Service Transformation Agreement

© Crown copyright 2007 Published with the permission of HM Treasury on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

SERVICE TRANSFORMATION AGREEMENT

VISION

1.1 Citizens' time is not free, yet often the way public services are delivered assumes it to be so. The aim of this Service Transformation Agreement (STA) is to change public services so they more often meet the needs of people and businesses, rather than the needs of government, and by doing so reduce the frustration and stress of accessing them. The result will be services that are better for the customer, better for front line staff and better for the taxpayer.

1.2 Service transformation is about changing public services so they are tailored more to the needs of people and businesses and less to the structures of government. Public services should be delivered in the ways and at the times that people now expect them; the public service should get it right first time so that people do not have to initiate contact again and again; and rather than expecting people to 'join up' government for themselves it should be done for them. Government will do this by engaging users of public services to learn what really matters to them, and by acting on what is learnt.

1.3 People are busier and their time is an increasingly precious commodity. They expect services that respond to their individual needs ('I've been made redundant') rather than to the needs of individual delivery agencies ('fill in Form D123'). And they expect to deal with government in ways and at times that are convenient for their personal circumstances, for example out of normal office hours and from home over the internet.

1.4 Yet carrying out a simple task — reporting a house move, notifying a change in circumstances — can involve being shuffled from office to office, phone line to phone line giving the same information again and again. And services that appear confusing and inaccessible may deter people from seeking them with the result that citizens are denied the help that the Government, in its policies, seeks to offer.

1.5 This is self-perpetuating. The entire public sector faces a constant battle with "avoidable contact" — demand caused by customers initiating contact because they are confused, need to check on progress, pass on information they have already given to other parts of the public sector and so on. This is contact that would not be necessary if the public sector could get things right first time. It simply frustrates customers and wastes their time; erodes public trust in government; clogs up government offices so that more important demand goes unmet; and wastes money. The challenge for the public sector is to follow the example of leading private sector providers who have re- thought the ways in which they interact with people and businesses to improve customer value and reduce costs.

1.6 The key aim of service transformation is to reduce the number of unnecessary contacts that people need to have with government. Achieving this will require the whole of government to look critically and fundamentally at the way in which it designs and delivers services, and at the relationships between those organisations, whether in the public, private or third sectors, who have an interest in a particular area or customer group. By doing this the public sector will improve quality, accuracy and joining up across government. It will also save money and create more satisfying jobs for public sector staff. Tailoring services to needs. Reducing avoidable contact

1.7 This change will require action right across the public sector, specifically in the context of delivering the 30 PSA priority outcomes, and will not be complete within a single Spending Review period. But during the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR07) period the Government will make practical reductions in the number of contacts; introduce the core services on which further change can be built; make the policy changes which will underpin further improvement; and engage with citizens, businesses and front line staff involving them, listening to them and learning from them, to improve public services.

1.8 The Government's aim for this STA is to establish across the public sector a sustainable culture built upon an understanding of the needs and behaviours of citizens and businesses to create services that are:

• better for customers. Services are simpler, more streamlined and intuitive, more accessible and convenient. Services are not designed to trip customers up, even though it sometimes seems that way. Customers will progressively find that when they deal with government each contact they have is easy and joined-up. Each one fulfils a need, adds value to the outcome and is trusted.

• better for staff. Front line public sector staff — not just those in face-to-face offices, but also those answering calls in contact centres and developing services for the web — have a strong culture of service. They are closest to the customer and feel the public service's strengths and weaknesses the most acutely. By using their own experience front line staff will increasingly find that they can get on with delivering services of which they can feel proud.

• better for the taxpayer. Unnecessary and duplicative contact, cumbersome and complicated processes, fragmented and inaccessible services are as frustrating and costly for government as they are for staff and the customer. Each unnecessary contact removed is a saving giving greater value for money for the taxpayer.

GOVERNANCE ARRANGEMENTS

2.1 The Minister for the Cabinet Office, who chairs the new Cabinet Committee on Public Engagement and the Delivery of Services, and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury will hold departments to account for the delivery of the commitments within this STA. Each Secretary of State will be responsible for the delivery of service transformation within his or her department.

2.2 The Civil Service Steering Board, chaired by the Cabinet Secretary, consists of a small number of departmental permanent secretaries and non-executive members. It is responsible for the overall leadership and direction of this Agreement. This includes endorsing the overall strategy, assigning leadership of cross-government projects to specific departments, and reviewing overall progress against plans.

2.3 A senior official Delivery Council, including all lead and supporting departments together with other service delivery organisations, will monitor progress, regularly review delivery, and be responsible for programme management and the development of strategies and plans. The Delivery Council will have a particularly important role in identifying areas of future work and making proposals to the Civil Service Steering Board.

2.4 To complement the Delivery Council the Local Government Delivery Council (LGDC) has been established to manage the interface between local and central government. It is responsible for leadership on service transformation on behalf of local government. This includes facilitating support for councils in implementing this Agreement, and developing mechanisms by which progress at the local government level will be monitored and evaluated.

