Pivot – A Shared Information, Technology and Digital Service Improvement Programme

The Assignment

31ten was commissioned to support the delivery of the Orbis IT&D Pivot Programme in September 2020, and is still supporting the delivery of the various projects and workstreams as of June 2024.  Initially, we supported the initiation and mobilisation of the Pivot Programme with the IT&D senior leadership team, establishing the programme governance and delivery models.  Between 2021 and 2024, we have assisted in the delivery of various Pivot projects, workstreams and activities which have led to service improvements within the 3 customer councils.

The Role

31ten has performed the roles of technical advisors and programme deliver partners on the Pivot Programme, specific activities have included:

  • Developed a new IT&D operating model for the service to better engage with customers, deliver improved and more cost-effective services, and ensure that the service makes best use of the various delivery teams and expertise from across the service.
  • A detailed and wide-ranging IT&D service benchmarking exercise across all aspects of service delivery, customer satisfaction and service costs, comparing the Orbis partnership with other shared services and local government organisations across the UK.
  • Delivered various implementation and transformation projects to ensure the successful embedding of the new operating model including; rolling out ICT Practices, developing a service catalogue and performance dashboard for all 20,000 customers, value stream mapping and service improvement activity for a range of key customer processes and services.
  • A review of the partnership and shared service technical development team with recommendations to improve service resilience and customer delivery.
  • Assessment of the £13m turnover Orbis IT&D commercial and traded services team, including services to schools and other commercial partners to improve service delivery and customer focus, secure existing revenue streams and set the foundation for increasing income.
  • Designed and delivered a cultural change programme to provide an evidence-based assessment of current IT&D culture, understand future state requirements set by the new values and behaviours, and identify key areas of intervention to close recognised gaps.
  • This involved extensive stakeholder engagement sessions through workshops and focus groups, design and analysis of an all-staff survey, and delivering development sessions and practical change activities for key groups.

Key Outcomes

There have been several key deliverables and outcomes from our work on the Pivot Programme, including:

  • Development of a staff-led mandate for change on the back of very strong (60%+) engagement with the all-staff cultural survey – a critical tool in the conversation about why things were being done differently.
  • Evidenced-based set of recommendations to support challenges and themes identified to improve the IT&D service culture in a measurable and evidence-based way.
  • A set of service-wide digital values was created alongside a staff engagement and communications plan to increase staff satisfaction measures.
  • A comprehensive IT&D service operating model with new teams and customer-facing engagement and communication processes, combined with value-led service redesign of several internal functions and areas.
  • RDIP Service Maturity Assessment index improved in all areas as a result of the 31ten and IT&D partnership working over the 3 years of the Pivot programme, the overall indicator increasing from 2.4 to 3.2 out of 5.
  • Delivery of IT&D career pathways, new job role profiles and workforce planning materials to be more attractive to new recruits and to retain and develop existing staff more effectively.
  • The benchmarking highlighted that the shared IT&D service was in the top quartile for performance and customer satisfaction and the lowest quartile for cost of delivery, this was communicated to all 3 council senior teams.