Foreword

Welcome to the Liverpool Direct Limited 2012/2013 Annual Review. This Review is a public demonstration of the commitment from Liverpool City Council, BT and Liverpool Direct Limited to the future success and continued collaboration which has been the essence of this longstanding partnership.
As a partnership we have always strived to meet the increasing expectations of our customers. In the face of the current economic climate and increasing demands we have continued to deliver performance excellence, innovate, invest and challenge the very processes and procedures we operate by. All to maximise the benefit to our; staff, services and customers. The partnership is grounded in placing the customer at the heart of everything we do. The delivery of this key strategic objecti ve is dependent on the full commitment of all staff at Liverpool Direct Limited. Once again they have risen to the challenge and excelled. The Partnership Framework, introduced in 2011, has helped to further capitalise on the success of these strong relationships. A relationship where each partner trusts the other to support and develop the business. A relationship founded on its workforce and on the trust built up over the lifetime of the contract. The partners of Liverpool Direct Limited (both BT and Liverpool City Council) have worked tirelessly to deliver on its priorities for the benefit of all its stakeholders. This Annual Review looks back at the successes of 2012/2013 and the continual improvements being made in each of the service areas supported by strong investment and the development and commitment of our most valuable asset, our people.

Neil Rogers President, Global Government, BT. Chairman of Liverpool Direct Limited.

Joe Anderson Mayor of Liverpool. Director of Liverpool Direct Limited.

1. Review of 2012/2013
Welcome to the 2012/2013 Annual Review of the work carried out by Liverpool Direct Limited on behalf of its customers. Whilst Liverpool City Council remains our major customer (and key strategic partner) our customer base is wide ranging and includes; Home Office (SIA), Northumbria Police, Building Schools for the Future, London and Quadrant Housing Association, many hundreds of schools and Liverpool Mutual Homes (RSL). 2012/2013 has been a challenging year in many respects. Our customers are continuing to face severe budget constraints. At the same time customer expectations are increasing. Technology developments continue at a rapid pace, the market is more competitive and service demands are growing. Yet staff have once again excelled in striving to deliver first class services under what are difficult trading conditions.

Company Finance Review

Liverpool Direct Limited has had a solid financial year. Revenue grew from 82.4 million in 2011/2012 to 86.1 million in 2012/2013. This represents a year on year growth of 4.5%. The key drivers being; additional SIA works, investment in ICT and The Benefits Service delivers over additional spend in the area of Benefits and Welfare Reform. The Total Sales Order Value is the extra school meals entitlements. future life blood of the Company. This is future guaranteed work (2012-2017). It helps to protect jobs and drive new employment. In 2012/2013 this Order Book Value grew by over 36 million. This position has been helped substantially by; securing two contract extensions for the Security Industry Authority work and the delivery of several
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1,200

significant projects (eg. Desktop Refresh, Equal Pay and Job Evaluation Projects). The latter projects also impacted on the in year revenue performance.

Value for Money

The services delivered to Liverpool City Council (and other customers) are based upon an affordability model. This gives guaranteed up front savings with no reduction in services and an increase in service performance. Direct savings delivered to our customers now run to many tens of millions of pounds. In addition to these guaranteed savings Liverpool Direct Limited has twice reduced its contract price to Liverpool City Council. In 2007 by nearly 2 million per year and by a further 4.5 million per year in 2012. The 2012 price reduction to Liverpool City Council was funded through significant cuts in the costs of; ICT Services, Contact Centre, Human Resource and Payroll Service and One Stop Shops. There has been no reduction in either services or performance levels. Indeed they have again improved. Staff have excelled in delivering higher performance levels with significantly reduced resources. Direct savings delivered to Liverpool City Council since 2001 include:

Direct Savings
Cashable savings Investment and avoidable costs Total
Table 1.1: Direct Savings since 2001-2013.

2001-2013 Savings (million)

168.7 90.0 258.7

Other customers have also benefited from reduced costs. In 2010, Liverpool Direct Limited reduced its Contract price to the SIA by a significant 20% per year reduction. Again with enhanced performance levels.

Investment into Infrastructure

Liverpool City Council has benefited financially by its close working relationship with BT and Liverpool Direct Limited through its direct investments. Investments initiated in 2012/2013 totalled over 8.5 million. The focus of this investment has been on building capacity and strengthening the infrastructure of the business in all areas to enable us to provide service excellence, exhibit industry best practice and exceed customer expectations. Examples include:

Investments Activity
Desktop refresh Other ICT Infrastructure Storage Network Upgrade Next Generation Data Centre IVR / Automation Self Service Adults Social Care System Replacement Internet Upgrade E-recruitment System Total
Table 1.2: Core Investments 2012/2013.

Total Cost (million)

2.2 1.9 1.7 1.5 0.5 0.5 0.2 0.2 8.2

Since 2001 investments have now totalled over 90 million. These are avoidable costs to Liverpool City Council. They help to enhance the level of service quality and invest in the future of services.

Further investments are planned in all areas of the business during 2013/2014. These planned investments include:

Potential Investments
Completion of Desktop Rollout ICT Applications Systems: Adults Care System Childrens Care System Leisure Services System ICT Back Office Systems (Storage, Servers etc) ICT Network Voice Services Upgrade Notre Dame School ICT Cash Kiosks Password Refresh Total
Table 1.3: Potential Investments 2013/2014.

(million)
2.7

2.0

2.0 1.0 0.4 0.2 0.2 0.2 8.7

These investments will help to support Liverpool City Council and protect future performance. They help to deliver immediate (and in year) savings for Liverpool City Council in many forms (eg. energy costs, avoidable costs) whilst reducing risk.