2.5 The Civil Service Steering Board has appointed a lead department to each specific area of transformation, with the Delivery Council providing support and coordination as required. These departments and the service transformation areas they are leading on are as follows: Department of Work and Pensions for citizen focused services; Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs for business focused services; Home Office for identity management; Ministry of Justice for helplines and Local Government for face-to-face services. As new specific areas of transformation are agreed other lead departments will be appointed.

2.6 At official level, service transformation will continue to be led by the Cabinet Secretary, supported by the Civil Service Steering Board and a secretariat in the Cabinet Office (CO), as recommended in Sir David Varney's Report1 on service transformation.

2.7 The Prime Minister has appointed Sir David Varney as his adviser on public service transformation. In this role Sir David will:

• advise the Prime Minister and Secretaries of State directly on all aspects of service transformation delivery, reporting annually to the Cabinet on progress against service transformation goals, which will be made available to the Public Administration Select Committee of the House of Commons;

Responding to being asked by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for advice on opportunities for transforming the delivery of public services, Sir David Varney published Service Transformation: better services for citizens and businesses, a better deal for the taxpayer in December 2006.

GOVERNANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Overall leadership and direction Lead departments Adviser to the Prime Minister

• chair the cross—Whitehall Delivery Council; and

• work closely with the senior leadership of the civil service, and in particular Director General of Service Transformation at the CO, to advise on the Government's approach at all levels to improvements of services. To facilitate this further he will remain a non—executive member of the Civil Service Steering Board, chaired by the Cabinet Secretary.

MEASURING PROGRESS

2.8 Measuring progress purely from the customer's subjective point of view is not enough. Whilst government will monitor the customer experience through journey mapping and customer satisfaction tracking mechanisms at the front line (explained further in chapter 3), it will complement these with more objective data in the form of two key progress measures. Reducing avoidable contact

2.9 All too often people find they have to contact the public sector again and again even for the simplest thing because it has got it wrong. They have to initiate contact to provide information which the public sector already has or because the public sector has not explained something properly. They also initiate contact to chase public service providers for action that they are not confident will be carried out. This type of contact is what is termed "avoidable".

2.10 The first progress measure will track how much contact between government and citizens is "avoidable". This will be done by asking those who are closest to the citizen in local and central government to identify when and why that type of contact happens.2 By bringing this information together the public sector will be better able to see how this contact could have been avoided had things been done right first time. And by comparing the results across similar services and organisations the public sector will be able to gather better information on why citizens and businesses need to initiate contact in the first place.

2.11 The intention is to halve the proportion of "avoidable" contact by the end of the CSR07 period in line with the recommendations made in Sir David Varney's report.

2.12 Reducing avoidable contact in this way will mean that the public sector delivers existing services more quickly and effectively. However, it will also inform how the public sector fundamentally re-designs those services to be more streamlined and accessible in the future. New cross-government initiatives such as "Tell Us Once" and Free School Meals will be putting this approach into practice. And already across government organisations are starting to use avoidable contact to highlight where a form needs to be shorter and clearer, where information needs to be more accessible, where closer links need to be made between different services. Based on the Varney definition of avoidable as a contact which is duplicate, made in error or nugatory.

Faster and more effective services

Reduction in the amount of avoidable contact

Aim - The aim is to achieve a 50 per cent reduction in avoidable contact by the end of the CSR07 period as recommended by Sir David Varney in his report. Data provider - Local government and central government contact centres; and local government face-to-face outlets. Data set - There is no existing data set to draw on. The progress measure will be based on two proposed data streams:

• data collected from government contact centres and collated by the Contact Council on the number of contacts which add no value (either to supplier or customer) to the outcome

• data collected through the local government National Indicator Set on the number of contacts it takes customers to complete the key services which together represent the bulk of Local Authority service delivery

• data will be combined, with duplicate data removed, to show the total number of unnecessary contacts occurring in the system.

Local data coverage and to be determined by April 2008 and published on the CO website. Frequency of reporting Quarterly. 95 per cent confidence interval to be determined by April 2008 and published on the CO website. Data Quality Officer to be determined by April 2008 and published on the CO website.

Definition of key terms Avoidable contact - contact that adds no value to the outcome. It includes contact that is nugatory, duplicative or caused by failures in business processes.

Building better online services

2.13 Citizens are increasingly turning to government websites as a means of accessing public services, yet often people find it hard to locate the information they need. It doesn't help that in the past the public sector has spread information across many departmental websites, often failing to make connections between them and assuming that the citizen knows how to navigate around them.

2.14 This approach ignores the fact that citizens' needs are individual and often fall across a number of organisations. People often are not even aware of the support which the Government is able to offer.

2.15 The public sector can better strategically manage customer online access to services by progressively moving e-services onto two websites where they can be presented and linked in ways which customers understand. Those two sites are Directgov for citizens and Businesslink.gov for businesses.

Two key websites

2.16 The second progress measure will therefore track the movement of services onto Directgov and Businesslink.gov. By the end of the CSR07 period the aim is that almost all online information and transactions will be easily available through these two sites.

