Case Studies
Follow the link to read the full case study details:
- Strategic Information Technology Planning for Social Services
- Review of the Commercial Division of a Government Executive Agency
- Workforce Planning in a Local Authority
- Preparing for Inspection
- Culture Change programme for a housing department, unitary authority
STRATEGIC INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PLANNING FOR SOCIAL SERVICES
The client
A London Borough
- Installing their first fully integrated Social Services Information System
- Suffering from a poor relationship between the Social Services and Information and Communications Technology Departments
- Not fully engaged with current e-government initiatives impacting Social Services
The challenge
To identify the implications for IT future development in Social Services of Central Government initiatives relating to Health and Childrens Care Services
- To produce a strategic action plan for Social Services IT development
- To make recommendations relating to future organisation and resource requirements to support the achievement of the plan
The solution
Our clients believed that their implementation of an integrated Social Services System would wholly meet the Government's requirement of Local Government to maintain a comprehensive Electronic Social Care Record. Our investigation revealed that this was not the case and that the Council would be required as a matter of urgency to implement further systems modules.
We also found that they were not well positioned to meet requirements for information sharing with other agencies with responsibility for health and children's care, with a number of important issues to be addressed before realistic strategic IT planning could take place.
These included:
- The implications for Social Services organisation and strategy of the increasing separation of Health and Children's services at Central Government level
- The differences that this separation is driving in the standards for processes and systems that are being developed to support integrated multi-agency working and information sharing within the two services
- The options for short and medium term interim solutions that are being developed at national, regional and local levels, not always in ways consistent with longer-term objectives
- The need for the Council's Social Services and Information and Communications Technology management and staff to become much more directly involved in forums at national, regional and local levels, designed to steer development and address the issues in relation to the above
Our recommendations included both short-term actions for IT development and changes to culture, resources and working practices across the Social Services and ICT Departments that would enable the issues inhibiting longer term-planning to be addressed.
Benefits at a glance
- A short-term IT development plan designed to meet the most immediate, very tight Central Government implementation timetables
- Better understanding of the implications of and issues relating to the initiatives to which Social Services are required to respond
- An effective working relationship, supported by appropriate resources, between the Social Services and Information and Communications Technology Departments