Investment into Liverpool

Investments can take many forms and include; new ICT infrastructure, systems, enhanced service levels, additional resources, price reductions and other forms of added value. The business has invested in the infrastructure and services of Liverpool City Council every year since the company was established in 2001. 2012/2013 was no different. Other forms of investments in 2012/2013 included: A commitment to support three school rebuilding programme through the deployment of ICT to the value of 1 million (2013-2020).
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Continued support for the personal development of young people within the community through the partnership with the Duke of Edinburghs (DofE) Award with 25,000 pa invested to the scheme. Over 50 young people and unemployed have been recruited through an Apprenticeship and Traineeship Programme launched by Liverpool Direct Limited in partnership with Liverpool City Council. The programme has been Human Resource and Payroll Service hugely successful in enabling apprentices and trainees to launched a new e-recruitment portal. develop new skills, enhance their Over 4,000 a year of printing and knowledge and gain valuable real work experience to prepare them photocopying costs has been saved. for the ever changing employment market. Apprentices and trainees engaged in the programme complete an appropriate work based qualification based on their specific skills and role. Opportunities are based across both Liverpool Direct Limited and Liverpool City Council in service areas ranging from; Social Services, Legal, Policy work and Leisure, through to ICT, Benefits and Web Services. As part of the structural and governance improvements agreed as part of the Contract Refresh Agreement, further value to the City Council is delivered through a guaranteed share of all third party work secured based on 1.25% of turnover generated by such third party business. This transfers no commercial risk to the City Council.

Delivering Added Value

Added Value is the process of generating additional benefits to the City Council and its customers and stakeholders. This added value can take many forms and includes; financial, reduced associated costs, higher performance, reputation, customer satisfaction, reduced waste, contribution to corporate and social objectives etc. It can also be about adding value to a product or service as a result of a particular process. Table (1.4) provides a summary of Added Value delivered by Liverpool Direct Limited to the City Council for 2012/2013:

Service Area ICT Service Benefit Service One Stop Shop Service Revenue Service Careline Service Contact Centre Service Human Resource and Payroll Total
Table 1.4: Summary of Added Value to Date 2012/2013.

Year to Date (K) 3.5 1.0 0.8 0.6 0.2 0.2 0.1 6.4

Consequential Savings
The Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit subsidy grant claim is critical to the Service and the Councils finances. Each year the grant claim is audited for the previous year by the Audit Commission (now via Grant Thornton). The objective of this key Audit is to provide assurance to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on the accuracy of all benefit payments. The total value of the grant claim for 2011/2012 was over 335 million. Over the last six years the Benefits Service has been successful in improving the accuracy of the claim and reducing the amount that is clawed back by the DWP. The level of clawback reduced from approximately 5 million (2004/2005) to 56.8K in respect of the 2009/2010 claim. There was no clawback from the DWP for the 2010/2011 claim. The 2011/2012 figure is not yet known. It is expected to be nil.

One element of the grant claim audit is to analyse the accuracy of overpayments and specifically the cause and classification of overpayments. Historically any 'Local Authority Error' would result in no subsidy being claimed and the Local Authority having to absorb the cost. 'Local Authority Error' is defined as payments made as a result of a mistake by the Local Authority whether the result of error or omission. This means that any overpayment that accrues as a result of delay in acting upon information counts as Local Authority Error. Changes in 2004 involved the introduction of an upper threshold and a lower threshold. Both thresholds are set by the DWP on an annual basis. The upper threshold represents 0.54% of the total amount of benefit paid annually. The lower threshold represents 0.48% of the total amount of benefit paid annually. On an annual basis a Local Authority can claim: 100% subsidy if the total amount of Local Authority error is below the lower threshold or 40% subsidy if the total amount of Local Authority error falls between the lower and higher threshold. Nil subsidy In 2012/2013 Liverpool Direct applies if the total amount of Local Limited successfully retained the Authority error exceeds the upper threshold. Gold Investors in People Standard

across all service areas. In 2005 Liverpool City Council was not able to achieve these targets and realise this additional subsidy. To help address this issue the Service produced a strategy for containing and reducing the level of Local Authority Error. For the 2008/2009 claim the higher threshold was achieved meaning that 40% subsidy for Local Authority Error was payable; this represented 505,000 in additional subsidy. The grant claim audit for 2009/2010 confirmed that for the first time the Service achieved additional subsidy at the 100% rate enabling the Council to receive 1.21 million in extra subsidy. 100% subsidy was again achieved in respect of the 2010/2011 claim resulting in an additional 1.24 million in subsidy. Value of BT Relationship
The value of the Partnership extends beyond the Services of Liverpool Direct Limited. BT is committed to playing a full role in the relationship. BT now employs over 1,590 staff in Merseyside and spends around 75 million pa with suppliers (in Merseyside). BT has Liverpool operational centres at: Lancaster House. Wood Street.
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BT is sponsoring the planning event for the International Festival of Business 2014 which will encourage more businesses to grow, to export, to innovate, to be more ambitious. The Festival will run throughout June and July 2014 with an anticipated audience of 250,000 business professionals with the objective to double UK exports by 2020. BT will be providing ongoing support to the Festival. Over the course of the past year Liverpool Direct Limited has worked closely with the three Liverpool Headteacher Associations and the Childrens and Young Peoples Service to develop an ICT Forum that scrutinises and develops operational services and the schools Technology Roadmap for the future. The Roadmap has been focussing upon new and more cost effective broadband solutions, content filtering services to safeguard pupils online and planning pilots of cloud-based services such as Office 365. A significant investment in the Mayors new school building programme has seen a BT commitment of 1 million towards ICT solutions for the first three schools. This investment has been supplemented by additional funding from Liverpool Direct Limited and the City Council. The first of the new schools, Notre Dame Catholic College, will benefit from considerable investment and has undertaken a five year support service with Liverpool Direct Limited. The investment has included: High Bandwidth Broadband circuit. Complete Network infrastructure. Full WiFi network across the new building. Student devices for use in the classroom / home. Teacher devices to enhance lesson delivery. Interactive LCD screens in learning spaces. Implementation of these services by our technical and project management specialists.

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Delivering new schools is a priority for the Mayor of Liverpool and alongside new housing, development and employment and skills, it is considered an important factor in the economic regeneration strategy for the City. In 2008 BT sponsored the Capital of Culture Year with a cash donation of 500,000. BT has committed to a further five year sponsorship of the BT Convention Centre at the Liverpool Arena and Convention Centre. A total financial commitment of 2 million since 2008.

Governance
The governance of the contract is overseen by the Board of Liverpool Direct Limited. This has representation from; Liverpool City Council and BT. The Board is responsible for; the financial health of the business, review of the implementation and delivery of services, monitoring service delivery and performance, discussing future opportunities, working together and building positive long term relationships.

Joint Venture and Shareholders Agreement

This agreement is between the City Council and BT to ensure that the shareholders cooperate with each other in the running and operation of the Company to provide Services in accordance with the terms of the Service Provision Agreement.