2.17 Whilst the Government will focus upon Directgov and Businesslink.gov, it is acknowledged there will be a small number of exceptions as government organisations may need to retain a separate site (for instance, for their own internal corporate information). However the CO will ensure that these remaining sites do not include any customer information or transactions which should be on Directgov or Businesslink.gov.

2.18 This progress measure will record the number of sites actually closed and the (much smaller) number confirmed as being clear of relevant material. It will be reported both in terms of site numbers as well as a percentage of the total task.

Citizen and business e-services content migrated to Directgov and Businesslink.gov

Aim - The aim (in percentage terms) is to migrate more than 95 per cent of the total identified websites by the end of the CSR07 period, with the remaining 5 per cent migrating soon thereafter. Data provider - Central Office of Information. Data set - Data will be derived from a set of departmental agreements setting out, quarter by quarter, the material that will be moved and as a consequence the sites that will be closed or, in a small number of cases, remaining open (most usually to provide corporate information) but confirmed as holding no further relevant information or transactions.

Progress will be monitored through departmental returns to the CO.

Data coverage - Central Government websites. Baseline - Both the number of websites already closed (or cleared of relevant content if not tagged for closure) and the total number of relevant websites will be determined by April 2008 and published on the CO website. Frequency of reporting - Quarterly.

95 per cent confidence interval N/A, as no sampling is required for measurement. Data Quality Officer Lead, Government Website Review, COI.

Definition of key terms

Migration - the process by which information and transactions become integrated with Directgov and/or Businesslink.gov. Migration involves more than simply moving material from one site to another. It involves weaving information and transactions into these two sites, making connections and cross-referring so that customers see a coherent service that responds to their needs.

Corporate information - information that is aimed at an audience interested in the organisation itself.

Efficiency savings

2.19 Sir David Varney's report made some estimates of efficiency savings which service transformation should release. This is an important part of service transformation: what is wasteful for the customer is inefficient for government. While not explicitly setting a level of efficiency savings as a primary progress measure of service transformation, the value in recording the level of savings achieved by departments is recognised, and the CO will track these as this STA is delivered.

3.1 Following the direction of travel set out in the Transformational Government strategy,1 the Government is adopting the recommendations of Sir David Varney's report that it should focus in the CSR07 period on actions at both of two levels:

• a wide programme of activity across the whole of the public sector in which every organisation puts into practice the principles of service transformation; and

• a small number of strategic initiatives, such as 'Tell Us Once', which would not only provide immediate benefit to customers and greater efficiency for government, but which would also lay the foundations for a new generation of public services.

3.2 At the first level, relevant departments have developed individual service transformation plans for the CSR07 period in the context of their settlements. These summarise the service transformation activities each department plans to implement over the period. Detailed summaries of each department's plans can be found in Annex A. Departments will continue to develop these plans during the CSR07 period.

STRATEGIC ACTIONS

3.3 Six areas of strategic action are needed to deliver the vision of service transformation.

• 1. Learning from citizens and businesses. The best service providers in the public, private and third sectors start by making sure they have a real, evidence-based understanding of the behaviours of the people they are trying to reach, including by directly engaging with their end users. The Government's vision is that it establishes across the public sector a culture and systems which make this routine.

• 2. Grouping services in ways that are meaningful to the customer. Each service solution offered by the public sector is what Sir David Varney's report described as '...a child of its time and circumstances...', presenting the citizen and business with a fragmented picture which can appear to have little relevance to the task in hand. This is inefficient for government and frustrating for the user. The Government's vision is to develop ways in which the public sector can offer integrated packages of services which respond directly to the tasks which citizens and businesses face in their day to day lives and which offer a timely response to immediate needs.

• 3. Rationalising services for efficiency and service improvement. Public sector structures and processes allow a proliferation of websites, helplines, and front offices which make little sense to those they are intended to reach. The performance of services is managed individually with little opportunity for comparison. The Government's vision is to present a service framework which is simpler, clearer and more accessible.

Transformational Government — enabled by technology, Cabinet Office, 2005.

Detailed plans for each department

• 4. Making better use of the customer information the public sector already holds. The types of transformation covered by this Agreement will simply not be possible unless the public sector can establish the identity of the customer it is dealing with simply and with certainty, and be able to pass relevant information between different parts of government. This is especially important for identifying vulnerable groups in society and assessing their needs and entitlement to support.

• 5. Linking local and central government. Ensuring that public service delivery is joined up across both central and local government is a key component of this Agreement and the Government recognises that successful service transformation is dependent on close collaborative working between departments and local government bodies. This is reflected in the alignment of central progress measures and the local government performance framework, and in the establishment of the LGDC to mirror at local level the central role of the Delivery Council.

• 6. Engaging front line staff. The public sector will seek to harness the energy, input and customer insight of front line staff who it believes is strongly committed to the vision set out here and are well placed to deliver service improvements.

LEARNING FROM CITIZENS AND BUSINESSES

The Customer Insight Forum

3.4 Sir David Varney's report on service transformation argued that each department should have a customer insight function. These functions may be structured differently according to the needs of each organisation, but the role is the same: to bring the true voice of citizens and businesses into the way in which services are designed, delivered and enhanced over time. These functions offer the ability for a department to gather (and commission where necessary) the information it needs to build a picture of what really matters to the people it is trying to reach; and to use this information to drive service transformation.

