A new report has highlighted the Department of Social Protection (DSP) as an example of successful public sector change.
The report from the BearingPoint Institute Report says that the DSP has boosted service at a time of peak demand, despite restricted public sector recruitment.
"There is broad agreement that economies everywhere need to accelerate public sector modernisation and reform as a key element of economic recovery," said Hughes Verdier, Public Services Industry Leader at BearingPoint Europe. "The challenge has been how to achieve this and this report sees Ireland’s DSP as a role model for public sector organisations in other countries."
"The DSP’s annual budget of over €20 billion accounts for approximately 40% of Irish Government spending so it is absolutely vital that efficiencies in delivery are maximised while maintaining good customer service and proper controls."
"The value of Agile Government is in helping Government administrations both plan and implement policy change and reform faster, and within their term of office," said Andrew Montgomery, head of Public Services, BearingPoint Ireland. "But this doesn’t just apply to public sector organisations: many large corporations have and can also benefit from taking an agile transformation approach."
The report details how the burden on the Department of Social Protection over the last few years has been constantly increasing, to the extent that it now processes over 87 million payment transactions a year. Each week approximately 1.4 million people receive a social welfare payment and, when qualified adults and children are included, a total of 2.1 million people benefit from payments.
This necessitates annually processing over 2.3 million applications; 450,000 assessments conducted by inspectors; over 980,000 control reviews; 6.8 million telephone calls as well as over 150,000 applications for new Personal Public Service (PPS) numbers.
The BearingPoint Report says that the Department has managed this modernisation programme through a combination of management and technology initiatives, all of which focused on improving the agility of their business operations, systems and people. "This has allowed the Department to respond more rapidly to Government policy and provide more cost effective services to citizens," said Montgomery.
The report argues that government organisations in other countries could learn from the DSP’s service delivery modernisation programme which has been implemented over the last ten years as it included many innovative approaches and methods to solving the business and technology challenges at hand.
"This was a new way of doing things involving major business and technology transformation right across our business. Our staff deserve great credit for buying in to it and helping to make it happen," said Niall Barry, IT director, DSP.
"But innovation without the associated tangible benefits – defined by them as measurable improvements in their strategic, operational and technical agility – was never going to be considered a successful outcome for the DSP," added Paul Allen, Client Director in BearingPoint Ireland.
An agile approach to business and technology transformation delivers benefits in sprints over a period of weeks or months compared to traditional technology implementation which can take years. Agile involves business users from the start and empowers teams. Embedded within agility is the flexibility to accept change as business needs or Government policy requires.
"The DSP experience shows how a complex Government agency can become agile – and is a practical reference for other public and private sector organisations regardless of size, service or country," said Paul Allen, BearingPoint. "The most agile agencies focus on customer service, organisational change capabilities and leadership. The benefits of pursuing agility as an organisational vision and strategy are clear. They include: improved productivity, enhanced employee and customer satisfaction in addition to higher quality services for customers.
"For too long, governments across the globe have employed twentieth century tools, structures and processes to solve 21st century problems and all too often, this has resulted in waste and slow, inadequate service by governments to their customers."
The report concludes that agile government is not about completely discarding the culture of government, or to blindly copy the practices of the private sector. "Instead it is to leverage the core values of public service and to adapt practices, seek new standards of quality, understand citizen expectations, and to create innovative partnerships among public services and with the private sector".
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