Relationship and Partnership Framework

This is a set of fundamental principles agreed by all the parties which are viewed as key to the creation of a successful and long term relationship. This non-contractual document sets out the high level behaviours for a successful relationship between Liverpool City Council, BT and Liverpool Direct Limited. It helps to set the scene for how the Benefits Service administered parties will work together and how they will behave within this relationship. over 328 million in Benefits to

Liverpool residents. The Framework is both an innovative and bold step in the evolution of Liverpool Direct Limited. For the first time within a joint venture partnership it set out the standards expected of its shareholders and key stakeholders. Also the expected standards within its relationships with; staff, customers, suppliers and end users.
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Service Provision Agreement

This is the agreement between BT and Liverpool City Council for the provision of services. This is the document from which all the Service Schedules and Service Improvement Plans arise. We regularly review our progress against these contractual obligations and commitments arising from the Service Provision Agreement. As part of our reporting requirements, a monthly Quality of Service Report for each Service is produced which includes the following information in respect of the services provided: A synopsis of the services delivered (executive summary). Performance against any target Service Levels. Added value delivered in the month. Any service performance issues, if appropriate and any proposed corrective actions. We communicate externally with a range of stakeholders including, Board members, the City Council, staff, suppliers and the community we operate within. Examples include; a staff or Company business plan (which is shared with staff and published on the company website) and Stakeholder briefings which are composed and published each quarter summarising key developments and a detailed performance summary. These are shared with staff and the public through the intranet and website. In addition this Annual Review is prepared and published. The performance of Liverpool Direct Limited in its first ten years of operation has met or exceeded its commitments. However the Partnership is not just about finance it is also about; performance, growing the business, protecting jobs, innovation, quality and developing a truly world class workforce.

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2. 2012/2013 Review of Performance

Performance is of fundamental importance to all areas of the business. It remains a constant priority particularly as challenges arise and as the organisation strives to deliver higher levels of performance and yet high impact savings to Liverpool City Council and its other customers. However our commitment to performance excellence remains undiminished. This has been a long term commitment. It is about delivering and then exceeding on all agreed targets and objectives. Performance is not just about individual service targets it is also about the goal of service excellence reinforced with a structured approach to continuous improvement. A refreshed Performance and Development Review was introduced. This forms an integral part for how we are working to invest in and develop people. It provides a mechanism, and a structured process, to support both managers and staff in explaining individual roles in the organisation and how individuals contribute to a successful business. Performance excellence is a key competitive advantage of the business in a challenging market space. Each service area has contributed significantly to achieving its performance goals during 2012/2013. A review of individual service areas demonstrates the progress made and highlights strong areas of performance.

In the last 12 months, over 2,000

As Liverpool Direct Limited strives to employees completed a exceed expectations it continues to development programme with focus on performance, and to use this intelligence to continually reshape Learning and Development. services, processes and procedures to drive up performance whilst delivering savings. It is about putting the customer at the heart of the organisation and getting better in every possible way.

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Benefit Service
The Benefit Service is responsible for administering a wide range of benefits on behalf of Liverpool City Council for some of the most vulnerable members of the community of Liverpool including individuals with a disability and households with a low income. It handles a benefit caseload of around 82,000 and around 350 million of benefits in all forms. The Service handles many forms of benefit and delivers related services (eg. housing benefit, Council Tax benefit, fairer charging and benefit maximisation). 2012/2013 represented an exceptionally challenging year for the Benefits Service due to the many national and local welfare reform changes. These were planned for and implemented on time. These challenges included: The localisation of Council Tax Support following the abolition of Council Tax Benefit from 2013/2014. Authorities were required to develop and implement their new schemes whilst at the same time dealing with a 10% funding cut compared to current spend. This represents a 6.2 million cut for Liverpool. However the Council took advantage of transitional funding thereby ensuring that reductions in rebate were set at 8.5%. This required approximately 3.2 million in expenditure on Council Tax Support. 1.5 million of the additional expenditure funded by Government from the 100 million grant, therefore the Council (and its precepting bodies) has to find around 1.7 million. The abolition of the Crisis Loans and Community Care Grants by the DWP and their replacement with local provision from April 2013 (Social Fund or Liverpool Citizens Support Scheme). The implementation of restrictions on Housing Benefit for social sector tenants around numbers of bedrooms. The reductions in benefits are 14% of benefit for one excess bedroom, or 25% for two or more. Around 11,000 Liverpool tenants are affected by these changes.

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The Benefit Cap is effective in Liverpool from August 2013. The Department for Work and Pensions postponed the implementation date from April 2013 pending the outcomes of pilots. Some 305 families in Liverpool are affected by these changes. In spite of these challenges and increasing workloads, the Benefits Service maintained service excellence and top quality performance in 2012/2013. Over the past four years, the Service has come under increased pressure due to the effects of the economic recession. This has seen a major increase in the caseload from approximately 72,000 live claims in 2008 to over 82,000 currently. Further increases in workload have resulted from the implementation of the DWPs automated transfer to local authority systems (ATLAS) and uncertainty over forthcoming welfare reform changes. This additional work has been handled at no additional cost to the City Council. The Service Levels for the Benefits Service in 2012/2013 included: 2012/2013 Target 28 days 28 days 28 days 28 days 2012/2013 Performance 25.50 days 22.27 days 23.75 days 24.58 days

Definition of SLA Process new Council Tax Benefits Claims (days) Process new Local Authority Rent Rebate claims Process new private tenant claims Average for processing all new claims on time in accordance with BVPI 78a Accuracy of Determination based on a monthly accuracy check of random 10% Percentage of all rent allowance claims paid within 7 days of decision Percentage of data matches resolved within 2 months Percentage of requests for reconsideration/revision within 4 weeks

>90%

91%

>90% >90% >65%

93.37% 93.60% 90.63%

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Definition of SLA Recovery of recoverable overpayments raised in each Financial Year in accordance with BVP79 (b) BMS Total Benefit income generated annually BMS Standard BMS check within 28 days Fairer Charging Complete financial assessment within 14 days of all information being available

2012/2013 Target 60% 4 million 85% 90%

2012/2013 Performance 61.58% 8.6 million 93% 98%

Table 2.1: Benefits Service: Contractual Service Level Agreements 2012/2013.