3.5 To support these functions the Customer Insight Forum, first established under the Transformational Government Strategy and reporting to the Delivery Council, will play a more formal and active role through the CSR07 period supporting the culture change that is needed to create more customer-focused services.

3.6 A counterpart Business Insight Forum has also been established by Businesslink.gov. This will be a special interest group linked to the Customer Insight Forum, championing the business experience when interacting with government, sharing best practice and business insight. Alignment with the Customer Insight Forum will ensure the group has links into the Delivery Council and where appropriate common issues will be shared as they arise.

3.7 The role of the Customer Insight Forum includes:

• spreading good practice and sharing information/learning;

• enabling cross-government service transformation by tackling barriers to change from a customer perspective;

Supporting culture change

• acting as a resource to inform major cross-government policy issues or delivery initiatives by the provision of targeted, timely insight;

• establishing the training requirements for achieving competence in customer insight for public sector service providers;

• exploring closer working relationships with users and their representative bodies to ensure effective user engagement; and

• sponsorship of cross-government customer insight initiatives.

Customer journey mapping

3.8 The two progress measures outlined in chapter 2 will give the Government a view across the public sector of progress being made towards what Sir David Varney described as a service economy which is "...slicker, more immediate, more convenient to the citizen and less intrusive on (their) time...". But in order to understand what this looks like to the citizen, the public sector needs to be able to follow and understand representative customer journeys through their various stages in accessing public services.

3.9 The technique of "customer journey mapping" is widely used in the commercial world and there are some excellent examples in public services. It enables a service provider to look at each step a customer takes towards completion of a task but from the point of view of that customer. Taking this viewpoint is critical for government because it exposes those steps which lie outside the immediate horizon but which hold part of the solution to streamlining the whole journey. So, for example, a call to a government helpline might be preceded by a visit to the Citizen's Advice Bureau; a completed application may conceal research in a library.

3.10 By its nature customer journey mapping is qualitative. It is often complex, covering journeys which extend over long periods of time and which are often disjointed and sometimes ambiguous. But it is one of the best ways available to the public sector to understand what needs to be done to streamline a particular area.

3.11 In advance of the CSR07 period the Customer Insight Forum will be providing guidance on customer journey mapping, drawing on the best techniques currently in use. It will then continue to act as clearing house to ensure that good practice is shared and that government as a whole extracts the greatest understanding and value from customer journey mapping.

Customer satisfaction

3.12 In the commercial world better services lead directly to more loyal and satisfied customers. In the public sector the linkage is less straightforward. Very few citizens have a strong sense of what a "public service" is and, without anything to compare it with, find it hard to express a firm opinion as to how satisfied they are.

3.13 Used appropriately customer satisfaction monitoring is a valuable tool, although it does require careful interpretation if it is not to mislead. For example, the expectations of citizens change faster than their reported levels of satisfaction and so it is not unusual for the improvement of a service initially to have little, or even negative, impact on reported satisfaction levels.

Valuing customer's point of view

Careful interpretation necessary

3.14 Many parts of the public sector monitor customer satisfaction as part of their performance management regimes. At the moment, these activities are rarely linked or comparable, either within or across departments and agencies. This means that service delivery organisations are not able to compare their findings with peers, and are missing opportunities for benchmarking and sharing learning.

3.15 The Customer Insight Forum has already provided departments with guidelines and a framework aimed at improving the consistency and comparability of customer satisfaction measurement across government.

GROUPING SERVICES IN WAYS THAT ARE MEANINGFUL TO THE CUSTOMER

The 'Tell Us Once' project

3.16 Redesigning services so that they match the needs of the customer rather than government raises some real challenges, both cultural and practical. These are quite well understood at a theoretical level, but Sir David Varney's report recommended that they be tested through practical application. The "Tell Us Once" project, led by DWP but involving a broad cross-government partnership, will achieve just that.

3.17 The overall vision for the end of the CSR07 period for this project is for a service whereby citizens can report changes in circumstances (initially dealing with bereavement, change of address and birth) just once and with government responding in a coordinated way. This is a worthwhile service in its own right, but this work will also provide the frameworks and lessons for developing other similar cross-government services that citizens and businesses are saying they need.

3.18 Tell Us Once prototypes are being tested with the aim of pilots of the service being launched from April 2008. The Government will provide more detail on how the service will be developed over the CSR07 period as this becomes available. Directgov and Businesslink.gov

3.19 Directgov and Businesslink.gov will also, by presenting all citizen and business- facing government transactions and information on single, customer focused, websites, contribute to this strategic action. These two sites are also important for the rationalisation and efficiency of delivery, and are described below.

RATIONALISING SERVICES FOR EFFICIENCY AND SERVICE IMPROVEMENT

3.20 A key outcome of service transformation will be the better coordination of service delivery across all the channels through which citizens and businesses access public services. In order to move towards more efficient and integrated channel management, the Government is commencing a programme of service delivery rationalisation, with actions in this area falling into four parts:

• online

• telephone

• face-to-face

• helplines.

