Deepland Housing Agency (DHA) is a public sector agency responsible for housing low-income families and vulnerable residents in Deepland. Its only source of funding is a fixed budget from central government, which is reviewed annually. Budgetary pressures are great and it is always difficult for DHA to ensure that adequate provision of social housing is available for those in greatest need.
DHA employs full-time, permanent advisers who interview applicants to assess their housing need. These advisers also sit on panels responsible for deciding whether applicants should be housed. They are also required to make regular monitoring visits to residents who have been housed by DHA. The emotional pressures on advisers are high, as they are often exposed to distressing cases of hardship affecting their fellow Deepland residents. Consequently, staff turnover is high.
The agency is undergoing a process improvement programme to try and maximise its use of available resources and to improve effective
ness, efficiency and economy. Three of its processes are currently under scrutiny:
Process one – Scheduling of customer appointments
Anyone who requires the services of DHA must have an initial interview at DHA to determine their level of need. Some residents contact DHA directly, but most are referred to DHA by other agencies, such as social services, hospitals or employment offices. It is part of the receptionist’s role at DHA to provide appointments to clients, subject to the availability of advisers. Currently, the receptionist records appointments on a whiteboard in the advisers’ office. However, receptionists struggle to accurately maintain the schedule as it is difficult to keep adviser availability up to date. This leads to two problems: first, allocating appointments to an adviser who is, or becomes, unavailable and second, failing to schedule appointments for advisers who are actually available.
DHA has already assessed this process and decided that an automated approach would be more efficient. Although a bespoke solution was considered, it is currently envisaged that an off-the-shelf scheduling system would be more appropriate. There are a number of such packages available in the market, but a preferred package has been identified. It appears to fulfil most of DHA’s requirements and is already widely used in similar environments which rely heavily on booking appointments, e.g. doctors’ surgeries. The receptionist would retain their role, but would record appointments on a real-time system which accurately reflects the current availability of DHA advisers. The advisers would have the ability to update their own availability on a daily or weekly basis and the receptionist would be able to schedule appointments for advisers’ available time slots.
Process two – Staff training and development
Given the high staff turnover, DHA has undertaken exit interviews with departing advisers to determine their reasons for leaving. A major issue which has emerged from such interviews is a lack of staff training and development to help advisers with both the practical operational procedures of the role and the emotional distress which the work often involves.
In a separate survey, some DHA residents and applicants complained that advisers had been arrogant and rude towards them. An extract from a recent formal complaint stated ‘It was very difficult for me to participate in the interview. I was referred by the social services agency which convinced me you would be able to help. I have always been self-sufficient and it is only extreme circumstances that have put me in this position. I did not feel that my unique circumstances were taken into consideration and I felt that the adviser treated me as if I was of low intelligence because of the situation I found myself in.’
Another complaint read ‘although I have six children, the DHA adviser recommended me for a small house because the guidelines only cover families of up to three children and he had to follow the procedures for that. When I questioned this he said ‘be grateful, you’re getting a house’.
DHA staff training is currently provided on an annual basis, all taking place within one week in April when the agency is closed. This training is used to discuss current issues and approaches in DHA and any amendments to operational procedures. A manual of these operational procedures is issued to all staff which contains flowcharts of actions required for the majority of situations which they will face. Advisers are expected to be familiar with operational procedures and to follow them.
Process three – Legal advice and compliance
Deepland has a complex legal system, and there are employment, tax and health and safety laws which directly affect DHA. The ruling political party changes regularly, and with it the laws.
DHA currently employs a full-time, permanent, legal team which keeps managers, advisers and other staff up to date with changes in legislation. The team comprises five different employees, each of whom spends approximately 50% of their time on work for the agency, 30% in professional training and 20% under-utilised. The professional training is necessary to keep up to date with legislation in their particular area of expertise. Although the team is under-utilised, the company retains five staff as they each have different areas of expertise.
DHA is concerned that this team is expensive to employ and that the increasing number of laws and compliance requirements makes it difficult for them to identify all issues which could potentially affect DHA. Consequently it is considering the options for the future provision of this service.
Required:
DHA has already decided to use a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) system for process one, its appointment scheduling system, but needs to make a decision on how to improve processes two and three; staff training and development and legal advice and compliance.
Determine the position of processes two and three on Harmon’s process-strategy matrix. Given its position on the matrix, recommend how improvements in each of these processes should be implemented, stating any potential difficulties in making such improvements.