Other achievements by the Benefit Service during 2012/2013 included: The total volume of incoming items to the Housing and Council Tax Benefit functions in 2012/2013 was over 450,000 items. This represented a 25% increase on incoming items compared to the same period last year. The bulk of this increase is attributable to the ATLAS system which imported over 90,000 items in this period. The Service has trained up additional resources to undertake assessment work. A major project was undertaken to streamline processes for ATLAS notifications (at no cost to the Council). This has resulted in elements of automation in processing. This was implemented in August 2012. With investment in staffing, continuous improvement and additional resources, performance remains well ahead of target. In 2012/2013 new claims were assessed in just over 25 days (compared to the target of 28 days). Changes in circumstances were assessed in just over 11 days. This is at the same time as many Benefit Services nationally are reporting growing backlogs. As at the end of 2012/2013 the Fairer Charging function had collected 3.7 million which represents a 3% increase on 2011/2012. All targets for speed of processing are currently being met. The Service was ahead of target for the processing of free school meals and school travel. Processing of free school meals has continued to be performed quickly with over 99% of applications processed within six weeks.

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The Benefit Service implemented a new software package known as Routefinder to support travel pass administration This was to ensure the smooth administration of the City Councils updated policy for the assessment of home to school transport travel passes and to support high quality and consistent decision making. To support both families and individuals the Benefit Service has taken a number of actions including: Provided over 11,000 customers with notification that their Housing Benefit would be reduced from April 2013. This required installation of new software and the gathering of data in respect of over 38,000 properties. All customers were notified in January 2013. Solid progress was made in the project to develop a local alternative to the discretionary social fund (Social Fund). This has included; public consultation on the draft policy, software procurement and implementation, testing, development of operational procedures and staff training. Testing was completed during Quarter Three with a go live date of April 2013. Local suppliers of quality recycled goods and reconditioned items (ie Bulky Bobs) were engaged and arrangements set up to provide essential household items to those who are eligible to apply to the scheme for such items. An instant payment solution for emergency cash payments was implemented via Pay Point. The scheme went live successfully to During 2012/2013 Liverpool Direct time and budget on 1 April 2013.

Limited continued to financially

The project to devise and then support the Duke of Edinburgh implement a replacement for Award in schools across Liverpool. Council Tax Benefit from 2013/2014 was delivered on target including; consultation on the options for the new scheme was completed, software was ordered and testing completed, financial modelling completed and communication and training plans had been delivered. Despite the extraordinary demands that the Service faced as a result of the economic recession, and level of welfare reform, it continues to deliver.
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During 2012/2013 the Service has implemented a new casework management system for the Benefit Maximisation Team (lizuka ICT System). The new system provides: Integrated workflow supporting standardised high quality processes. Enhanced management information. Integrated recording of benefit checks. Document capture to scan in customer records. The new system went live in October 2012 and is now providing an excellent tool for service and performance improvements. The development was fully funded by Liverpool Direct Limited. In 2012 the Service implemented a new Landlord Portal for Liverpools major social landlords through the Benefit ICT System. The Landlord Portal is a web based portal that allows defined social landlords to view limited information on customers in receipt of Housing Benefit. The Landlord can only view information if they are receiving payments on behalf of the customer and can see the status of the case (eg. active, suspended, pending, cancelled), details of the benefit, the period of the benefit and the next payment due. The development was fully funded by Liverpool Direct Limited. There are strict access controls in place and use is monitored by the Benefits Service. This system has been rolled out to the largest social landlords in Liverpool representing over 35,000 customers. The Benefit Service has brought together the Charging Functions for residential and non-residential care in order for these services to be integrated, consistent, improve benefits advice to the customer and ensure effective collection of income. This integrated approach to advice and assessment is providing a single gateway through a fully integrated social care advice, assessment and charging service, encompassing all customers regardless of age or whether they are on a direct payment or choose the more traditional route to care delivery.

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Revenues Service
The Revenues Service is responsible for the collection of; Council Tax, Business Rates, Business Improvement District Levy, Corporate Debts, Overpaid Housing Benefit, Former Tenants Arrears and Community Charge. In 2012/2013 it collected over 340 million in revenues on behalf of Liverpool City Council. The Service Levels for the Revenue Service 2012/2013 included: 2012/2013 Target 90% 10 million 90% 96% 2012/2013 Performance 92.82% 14.7 million 91.3% 96.7%

Definition of SLA Net Debit Collection Rate (annual) The annual reduction in value of Council Tax arrears (annual) Correspondence is answered following receipt Accuracy of transactions carried out (Council Tax) Undertake visits of make electronic checks on void properties every 26 weeks or in the case of long term voids (ie. empty more than one year), every 52 weeks (Council Tax) Collection rate in accordance with BVPI10 (annual) The annual target reduction in NNDR arrears Accuracy of transactions (NNDR) Undertake visits or make electronic checks on void properties every 26 weeks or in the case of long term voids (ie. empty more than one year), every 52 weeks (NNDR)

95%

100%

93% 1.25 million 96%

96.6% 3.6 million 97.1%

95%

100%

Table 2.2: Revenues Service: Service Level Agreements 2012/2013.

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The Revenues Service met or exceeded all its Service level targets during 2012/2013. Other achievements of the Revenues Service included introducing a barcode solution with Allpay, Ricoh and ICT to replace payment cards. A solution was put in place prior to any changes to Council Tax Support which now affects 44,700 customers (from April 2013). The barcodes were thoroughly tested and the solution for bills issued successfully went live in December. During January, the solution was extended to include Reminder Notices, Summonses and Liability Notices. Preparing for Council Tax changes (being introduced from April 2013) as part of the localisation of Council Tax Support was significant. This included arranging with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for the electronic transfer of data for those working age customers who will have direct deductions in respect of their liability to pay 8.5% of the Council Tax on their property. Other actions included:

Migrating the data from the Radius Recoup application to the Legal Debt Recovery Module on the replacement server. This application is used to collect Community Charge and archived Council Tax. Implementing the National Non-Domestic Rates (NNDR) Deferral Scheme. Now over 380 ratepayers successfully deferred part of their increased rates liability as part of this Service. Implementing the extension to the Small Business Rates Relief scheme which benefited over 4,200 ratepayers in the City. During 2012/2013, 99% of Piloting a scheme to improve collection under attachment to earnings. In offered an appointment within 2012/2013 this scheme identified five working days. 10.7% of cases issued resulting in over 12,000 being collected. Also introducing a scheme for improving collection in 203 probate cases by over 9,000.

