commissioned to design a Business Operations Transformation programme and to support SCC to create a business change approach to develop a new operating model with supporting savings proposals to achieve the reduction of significant budget pressures for financial years 22/23 and 23/24.

We initially developed an invest to save business case to develop a programme team of a programme manager, project managers, business change managers, a communications and engagement manager and a project support officer. The business case required an investment of £500k to recruit a fixed-term team to deliver 4 workstreams:

New ERP Business Readiness
Reframed offer to SCC Services
Commercialisation of traded services
New operating model

We co-designed the programme to ensure all opportunities for savings and growth proposals, including income-generating opportunities, were assessed.

Once recruited, the programme team were managed by our Programme Director, and we undertook a regular programme of engagement which included a monthly stakeholder programme board in addition to directorate workshops, regular 1:1s with the Directors and Heads of Service, weekly check-ins with assistant directors and monthly reviews with the executive director.

Key Outcomes

We carried out a full system model review and detailed baseline mapping. From this, we designed and benchmarked against other organisations a new operating model, in order to rectify the challenges being experienced, including cross-boundary service issues.

We delivered a detailed programme to achieve significant organisational benefit and business change supported by appropriate stakeholder governance.

We developed savings proposals: reviewing the transformation programme, pinpointing areas for stretch savings and new savings (including feeding in best practice and evidence from other councils), co-designing proposals alongside service leads and finance.

We mapped key interdependencies across the council, factoring these into the development of proposals, as well as grounding the programme in a wider transformation context.

We co-designed and implemented collective consultation achieving a new, approved operating model.

The impact of this transformation programme has been significant – benefitting the customer, operational and financial reputation of the Council.

A new operating model design, with a supporting workforce structure built on leadership, people and customers has been implemented for transactional services aligned to the benefits realisation of the implementation of a new ERP system reducing the overall operating costs.

It has achieved a budget reduction of £1.2m, with a further £750k savings alongside a new service provision aligned to key design principles, improving the customer experience.

A refreshed and reduced workforce with improved job roles positively impacting the culture of the service with the redeployment of staff, where appropriate.