Subject: Software as a Service
Industry Sector: Local Government
Country: UK
Organisation: East Lothian Council

A Microsoft Case Study
Solution provided by SunGard Aspiren

Council saves 30 person days a year with shared service for benefits reporting.

Business Needs

East Lothian Council’s housing benefits unit previously used manual systems to satisfy Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) reporting requirements. In 2004, the DWP chose the council as the lead authority for the NPMF project, an innovative U.K.–wide venture to improve housing benefit administration in England, Scotland, and Wales. From its beginnings as a pilot project involving only 10 councils, the NPMF now covers more than 300 local authorities.

Colin Shand, Head of Revenues and Information and Communications Technology at East Lothian Council, says: “Previously, we had to manually fill in a monthly 20-page document for the DWP, drawing information from disparate sources. The amount of time spent answering DWP queries, validating information, and the cost of reporting was considerable. We were only able to monitor three or four items because we were tracking a vast amount of information. It could take us up to a week to compile a quarterly monitoring report. Sharing information or best practice with other councils was difficult and time consuming. We needed to create efficiency savings and, most of all, improve the quality of our service to citizens applying for benefits.”

With only 90,000 taxpayers and a large area to administer, East Lothian wanted a low total cost of ownership for any new solution that would minimise the cost of change and provide value for money for the taxpayer. “A national shared service involving all 408 benefits authorities was an extremely attractive proposition,” says Shand. “By working with other councils, we hoped to gain efficiencies and improve service to our residents.”

Solution

Microsoft® Partner SunGard Public Sector is the largest supplier of business performance management software to local and central government in the U.K. Its track record in delivering SaaS was instrumental in East Lothian, securing funding from the DWP to provide the NPMF.

The NPMF is hosted on behalf of SunGard Public Sector by NTT Europe Online, which ensures that the environment remains available, reliable, and secure round the clock. It uses the Microsoft Solution for Windows-based Hosting for Applications, which provides hosting service providers and independent software vendors with techniques and best practices for deploying SaaS applications.

Chris Knighton, Chief Executive Officer, SunGard Public Sector, says: “NTT Europe Online provided the experience, the scalability, and the pricing we needed. In short, the decision to work with NTT Europe Online took a load off our shoulders because its management services ensure that the platform remains available, reliable, and secure. It would be inconceivable for an organisation to achieve the schedules of a large-scale project such as the NPMF if it was employing a traditional software licensing and hardware model instead of SaaS. It would simply take too long.”

The key technical components:

• The Aspirview performance management application, which integrates into existing local authority systems using its Bridge national infrastructure environment.
• Access through the government secure intranet or for local authorities not connected to the government intranet via secure file transfer protocol.
• Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 database software, Windows Server® 2003 operating system 32 bit and 64 bit editions, Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0, and Microsoft Internet Explorer® 6.
• NTT Europe Online provided the experience of managing a scaleable SaaS solution on IBM hardware for SunGard Public Sector through the Microsoft SaaS Incubation Centre Programme
• SunGard Public Sector provided each participating local authority with a set of guidance documents for specific officers within each authority such as the revenue and benefits manager or the IT manager. Shand says: “With SaaS, it takes virtually no time at all to deploy the reporting framework and there is little need for special training because the solution is extremely user friendly.”

Benefits

By implementing the NPMF using SaaS, local authorities are making significant productivity improvements that are translating into efficiency savings and making it easier to comply with government reporting requirements. Shand says: “After three years’ experience working with SaaS, we’ve noticed a world of difference. Previously, it took us a week to create a monitoring report. Now, we can produce it at the touch of a button, in a graphical format with no need to import figures into spreadsheets. It also means that instead of tracking three or four items, we can measure a whole range of performance indicators.”

• Automatic loading and production of performance information saves managers 18 person days a year.
• Highlighting of unusual data, pre-validation and electronic transfer saves administrators 12 person days a year.
• Civil servants at the DWP receive higher quality data in a consistent electronic format. Historically, the data from all 408 local authorities was re-keyed centrally. More efficient data handling between key public sector stakeholders means strategic decisions and policy formation on benefits are now based on high quality data up to six months earlier than was previously possible.
• NPMF is the largest ever deployment of its kind in the public sector using SaaS, which government planners view as a benchmark for the future deployment of shared services between local authorities.
• Revenues and benefits managers in the participating local authorities now find it much easier to collaborate.
• Citizens applying for housing benefits are experiencing a better, more consistent service, which benefits from adopting best practice elsewhere.
• SaaS means that participating local authorities have no need to buy custom-built software or hardware.