One Stop Shop customers were

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Issuing 5,000 high value cases for the Debt Prioritisation exercise with Experian and implementing the bulk write off procedure in Northgate for pre 2006 cases to write off cases with a debt value of 5.459 million. A major piece of work in 2012/2013 has been driving up the number of customers signing up for e-billing by; identifying Liverpool City Council and Liverpool Direct Limited staff who pay Council Tax; identifying owners of more than five properties and providing an auto response on e-mails; setting up a message on the Revenues queue in the Contact Centre; reviewing outgoing documents and undertaking a mail shot to direct debit payers; promoting the benefits at every opportunity by Customer Service Advisors in the Contact Centre and One Stop Shops. The number at the end of 2012/2013 was over 30,500 against over 20,900 in 2011/2012. Improving First Point of Contact Resolution (in the Contact Centre and One Stop Shops) is critical and an ongoing process. The focus is on reducing the number of Service Requests passed through to the Revenues Service. The introduction of eRevenues will look to reduce the number of service requests by some 27,500 items.

ICT Service
The ICT Service is a core element of the Liverpool Direct Limited business offer. ICT is involved in every single aspect of the Company operation. It is pleasing to report that performance has again been excellent in 2012/2013. Its range and scope of work is impressive. It now includes; Platform and Systems support, Desktop, Servers, Networks and Applications. ICT provides Solution Design and Project Delivery on behalf of all its customers. The Service Levels targets for the ICT Service 2012/2013 included:

Definition of SLA
Severe Business Disruption: Business Unit (sub-unit): Unable to operate. Service component failed or severely impaired.
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2012/2013 Target

2012/2013 Performance

99%

100%

Definition of SLA
Major Business Disruption: Critical user or user group: Unable to operate. Business unit experiencing significant reduction in service performance. Minor Business Disruption: Single user or user group unable to work with no available workaround. Minor Disruption: Single user or user group experiencing problems but with ICT defined available workaround. Advice and Guidance offered to users via Service Desk.
Table 2.3: ICT Service: Service Level Agreements 2012/2013.

2012/2013 Target

2012/2013 Performance

97%

100%

97%

99%

97%

99%

97%

99%

ICT Services performance was excellent. However many improvements were delivered in 2012/2013. These improvements included: All Council Tax and National Non Domestic rates (NNDR) Year End Rollover were completed outside of standard working hours ensuring no disruption to the business and its ability to collect revenue. Over 70 servers and critical applications were migrated to the new VNX based Storage Area Network (SAN) infrastructure. This has resulted in an overall performance improvement for systems and web servers and will give file systems dual site resilience and improved performance file access times for all customers. A total of 11 ICT Service Centre Advisors are now fully functioning from home. The Connect2ICT Agility programme has seen a number of significant benefits for both staff and the business including improved productivity and flexible working. During a fire evacuation of Premier Court on 21 November 2012, Connect2ICT, the ICT Service Centre, continued to operate and take nine calls during the evacuation period. Prior
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to this agile working, Connect2ICT would have been unavailable. The adoption of the agile working solution has provided continued operation and enhanced business continuity capability. Pushing activity to first point of contact continues. Now new user requests, access to drives, mailbox permissions and various other Active Directory administrative tasks are delivered by the Connect2ICT Service Desk. Account operator permissions (and the transfer of other such activities) has improved the customer experience by increasing ICT response times and providing additional capacity to concentrate on more complex ICT incidents. The Election Results Collation System was used for the May 2012 Mayoral and Local Election results verification. This enabled the results to be displayed on a large screen as they were announced. The system also provided the reporting of information that Liverpool City Council had not made available for previous Elections. The eRecruitment portal was launched on behalf of Liverpool City Council. This replaced a number of manual processes with a uniform and accurate online solution and provides an improved recruitment experience for hiring managers, applicants, and recruiters. Other ICT infrastructure developments included the network load balancing devices used to distribute traffic evenly to Web, Public Web access and corporate users were upgraded to the latest security software version. This upgrade also provides greater support and functionality for Exchange 2010. Other ICT Infrastructure improvements included: A greatly enhanced McAfee Security Management (anti-virus suite) platform was implemented. This work made it possible for ICT to provide encryption services on all laptops and desktops as a catalogue item. Using McAfee in preference to an alternative option eliminates expense of a discrete management infrastructure and eliminates software licence costs of circa 25 per machine per year and rationalises support to the existing McAfee Management platform. Employing encryption on Liverpool City Council devices eliminates the risk of fines from the Office of the
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Information Commissioner should a device be lost or stolen, or should a hard drive be inappropriately disposed of. The Datastore 32 Document Archiving solution was replaced and enhanced to allow the Revenues service to continue to recover aged debt. This solution has now also been used by new customers wishing to utilise an archiving solution. All processes and reports were produced for the Benefits Service to ensure successful submission of the Benefits Grant claim. This ensured that Liverpool City Council received all subsidies due. The document upload limit within the Capita One application used by Childrens Services was increased from four Megabytes (MB) to 32MB. This change now allows customers to successfully upload larger documents into the application and negate the requirement for any user to store any information to an external source. The increase to capacity introduces a number of benefits such as greater staff efficiency and productivity whilst ultimately reducing the risk involved in storing documents outside of Capita One. The Registrars Office holds approximately 16,500 registers containing an estimated 6.5 million entries of birth, marriage and death and issues around 30,000 certificates Over 50 Apprentices have a year. Liverpool Direct Limited has been working alongside the Registrars Service to been recruited through transition away from the existing, Liverpool Direct Limited. cumbersome process of certificate production in order to deliver a solution to digitise all registers. Instead of photocopying templates onto paper, certificates are scanned, indexed, backed up and easily retrieved electronically. The digitisation of Birth Certificates was completed successfully with all certificates available electronically. The ICT Service introduced a solution which allows the Network Support team to have a full and accurate view of the entire network database and infrastructure across the
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estate. This cutting edge technology provides the support team with a whole host of functionality including a traffic light view of the network and detailed alerts that ensures proactive monitoring of faults. In a major piece of infrastructure work a total of 10,567 mailboxes were successfully migrated from Exchange 2003 to the new Exchange 2010 platform. This migration has provided a fast, stable, reliable and secure messaging solution for all business e-mail users. This upgrade has introduced a new and more resilient email infrastructure, which provides greater functionality and usability. The successful implementation of Exchange 2010 has provided additional capacity to each customer by increasing the size of a standard user mailbox from 40 Megabytes (MB) to 60 MB.