Online

3.21 The overall vision for online services is for Directgov and Businesslink.gov to become the primary informational and transactional channels for citizens and Service piloted from April 2008 Single point of access

Businesses, reducing the number of departmental specific websites and providing a single secure point of access to information and services. This will involve the convergence and streamlining of information and transactions from those government websites which are aimed at individuals and businesses to Directgov and Businesslink.gov.

3.22 During this process the power and user-appeal of Directgov and Businesslink.gov will be built in line with customer needs and priorities;2 aligned with departmental plans; and achieved within the technical, service design, policy and financial resources available. The scale of this process is significant and will be underpinned by an overall implementation plan giving a clear indication of the number of sites, audience types and service areas involved.

3.23 Making access to information and transactional services easier via Directgov and Businesslink.gov will mean that the public sector no longer needs the plethora of websites which citizens find so confusing. The process of closing websites which are no longer needed is already underway and the aim is to complete the process by the end of the CSR07 period. As this is done, checks will be made to ensure that no material which should be on Directgov or businesslink.gov.uk has been left on a website aimed at those interested in information only about the organisation (for example, annual reports, details of ministers and so on). It will be clear that the process of migration in a particular area is complete when a) redundant customer-facing websites can be closed and b) it can be confirmed that any customer-facing material has been transferred from any corporate websites.

Telephone

3.24 Public sector contact centres are significant to service transformation. The phone channel handles over 400 million calls each year. Because people often turn to the telephone when they are confused, impatient, or uncertain, what happens in a contact centre is often indicative of an organisation's overall service delivery capability. So improving contact centre performance often requires fundamental service transformation across the organisation.

3.25 Sir David Varney recommended that all public sector contact centres be accredited by the end of 2008.3 This work is being taken forward by the Contact Council4 which has:

• agreed a set of specific operating standards (a blueprint), applicable to all publicly funded contact centres but using where possible recognised and accepted industry-wide models aimed at delivering a better service for callers and improved efficiency for operators. Adoption of these standards will allow the process of external accreditation to be carried out by any recognised body; and

• These were initially identified in their respective strategy studies; but are continually refined and updated in line with website management information and ongoing research, both specific and general.

• Accreditation is a process by which a contact centre is reviewed by an external body to show that it has implemented an agreed set of operating standards; established a common measurement framework to track performance; and achieved a minimum level of performance.

• In line with the recommendations in Sir David Varney's report departments have appointed Contact Directors to carry overall responsibility in their department for customer contact. These Contact Directors together form the Contact Council, which is responsible for providing oversight across the public sector on all matters relating to customer contact.

Contact centre accreditation

• set out a performance framework which will allow consistent measurement across the public sector.

3.26 Over the CSR07 period and beyond the Contact Council will take the lead in using these tools to benchmark and improve performance across public sector contact centres.

Face-to-face

3.27 A number of Local Authorities are achieving significant improvements in the quality, penetration and accessibility of services by bringing them together in single face-to-face locations. Some of the best examples have been brought together under the "Front Office Shared Service" programme (FOSS). These initiatives also enable central and local government services to be delivered alongside those from the third sector and other partners to provide local solutions to local needs. The LGDC will be encouraging the development of these initiatives.

3.28 The objective for the CSR07 period is to move towards more one-stop shops in places which the public will find convenient; towards greater sharing of generic administrative back office space (for example shared service centres, especially where this makes for improved front-of-house delivery); and towards finding ways of delivering face-to-face services at a place of the customer's convenience through the use of mobile service provision.

3.29 The LGDC will develop a progress measure reflecting the FOSS approach for later inclusion in this Agreement.

3.30 There is a link between this work and the rationalisation of the Government estate which is being implemented by the Office for Government Commerce through the High Performing Property Programme.

Helplines

3.31 Phone helplines provide vital support to people in crisis or seeking expert advice on a broad range of personal difficulties. They are often the first port of call for the most vulnerable. Government funds around two-thirds of the 1500 helplines in the UK.

3.32 Publicly funded helplines are possibly the most over-stretched of all phone- based services in the public sector, with callers either failing to find the help they need or simply failing to get through. The onus to coordinate help where a number of services are required is clearly placed on the citizen. The potential for failure in this situation is high and with an increase in issues such as personal indebtedness and obesity, helpline services, if left unchanged, will require higher levels of funding and may still find it increasingly hard to reach those who need them. The Ministry of Justice is leading work to find better ways of managing publicly funded helplines. This is complex — from the point of view of the customer the existing landscape is extremely fragmented, and it is not always clear where to go for help. The issues which these services deal with — such as indebtedness, relationships, health — almost invariably overlap and conventional customer or task segmentations have proven ineffective.

3.33 To support this work, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform is developing a pilot to explore options to simplify and rationalise helplines related to employment, delivering an improved service to both citizens and business, and savings for government.

