G24 Integration of customer relationship management systems with back office activity through use of enabling technology such as Workflow to create complete automation of business process management Chief Executive Increased confidence in obtaining a resolution A more efficient Council Increased speed of resolution Better quality and more comprehensive information Faster response times Better customer service Fewer errors Quality and Standards improved Ways of working defined and understood to promote service delivery Improved resource management More efficient business processes. Better management information to develop improvements in service delivery.

To fulfil the requirements of this outcome councils must be using technology to streamline and automate their corporate business management processes to make them more efficient. It is recognised that such a business transformation is not going to happen overnight. Out of all the priority outcomes, it may be said that this looks to be one of the more difficult to implement within the required timescales. This could be true, but it may well be the one that can give the most benefit to customers and the council alike.

This outcome requires local authorities to make a link between CRM systems and back office processes using workflow. The automation of administrative processes in this way offers considerable scope for efficiency gains and associated improvements in service quality. In this regard it is important to see workflow as a key element of the e-organisation. The Enterprise Workflow National Project offers a toolkit to support the implementation of Enterprise Workflow.

As a minimum level of achievement, authorities should aim to have delivered a first phase construction of enterprise workflow tools and methods to help join up people and applications across the organisation, i.e.

Prioritisation and cost/benefit analysis for initial workflow implementation;
Process mapping of an initial batch of workflows for selected services (5 or 6);
Commencement of workflow implementation and business process re-engineering of selected services (5 or 6).

A key facilitator for this will be a fully integrated back office architecture, probably involving the use of a middleware message broker with adapters to back-office systems and integrated CRM and Workflow systems - although other technical solutions with similar functionality will be acceptable.

This outcome applies to all councils.

Strategy in place to deploy enterprise workflow across whole council. Integrated back office Integrated CRM and workflow system Embedded Workflow and business process management deployed in: Enterprise workflow and business process management deployed in Revenues and Benefits. Schools Admissions Democratic Services Community Info. amp; Youth Justice Environmental Services Planning amp; Building Control Housing Services Financial Services Libraries, Leisure amp; Culture Highways amp; Parking Services Social Care

NB: This is by far the most challenging outcome. To satisfy its requirements councils MUST re-engineer their business processes.

See the many products from the Workflow National Project, including:
Workflow Toolkit Version 3
The EWNP Toolkit is available as a series of downloadable Acrobat files or Microsoft Word documents. Soon they will be available as fully-searchable online documents.

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