Contact Centre Service

The Liverpool Direct Contact Centre provides a first point of contact service for all City Council calls. It remains the only local government Contact Centre to be open 24 hours, 365 days a year. The Contact Centre has evolved from a small team of staff dealing with a few thousand calls per week to its current capacity of dealing with over 25,500 calls per week. The service provides a comprehensive, reliable, quality service to customers, residents, businesses and tourists. The Contact Centre continually seeks to improve and develop to provide the highest level of service in line with industry standard best practice and which places the customer at the heart of the Contact Centre. The Service Levels for the Contact Centre 2012/2013 included: 2012/2013 Target 92% 5% 2012/2013 Performance 95% 10%

Definition of SLA Total Calls Answered % of all calls received answered by IVR

Table 2.4: Contact Centre: Contractual Service Level Agreements 2012/2013.

The Contact Centre exceeded all its targets during 2012/2013. Many other improvements took place and its achievements included: In April 2012 the Library telephony service for; Childwall, Speke, Garston and Walton Libraries transferred into the Contact Centre as part of the phased service take on for all Library calls. This continued throughout 2012/2013 with the Contact Centre
27

answering all Libraries telephony. A new line was created for this service (0151 233 3069) which includes; Customer Service Advisors taking calls for renewals, reservations and general enquiries for library service users. Calls answered reached 16,300 in 2012/2013. Interactive Voice Recognition was placed on the front of this queue which provides opening times of libraries. This has been popular with customers with over 5,000 calls being answered by IVR in 2012/2013. IVR was launched on 30 May 2012 for customers wishing to make a Revenue or a Benefits appointment at a One Stop Shop. The IVR was placed on a new Appointments queue (0151 233 3016). In 2012/2013 it was selected over 2,400 times as a channel of choice by customers. An IVR to request a form was launched on 15 September 2012 for Revenue, Benefits, Elections and Educational Services. The IVR was placed on each of these queues. It has been used on over 1,200 occasions. The Contact Centre introduced a new automated service on Friday 21 December 2012 for customers requesting information on Merseyside Waste opening times during the Christmas Holiday period. It was used over 400 times. In May 2012 calls for Alsop Leisure Centre into the Contact Centre as part of the phased service take on for all the Leisure Centre telephony. This continued throughout 2012/2013 with all Leisure Centre telephony transferring into the Contact Centre. Calls answered reached over 116,000. In October 2012 the Contact Centre successfully retained the national Customer Contact Association Global Standard (Version 5). The Standard provides a framework for best practice and quality of service in the Contact Centre Industry.

Careline Service
Careline is the social care contract centre function delivered on behalf of Liverpool City Council. It provides a service for both Adult and Childrens Services 24 x 7 x 365. The service responds to any social care referral, contact or emergency. It offers a full range of; call answering, referrals, assessment, information, email response and outbound call facility to both customers and professional staff and agencies. Careline is staffed by highly qualified and experienced Social Care Team Leaders, Social Workers and Contact
28

Centre Advisors. At all times qualified and experienced Social Workers and Team Leaders are available for Childrens and Adult social care issues. The Service Levels for Careline 2012/2013 included:

Definition of SLA
Calls Answered Total calls answered within 20 seconds (SL20) Careline emails automatically acknowledged in two hours Calls Answered by an agreed Message

2012/2013 Target
87.5% 65%

2012/2013 Performance
90% 66%

100% 100%

100% 100%

Table 2.5: Careline Service: Service Level Agreements 2012/2013.

Careline Service exceeded its targets in 2012/2013. Its other developments and achievements included: The Self Directed Support Unit Direct Payments transferred into Careline in April 2012. The Self Directed Support Unit manages cash payments to a Service User for community care services they have arranged themselves. Rather than Liverpool City Council providing or arranging the community care services that the service user has been assessed as requiring, they receive money to enable them to arrange their own services, allowing them more choice and control over the way care and support needs are met. All enquiries are answered at first point of contact by Careline and any complex queries are sent to the Self Directed Support Unit. This line is available Monday to Friday (8am to 6.00pm). From May 2012 the Careline Service expanded the Direct Payments Service to include service users over the age of 55. These customers were previously managed by Age Concern. The service has received over 5,800 calls during 2012/2013. The Occupational Therapy Assistant Service went live in September 2012. This follows a successful 12 month pilot during which Liverpool Direct Limited provided a range of services which support the Community Occupational Therapy Service within Liverpool City Councils Adult Services and Health
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Directorate. The service has handled over 3,500 Occupational Therapy Referrals in 2012/2013.

One Stop Shops

The One Stop Shops Service offers a face to face customer contact solution to a wide range of City Council related customer enquiries. Many of the 300,000 visitors who present across the nine One Stop Shops have their enquiry or issues resolved at First Point of Contact. The Service Levels for the One Stop Shops 2012/2013 included: 2012/2013 Target 97% 2012/2013 Performance 99%

Definition of SLA Offer appointment within five working days from date of request Percentage of customers seen within 15 minutes (with an appointment) Percentage of customers seen within 15 minutes (without an appointment)

95%

96%

90%

97%

Table 2.6: One Stop Shops: Service Level Agreements 2012/2013.