One-stop-shops

MAKING BETTER USE OF THE CUSTOMER INFORMATION THE PUBLIC SECTOR ALREADY HOLDS

3.34 This is a highly complex challenge which will not be entirely solved within the CSR07 period. The public sector can, however, make progress:

• at a strategic level; with the work being lead by the Home Office (on identity management) and by the Ministry of Justice (on information sharing). The aim is that the implementation of these strategic plans is largely complete by the end of the CSR07 period; and

• at a tactical level by tackling these issues within the context of specific projects, most importantly 'Tell Us Once'. This approach allows progress to be made while also providing valuable information for the wider strategy. In addition to 'Tell Us Once' the Government will also sponsor and facilitate other specific projects including the Free School Meals pilot which is already underway in conjunction with DCSF, Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council and Hertfordshire County Council.

LINKING LOCAL AND CENTRAL GOVERNMENT

3.35 To ensure alignment between service transformation activity in central and local government, the service transformation indicator within the local government performance framework will reflect the key theme of this Service Transformation Agreement to save citizens and business time in their dealings with government. As such, the local government indicator focuses on reducing avoidable contact and maximising first point of contact resolution.

3.36 Central government departments will also engage actively with local government partners to drive through the strategic initiatives set out above, as well as the wider programme of activity across the whole public sector, which will involve more effective joining up across the whole delivery chain. The establishment of the LGDC will play a key role in facilitating this engagement.

ENGAGING FRONT LINE STAFF

3.37 There is a recognised link5 between service quality, customer satisfaction and the engagement of front line staff (not just those in face-to-face situations, but also those answering phones and delivering web services). The Government will build upon this link by assessing the drivers of front line employee buy-in and developing the use of cross-government staff surveys as a means of maximizing the potential for staff to contribute to the delivery of more customer-focused public services. Work in this area is ongoing and will link with the outputs and objectives of the Permanent Secretaries' Employee Engagement Working Group. See People, Service and Trust: Links in a Public Sector Service Value Chain, Ralph Heintzman and Brian Marson, Canadian Government Executive June/July 2006, http://www.psagency-agencefp.gc.ca/veo-bve/publications/atricle_e.asp

MINISTRY OF JUSTICE

Vision

A.1 The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) serves the public by providing a framework within which the state promotes and enforces rights and responsibilities, and upholds and protects justice and democracy. The department's work in criminal and civil law, human and democratic rights defines its core rights and responsibilities - the protection the public is entitled to expect from others, and the department's reciprocal obligations. The department is also responsible for providing support where rights and responsibilities are not respected - for example through legal aid, tribunals, and the resolution of disputes through the civil and family courts - and for ensuring that there are consequences for the breaching of rights and responsibilities. This includes sentencing policy, the effective administration of prison and probation service, and the enforcement of court judgments.

A.2 The MoJ is focused on delivering key outcomes for society, including more effective public protection from dangerous offenders, ensuring that people have confidence in the criminal justice system and that fewer offenders re-offend. The MoJ is focused on ensuring that people can understand and access their rights, and are given appropriate help and assistance to avoid and resolve conflicts. The MoJ is also responsible for taking forward one of the Government's key priorities — giving people have a greater say in the way they are governed.

A.3 The creation of the MoJ also provides new opportunities for working better together, right across the justice system, in order to deliver improvements to public services. Building on the rationale for the creation of the MoJ on 9 May 2007, the new Secretary of State has re-iterated the importance of delivering these improvements. In order to achieve this the MoJ will create an organisation that is focused on outcomes; takes a whole system approach; shows decisive leadership; and is customer focused.

A.4 The MoJ is the lead government department on service transformation in two main areas:

Data sharing

A.5 The MoJ is leading a cross-government programme to deliver a package of measures over the next 3-5 years to overcome current barriers to information sharing within the public sector.

A.6 The vision of this programme is to 'develop frameworks and mechanisms that enable public sector organisations to share information to improve personalised public services, increase public safety and tackle social exclusion in an environment of openness and respect for citizens' privacy and access rights'.

A.7 The information sharing programme will take account of all major government initiatives involving data sharing, including identity management, which in itself is key to facilitating effective service delivery.

DEPARTMENTAL SERVICE TRANSFORMATION PLANS

Helplines

A.8 The MoJ is leading a cross-government project to rationalise the 1500 helplines operated or funded by central or local government. The main objective of the project is to: consider whether existing helplines should be grouped into broad clusters of subject areas such as money/tax/benefits, employment, family, housing and health etc., each of which could be accessed through a single telephone number. Alternatively, a single helpline number, a 'one-stop-shop' for all government funded helplines, or possible groupings of helplines may be appropriate based on their ability to cope with customer demand.

A.9 Other key steps are:

• to gather and map data on existing helplines. This will help identify the areas where potential exists for increased cooperation and joining up of services between departments so as to increase ease of access for citizens and allow the pooling of resources which will lead to a better, more joined up service to citizens;

• to initiate a data gathering and mapping project involving all government departments, third sector helpline providers and privately run helplines who receive government funding. At present there is no register of government helplines and the project team will be addressing this issue; and

• to conduct a survey of the 1500 helplines over the summer 2007. The survey will include Performance Framework Indicators set out by the CO as well as detailed information requests regarding inter-agency relationships currently used by helplines. Survey forms will be distributed via respective departments in early September with the results expected in October 2007.

