London Borough of Barking and Dagenham

What the Client Said

The client feedback has been extremely positive and it is considered that this approach would be of benefit to other Council departments. The council is currently in discussion with Oakland regarding achieving certification to ISO9001

Background

Barking and Dagenham are a London Borough Council situated to the East of the City and provide a range of services to the community. Health and Consumer Services are a division of the Council providing services including Trading Standards, Street Cleaning, Pest Control, Environmental Health, Noise Control, Street Wardens etc.

The division operate a bureau providing a one stop contact point for all requests for the services provided by the division and provides the link between customers and specialists within the department.

Assignment

The management team, following government audits, recognised the need for the development of a process management system which pulled together a number of disparate processes and procedures into a ‘common’ process management system. The requirements of the system were that it needed to:-

• be capable of dealing with enquiries from customers (reactive) and advanced planning visits (proactive)
• be constructed in a way in which access for users and navigation around the system was simple
• establish the linkages between supporting systems and procedures
• be developed in an electronic format for easy access from multi interrogation points
• be compatible with existing IT systems
• be compatible to ISO9001:2000 requirements

Approach

Emphasis was placed on working with Health and Consumer Services staff to understand any work in progress and to fully understand the requirements of the system at a management and operational level.

A number of one to one interviews were carried out with key personnel to understand key issues and this was provided as input to a number of cross section workshops. At these workshops a process model was created from which processes and procedures were designed incorporating forms and referencing interfaces with supporting documentation and work instructions.

Training requirements for staff operating the system were clearly identified and a number of training events were designed to ensure that staff had the necessary understanding and skills to operate the system effectively.

Achievements

All the requirements requested by the client (see above) were achieved and in addition, the system:-

• was delivered to time and budget
• was designed with change control and auditing processes and procedures.
• is fully compatible with ISO9001:2000
• has been developed as an electronic system for use by all staff enabling speedy implementation of revised, improved and re-engineered processes via the Council Intranet.