The One Stop Shops exceeded each of its targets during 2012/2013. Its other achievements included taking on the management in May 2012 of a merged Library and One Stop Shop service at three library sites; Garston, Speke (Parklands) and Walton. The opening times of the three sites changed to incorporate the library customer demand (which includes Saturday opening at the Garston site). Library staff transferred into Liverpool Direct Limited and have now been trained to become Customer Service Advisors. One Stop Shop Customer Service Advisors have also been trained in Library Services. The three Libraries situated at Garston, Speke and Walton are now managed and resourced by one set of staff who are generically trained to carry out both sets of tasks. This has saved Liverpool City Council over 115K. The One Stop Shop Service was re-assessed for the Louder than Words Charter Mark during June 2012. This resulted in the service being awarded the Charter Mark for a further 12 months.
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During 2012/2013 the One Stop Shop Service received over 52,100 enquiries in relation to the Benefits Service Ten Day Promise. Over 36,800 customers, who applied for Housing and/or Council Tax Benefit had their application processed within ten working days, as per the Benefit Service Ten Day Promise. Table (2.7) sets out the breakdown of the four different categories of the Ten Day Promise that were processed by the One Stop Shop Service during 2012/2013: Ten Day Promise Category New Claim Change of Address Final Evidence Change in Circumstance Total Volume 2012/2013 2,874 4,783 13,605 15,573 36,835 Volume (%) 8 13 37 42 100%

Table 2.7: Ten Day Promise Categories and Volumes 2012/2013.

Web Services
Web Services is the in house digital development team. It offers a wide variety of web solutions focused on delivering the best end user experience possible. Working closely with both internal and external clients, the Service focuses on applying industry best practice whilst keeping solutions simple for the end user. The Web Services achievements in 2012/2013 include completion in January 2013 of the re-development of the lifestyles fitness suite website for Liverpool City Council (Liverpool.gov.uk/lifestyles). The site has been redeveloped to offer a vibrant and active site allowing users of the lifestyles service to quickly and easily access information about events, classes and courses. Other examples include consultancy work for Gloucestershire County Council during their website redevelopment. This included detailed user task analysis and content training for the staff of the County Council. Gloucestershire launched their new website
31

in April 2012 and have seen a 28% reduction in calls on key service lines due to the new tasks-focused approach of the website. In September 2012, Web Services The SIA Service answered developed the digital services strategy for North Ayrshire Council and is continuing to aid in the redevelopment of their website and associated digital of calls all received within 30 seconds. services with the aim of producing a more customer focused website. A new website design for Northumbria Police was completed in January 2013. The new look gives the Police an increased ability to communicate with residents in neighbourhoods and raise awareness of campaigns across the force region. The Redesign is part of the continuous support that Web Services offer Northumbria Police.

100%

Human Resource and Payroll Service

The Human Resource and Payroll Service undertakes a range of support services including Human Resource Consultancy Services, Employee Relations, Job Evaluation, Equal Pay, traditional transactions, Business Support and specialist Payroll and Pension functions. The Service manages a comprehensive intranet site which provides detailed information and advice to employees and managers; some 24 hours a day, all year round. Additionally, customers can speak to the Human Resource and Payroll specialists by contacting the dedicated service centre, Connect2HRP (8am - 6pm Monday to Friday) on behalf of Liverpool City Council. The Service deals with over 216,500 payroll transactions a year and the payroll distributes over 265 million per annum. The Service Levels for the Human Resources and Payroll Service 2012/2013 included: 2012/2013 Target 95% <0.5% 100% 2012/2013 Performance 100% 0.1% 100%

Definition of SLA CRB requests turned around within two working days of receipt of all documentation % of payroll errors attributable to contractor That all salary payments by BACS submitted for processing on the due date
32

Definition of SLA Implementation of changes to employees grade and remuneration including payment of associated arrears Notification of cessation of Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) membership

2012/2013 Target

2012/2013 Performance

99%

100%

100%

100%

Table 2.8: Human Resource and Payroll: Contractual Service Level Agreements 2012/2013.

The Human Resource and Payroll Service exceeded all of its targets during 2012/2013. Its other achievements included Job Evaluation, which was the implementation of the NJC new pay and grading structure (as required by the 1977 Single Status Agreement) for over 8,500 employees. This was delivered on time and within budget. A massive achievement. It had been estimated that the impact of the Agreement would be that up to 39% of employees could suffer a reduction in salary and that the total increased cost to the City Councils wage bill could be as much as 5.4%. However, as a result of the efforts of the team, a revised pay model was created and implemented and as a result the increased cost to the City Councils wage bill was maintained at only 2.7%. The Job Evaluation Appeals training programme was also successfully rolled out to all Appeals Panel Members and it resolved 113 appeals without the need to refer to an appeal hearing through a process of rematching employees to more suitable roles. The Employee Relations Team redeployed 66 employees in to funded posts during the year to date helping to save the City Council 660K in potential redundancy costs. The Employee Relations Team continues to undertake a proactive role in managing at risk staff on behalf of the City Council and several initiatives have been launched in conjunction with line managers to actively reduce the numbers of employees. This has included playing the lead role in reviewing the cases of employees who have been on the Redeployment List for more than 20 weeks. As part of the Discretionary Compensation Scheme, the Payroll Team completed compensation calculations and co-ordinated the administration of all leavers. The bulk
33

of the resultant costs were paid out in the 2011/2012 tax year. The City Council is now reaping the benefits of these savings with forecasted savings estimated at 3.15 million. The Payroll Team continues to administer the Childcare Voucher Scheme. This is a salary sacrifice scheme where employees can reduce their gross pay and benefit from tax and National Insurance savings. As a result of employees participating in this scheme, the employer's National Insurance liability is reduced and this equates to a value of 85K per annum. As part of its commitment to the environment, the Payroll Team manages the Cycle to Work Scheme on behalf of Liverpool City Council. This is a further salary sacrifice scheme and over 98 employees now participate. The reduction in the City Council's National Insurance liability equates to a value of 13K per annum. In December 2013 the Payroll Team launched a new salary sacrifice scheme to provide the facility for employees who have a mobile phone for business use to convert their current payroll deductions to a salary sacrifice arrangement which will allow savings for both employee and employer. In October 2012, the Payroll Team successfully implemented pay changes for in excess of 8,500 employees; applied in excess of 1,000 pay protection payroll adjustments and confirmed in excess of 300 adjustments to pay allowances all following the implementation of the national job evaluation scheme. In February 2013, the Human Resource and Payroll Teams successfully launched Connect2HRP Service Desk for all of its customers.

Benefits Service has generated over 8.6 million in addition benefits for Liverpool residents.