A.10 A practitioners' group, made up of contact representatives from all departments, has been convened to oversee the development of the project. A formal Steering Group and Programme Board, based in the MoJ but also including members from other government departments who have previously worked on similar projects, and third and private sector representatives, held its inaugural meeting in September.

A.11 The MoJ is also actively working in the following areas in order to transform its service delivery:

Customer insight

A.12 In May 2007, the Permanent Secretary commissioned an Organisation Review to ensure that the new department is able to exploit opportunities for improving services and delivering on the issues that matter to citizens.

A.13 During the current Organisational Review, the department has been consulting with a range of staff across MoJ. The Review has identified four critical success factors for the new organisation. Being customer focused was one of these factors and another was taking a whole system approach. Taking a whole system approach refers not only to ensuring that systems are managed end-to-end from a customer perspective, but also to working with other government departments and other stakeholders to consider common client groups and customers.

DEPARTMENTAL SERVICE TRANSFORMATION PLANS A

A.14 The detailed structure of the new department will be developed over the coming months. The four critical success factors will be at the heart of the design criteria and so being customer focused and taking a whole system approach will soon be hard-wired into the structure of the MoJ. The MoJ will ensure that concrete actions are taken once the new structure is in place to fulfil the department's commitment to focus on the needs of the public it serves.

A.15 The MoJ has been working on a number of customer focused projects over the past 18 months including: 'Breakthrough', a project to establish key elements across criminal, civil, family and tribunals that will make a real difference in the service being offered; delivering a real improvement in the users' experience of the justice system. The department is currently looking at the introduction of performance league tables for all courts to help further improve courts' performance.

A.16 The National Offenders Management Service is formulating a strategy of the future work required to best meet the needs of users. This includes a new approach to offender management by way of a single approach in dealing with offenders. It provides an end-to-end, seamless and integrated service with a single offender manager responsible for the whole of an offender's sentence. It also seeks to reduce re-offending by working with offenders to change their behaviour and addressing the issues that may lead them to re-offend. This work is delivered under 'seven pathways1'.

A.17 HM Court Service (HMCS) is undertaking a three-year programme of user surveys (2006-09). Exit surveys will be conducted face-to-face with users from Ipsos MORI (the HMCS survey provider) and separate postal surveys will be conducted in respect of jurors and complainants. Surveys will be conducted in most courts each year but all courts will be surveyed at least once during the three-year programme. The first year surveys have concluded and an annual report will be published this autumn. Survey results have, and will in the future, be published on a secure online interactive reporting portal (accessible by password) and will provide data down to area level. It will also contain court level verbatim comments. Results from the juror survey are displayed on a separate part of the portal and those for the complainant's survey will be included on the portal later in the year.

A.18 The Tribunal Service is undertaking a 5 year programme of administrative reforms aligned to its five year strategy. Together with the legal reforms of the Tribunals Court and Enforcement Bill the Change Programme will radically transform the delivery of services to users of Tribunals. It will deliver a new multi-jurisdictional business model providing a high quality, efficient, independent and customer focused business.

A.19 The National Archives has produced a 5 year strategic plan with a vision to transform information and guarantee the survival of information. Given the expectation for increasing numbers of people to find and use information online, the National Archives will focus on providing practical support through areas such as supporting the development of a government digital preservation service and conducting a Digitisation Programme to provide digital copies of all its most popular records online.

A.20 The National Archive's strategy is also to provide as wide as possible access to its content online, so that researchers can find information wherever they are based. It will also focus on its reading rooms for those who need to consult original records or require specific expertise. The transfer of the National Archive's current services to Kew in 2008

Seven Pathways: accommodation; education, training and employment; health; drugs and alcohol; finance, benefits and debt; children and families; attitude, thinking and behaviour to allow an integrated online and records service will facilitate this goal. Further, there will be a development of a wiki site to create a repository of information about the content and interpretation of the National Archive's records.

A.21 The Land Registry is currently developing an electronic system to make conveyancing easier for all. Its aim is to make buying and selling property easier for the general public, conveyancing professionals and other parties involved in the process.

A.22 All registered properties are computerised and the Land Registry online website now allows the public to download copies of title information as well as a service for the public to register properties through Land Registry Direct. Channel strategy

A.23 As part of customer insight, the MoJ is working on a channel strategy project, which has been commissioned by the MoJ Departmental Management Board, to:

• Understand the rationale behind the department's current service delivery;

• Know whom the department is trying to reach and their preferred delivery channels;

• Develop a strategy that underpins the development of contact channels; and

• Understand the cost and efficiencies involved in using different channels.

A.24 The project is building on previous and current work activity and mapping an activity point in understanding the MoJ universe 'as is' and 'will be'. In looking at existing change MoJ is ensuring this does not limit the strategic thinking and that planned change must not constrain the vision of how services could be delivered. The project will demonstrate a clear vision for the future but referenced to an awareness of existing projects and programmes.

A.25 The next stage of the work will address customer segmentation, providing an assessment of the range of channel preferences associated with particular groups and the channels MoJ should aim to use for delivering services. It will also look at the scope of potential for new technology to transform the services MoJ provides e.g. predictive software suggesting, based on other cases, the type of decision a court might reach in a divorce or civil case.