Paul Harmon has proposed a process-strategy matrix which considers the strategic importance of the process on one axis and the complexity of the process on the other. This leads to four quadrants for which Harmon suggests different generic process solutions, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 – Harmon’s process-strategy matrix
(i) Justify the decision to implement the scheduling of appointments (process one) with a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solution rather than developing a bespoke solution.
(ii) Explain any risks associated with the commercial off-the-shelf package based approach and discuss how each risk might be handled.
Note: The following mark allocation is provided as guidance for this requirement:
(i) 7 marks
(ii) 8 marks
(i) The advantages to DHA of using software to improve the scheduling process are clear: the use of up-to-date information for the scheduling of adviser appointments. However, is a COTS approach more suitable than a bespoke software solution?
Initial cost
The agency is subjected to budgetary pressures, and whilst the interviews themselves are important to assess and respond to the clients’ needs, the actual scheduling is less so. Where possible, the budget should be spent on providing the core service of housing. Therefore costs need to be saved in other areas where possible. Because the COTS software is available to many clients, the costs are shared. With a bespoke solution the agency would have to incur the entire development costs.
Maintenance and upgrade costs
With bespoke software it is difficult to predict the maintenance and upgrade costs which will be incurred. As a public sector organisation, DHA only has one form of income: the annual government grant. It is important to the agency to be able to forecast cash flows as part of its budgeting process. A COTS solution should include regular annual payments for all maintenance and upgrade requirements. This will enhance budget forecasting in the agency.
Quality of the software
Many software packages are available and have been tried and tested. In a competitive environment, it is easy to seek customer reviews online. Bespoke software will be developed uniquely and the quality not fully known until final implementation. DHA is considering the use of a scheduling system currently used in doctors’ surgeries, for example. Given the importance of appointments in this profession, they must be confident that the quality of the appointment system will be good. If the surgeries are themselves public services, DHA may be able to request direct feedback before selecting the final system.
Speed of implementation
The agency is keen to improve its service provision and is likely to appreciate relatively quick solutions to its problems. Given that COTS packages are already developed and available, the procurement and implementation should be relatively quick. On the other hand, a bespoke solution will take many months, perhaps years, to design, develop, test and implement.
Efficiency of process
The current process seems poorly designed, leading to inefficiencies. The problems could be resolved by introducing a system which has built in past experiences to overcome such inefficiencies. The introduction of a COTS system can gain the benefits of best practice without having to carry out a full benchmarking process.
COTS appointment systems used by doctors’ surgeries are presumably selected with both efficiency and effectiveness in mind. The problems of spare capacity and scheduling of appointments to unavailable doctors are unlikely to be tolerated.
Therefore any systems selected by DHA should have already considered and accounted for these problems in the system design.
However, if the system were bespoke, it may be that it is designed on current processes, rather than what is possible, thus building the same inefficiencies into the new software.
(ii) No solution comes without potential limitations and disadvantages and DHA should take these into consideration. The use of a COTS solution will mean that DHA has to adapt its processes to the way in which the system works. This may not necessarily be a long-term problem (see discussion of efficiency) but in the short term may lead to familiarity problems with the new system.
The advisers will need to learn to access and update the system, rather than simply providing updates either manually or verbally to the receptionist. There is a risk that they will be unable or unwilling to do so, depending on how easily the system can be accessed.
These risks could be mitigated by ensuring that the package selected can be accessed using all forms of technology, e.g. those advisers currently out of the office could use their mobile phones to access and update the system remotely. The advisers should also be given full training on the new system to ensure they are familiar with its use.
The receptionist will also need to become familiar with the entire process. This could lead to some short-term efficiency problems. To mitigate this, he/she could be seconded to another agency for a short period of time, to see the system in use.
DHA will also become dependent upon the software supplier. If contracts are not water-tight, there may be unexpected costs when upgrades are required. The legal team, whether internal or outsourced, should be employed to check the terms of the contracts and ensure that there are no potential disputes.
There is no mention of existing systems in use in DHA, but the agency will need to ensure it has the appropriate hardware to run the system and that it will link to other key systems. To mitigate this, most COTS solutions have a try-before-buy option. DHA should ask to trial the software on its existing systems to ensure that the system can meet this requirement. Indeed, this try-before-buy option can help to mitigate many of the risks, allowing the agency to see how this software will work for them and will fit into its current structure and processes.