Feature Story

Opening the gate

Turning the spotlight onto the Total Place pilot, Director of Strategic Development and Public Access Tanya Oliver reflects upon how and why Kent County Council was ahead of the game.

The Gateway journey began in Kent in 2005, and while it has been eventful and there is still further to go, I believe we have transformed access to public and voluntary services in the county.

It has been a true partnership between county and district councils, central government, fire, police, NHS and the voluntary sector. As well as offering a breadth of service, Gateway offers a depth that has seen a significant improvement in the customer experience, as well as being more financially efficient.

The initial drive (and still the most important factor for me) was making access to services simple and effective for citizens. With the myriad of public and voluntary sector services that exist, it has become increasingly difficult for citizens to know what organisation to approach for particular information or services.

For example, who do you go to if you have a faulty street light – your local council? If so, which one? Or if there is graffiti or an abandoned car – is that the police or council? How about nursing home care? Is that Social Services or the NHS? Despite working in local government for more than 10 years, I sometimes do not know who best to go to. So the vision is for clear easy access, including the aspiration to move towards a single non-emergency telephone number and single place on the web.

Gateway began as a face-to-face offer in high street or town centre locations, removing the stigma of reaching sometimes sensitive services by creating a retail brand. You can now walk in to a Gateway to use free internet, access housing benefits or advice services, or to ask for recycling information – it is all under one roof.

There are now seven Gateways open and two Mobile Gateways (offering services to more hard to reach urban and rural communities).

Feedback from customers has been overwhelmingly positive, with independent satisfaction rates of 97% and 99% in April 2009. We are now transferring these principles to telephone and web.

In 2009, we connected, through a Virtual Private Network, contact centres from Kent County Council, all 12 district and borough councils, fire and police. The NHS will soon be part of this, along with Medway Council. This means we can transfer calls between agencies at no additional cost.

So if a customer contacts the wrong organisation, we can transfer them directly to the right one, rather than ask them to call another number. This is only the first step. The potential now is that we can manage the peaks and troughs in calls across the public sector. With the right training in place, not only will the customer experience be improved; we will save further money.

This is not about creating one large call centre somewhere in Kent because that is not necessary. It is also not about investing heavily in new technology; it is about joining up in a virtual way to improve access and save money.

Work has been under way for several months now on a 'benefit hub'. This concept is designed to the customer's journey for processes relating to benefits in the broadest sense, from the 'as is' to the 'to be'. The 'as is' involves the citizen making a number of journeys to a number of different organisations, needing to prove their circumstances several times, fill in numerous forms and often end up feeling frustrated. We have all been there. In addition, the organisations involved are duplicating all these processes and this makes no sense.

The 'to be' brings this down to one smooth process with the minimum number of transactions both for the individual and the organisations. The result is an improved customer experience and importantly, in the current financial climate, a potential 30% front office efficiency saving of £2.2m. And this is just one process.

If you assume we can drive out an additional 25% back office saving for the same process, replicate this across not just all benefits services, but the majority of front office and the subsequent back office processes, then the savings could go into the tens of millions. If taken to the natural next step of rationalising front office and back office assets across the public sector in Kent, then we are anticipating revenue savings of at least £100m – if we are willing to be bold.

The financial savings speak for themselves, but it is the improved citizen experience that motivates me. The journey has not been easy. There have been tense discussions around branding of individual organisations, sovereignty and accountability. But we have got through that in the main. It can still be frustrating sometimes when things do not move quickly.

It has taken a leap of faith by politicians and strong leadership on their part, but the benefits are really starting to show. The Audit Commission awarded Gateway a green-flag in the 2009 Corporate Area Assessment, which is a true testament to the commitment and dedication of all the partners involved. However, for me, the reward is being in a Gateway and seeing what we have achieved, the positive impact it has had on Kent residents and, I hope, will continue to have. The future is bright.

Tanya Oliver
Director Strategic Development and Public Access
Kent County Council

www.kent.gov.uk