A.26 MoJ is aiming to produce:

• A vision for how justice services would be delivered in the future;

• A channel strategy setting out the channels MoJ would use to deliver those services to particular user groups;

• A checklist against which projects and programmes could be measured for strategic fit with the vision; and

• A draft assessment of where key projects and programmes fit using that checklist.

A.27 The project team will be producing an internal report on this work by the end of October 2007.

DirectGov

A.28 The MoJ will continue to ensure that the online potential that DirectGov and Businesslink.gov offer in providing citizens with easily accessible information and advice is used to best effect. Prioritisation of citizen facing content has begun and over the next 12 months web convergence will take place based upon citizen's needs, appropriate channel usage and business priorities.

A.29 Key milestones include:

• By mid-2008, MoJ will have finalised the web convergence plans and begun to introduce audio and visual digital content in multiple formats such as DVD, online and audio leaflets;

• During 2008 MoJ will be looking to improve access to existing transactions and develop new applications to provide procedural information and advice in areas such as voting, housing, wills and consumer issues;

• Seven of MoJ's active websites, representing 10 per cent of the website portfolio, have already been archived. Firm plans are in place to archive two additional sites this financial year. Planning is taking place for phased migration of agency/Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB) sites over the next CSR07 period, including an online hub for all currently separate tribunals' websites. MoJ is working closely with National Archives and the British Library to develop the proposition for the digital archiving of online information and publications during this financial year; and

• The web convergence review will be completed by 2011.

Asset and estate management

A.30 Through its Organisational Review and Change Programme, the MoJ has, as stated above, drawn up a blueprint which includes plans to rationalise its headquarters for national, regional and area management.

A.31 MoJ headquarters will be moving to refurbished premises (50 Queen Anne's Gate) in Spring 2008 which will provide a modern office environment to support flexible ways of working and business change. This will release other premises from its current portfolio.

A.32 The Tribunal Service's longer-term aim is to reduce their estate potentially by up to 50 per cent and create a network of multi-jurisdictional hearing centres - 40 will be permanent and based in cities and large towns. It will also move all of its administrative processes to six regional multi-jurisdictional bulk centres.

A.33 The Unified Family Service will consolidate family jurisdiction either into unified family courts and enable clearer network of family courts and flexibility of venues.

A.34 The Legal Services Commission is undergoing organisational change and anticipates being able to operate from 50 per cent fewer regional premises and to consider the possibility of co-locating/sharing accommodation with other members of MoJ. It is also reviewing central functions with a view to moving them out of London.

A.35 The National Offender Management Service is looking at four key programmes of change to deliver the policy and organisational changes needed to bring about a new approach for managing offenders and to deliver more effective services. The key strands are:

• Offender management — to design and implement end-to-end offender management with I.T. infrastructures and applications to support it across prisons and probation;

• Commissioning and contestability — to implement commissioning of services required by the courts and offender managers;

• Probation change — to establish probation trusts from April 2008 devolving responsibility to front line staff supported by a programme of training to develop business acumen. This will deliver 3 per cent efficiency savings; and

• Performance and information — to deliver performance reporting, metrics and management information to support NOMS business needs. Mobile working

A.36 The Community Justice Centre pilots in North Liverpool and Salford promote collaborative working between criminal justice agencies all under one roof. Magistrates also go out into the community to hear and learn at first hand the types of problems and concerns that are present in the local areas. Plans are underway to expand the concept of community justice centres to a further 10 areas and the flexibility and potential to provide outreach facilities to support some community justice initiatives.

A.37 The Tribunal Service will also hire venues or share premises in other geographical locations as required.

A.38 The youth justice system will benefit from the implementation of the "Wiring up Youth Justice" programme which will ensure that practitioners in the system have the tools and the shared information they need to prevent offending and re-offending by children and young people. Improved connectivity in the youth justice system will be facilitated by the implementation of secure email and automated case management systems.

Virtual court

A.39 The virtual court prototype is very exciting in terms of its potential to deliver speedy justice, by shortening the process from arrest to charge to sentence. Camberwell Magistrates is the site for further tests to establish whether it is possible to deal with some cases via a virtual court hearing, based on a video link from the police station to the courtroom, and testing of an expedited 'quick process' to reduce the amount of preparation required for simple guilty plea cases.

A.40 The tests apply only to the most simple cases. Only the key evidence is provided to the Crown Prosecution Service, the defence and the court. This work is looking at whether it may be possible to further simplify the procedure for all agencies. The key aim is to see whether it is possible to reduce the burden of preparation by the police without impacting upon effectiveness at the court. The tests so far have demonstrated a saving in preparation time, but work is on-going to ensure that legal aid processes are built into any business ready model and that there is no detrimental impact on effectiveness at court (which would be counterproductive).

DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENTERPRISE AND REGULATORY REFORM (BERR)

Overview

A.41 Transformational Government is already influencing how BERR delivers services. In the past 18 months the department has introduced new service transformation activities, for example the BERR Ministerial Response Unit, electronic services at Companies House and better project and programme management through the BERR Project Pool.