In March 2013, the Payroll Team successfully implemented Pensions Auto Enrolment. Auto Enrolment is the governments initiative to encourage employees to join a pension scheme. In accordance with the Pensions Regulator requirements, over 14,000 letters were sent to each category of worker, including existing scheme members and non scheme members.
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35

3. People Review
Since day one of the Partnership (in 2001) investment in staff has been viewed as a key priority by all its stakeholders. Investment in; training, systems, staff development, accommodation, reward and recognition schemes, equalities work and personal development has been critical to the success of Liverpool Direct Limited. This commitment will continue and be focused on; having the right people, with the right training, support and encouragement to do an excellent job. This is the single most important responsibility of managers across the Company. Our People Strategy is based around the theme of Workforce Matters. This has been developed with the direct involvement of staff. Workforce Matters sets out a clear framework which is all about enabling staff to grow and reach their potential. It is about achieving business and personal goals. Then exceeding them. It is about supporting staff to remain focused on the customer at the heart of the organisation and on delivering performance excellence. The strength of Liverpool Direct Limited is built upon the foundations of its people. The Workforce Matters has both an Implementation Plan and Framework delivered around seven broad themes highlighted in the Workforce Matters Wheel. Workforce Matters is about helping individuals (and managers) to realise their full potential and to provide them with an environment which promotes high performance. Balanced with the right level of support and challenge. Since 2001 significant progress has been made in across each of the seven themes.
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Successes include: In 2012/2013 the business had over 1200 staff on its payroll. These staff work across all areas of the business and have excelled in all respects. The progress against these themes is:

STARS
STARS is a Reward and Recognition scheme which staff and managers to send a Thank You to their colleagues on a day to day basis for their good work and efforts. The scheme taps into the positive effect of peer recognition, empowering staff to drive the scheme and select. During 2012/2013 staff sent over 22,800 STARS containing a personal Thank You message. In 2012/2013, over 120 monthly STARS winners and 10 quarterly STARS winners attended a presentation to receive their recognition.

Great Place to Work

Liverpool Direct Limited made a commitment to support staff by; creating, developing and nurturing a great place to work. This includes developing our reward and recognition framework and improving the work environment across the Partnership. The PRIDE values are instilled across the workplace through branding of all accommodation and embedding the values in communications.

Bright Ideas

Revenues Services collected over

Bright Ideas is the Staff suggestion scheme. It encourages staff to put forward their ideas to improve the organisation. The Bright Ideas in corporate debt during 2012/2013. scheme helps to harness the ideas of staff to improve services, processes, procedures or new products to customers, whilst recognising and rewarding staff for their insight and enthusiasm. During 2012/2013 over 650 Bright Ideas were submitted by staff. A selection of ideas submitted by staff and successfully implemented include:

15 million

Improvements to the backdating process for Housing Benefit to enable staff to select from a list of predefined criteria for refusal when communicating with customers. This has ensured quality and consistency throughout the service and saved processing time for the assessor.
37

A stock of mobile telephony devices to be issued on a temporary basis when a customers device is being fixed or replaced. This enables Connect2ICT to spend more time working on the fault whilst ensuring the customer is not impacted; reducing disruption and ultimately improving customer service. Enhanced processes for staff taking maternity leave to ensure that user profiles and information are suspended for this period. This idea prevents loss of important information, prevents multiple emails to the customer and saves ICT time and resources.

Employer of Choice
A strong reputation as an Employer of Choice is key to attracting and retaining the best people. We offer first class terms of employment to all members of staff. To support this work during 2012/2013 we have: Launched a fully interactive recruitment portal, Connect2Recruitment, to improve the recruitment experience for candidates. Developed the Apprenticeship and Traineeship Programme to provide more aspirational opportunities for young people in the community. The successful Apprenticeship and Traineeship Programme provides work opportunities for young people to gain on the job experience whilst undertaking a nationally recognised accreditation. During 2012/2013, the number of apprentices and trainees engaged in the scheme reached 50. Over 1 million has been invested in the Apprenticeship and Traineeship Programme during 2012/2013. To continue to support this work we have planned in 2013/2014, to; review 'hard to fill' posts from each service area, continuous review of employment policies to ensure that all policies and procedures are compliant with employment legislation and HR best practice at all times and retain our Investor in People (Gold) Standard.
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Learning Culture
A positive learning culture helps employees to take personal responsibility for their own development. It helps people to understand their strengths and to take account of their learning styles. To support staff during 2012/2013 we maintained a comprehensive Learning Management System (LMS) which provides a full catalogue of learning opportunities and access to all forms of e-learning. The approach is shaped around the requirements of both our people and the business. To continue to promote this learning culture during 2013/2014; a review of the current Learning Management System will be undertaken to assess the effectiveness of the system and identify potential for improvement; implement the actions from this review to deliver an effective Learning Management System; and implement a clear Management Framework to be integrated with the Managers' Review process.

Valuing Diversity
Equality and diversity is an all-embracing theme. It impacts on every part of the partnership (eg. recruitment, how we work together and how we deal with customers). During 2012/2013 we continued our work in this area to ensure that we embed good equality principles and practice into our business, as well as meeting our legal and contractual duties with regards to equality and diversity. We established more training and development opportunities for staff to maintain an awareness of equality and diversity. We also embedded further equality and diversity in the recruitment process in line with industry best practice.

Workforce Planning
Our approach to workforce planning is to better understand our workforce (eg. sickness absence, referral process for staff leaving the organisation). During 2012/2013 we implemented a Succession Planning Programme for managers, and continued to monitor attrition. It allows a focus to be kept on the areas of; succession planning, staff and career development, recruitment and training.
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Secondment
The approach to staffing in Liverpool Direct Limited is based on a secondment model which is both inclusive and comprehensive. The approach seeks to ensure that seconded staff retain their national terms and conditions, membership of the local government pension scheme and return to their original employer at the end of any partnership. Our approach seeks to ensure that our seconded workforce is consulted, engaged and committed. To support this, during 2012/2013 we:

The Contact Centre maintained high levels of performance throughout 2012/2013 the number of all calls answered was

95%

Established a robust set of procedures around secondment and referral. Maintained a regular reporting function to support our practices in the area of secondment. Launched the 'Insight' Internship Programme to support Liverpool City Council managers to complete a placement within the Partnership.

Quality Framework
The Quality Framework is based on the design, implementation and delivery of a number of specified management quality systems across the organisation based on national and international quality standards. During 2012/2013, we achieved Investors in People The Wider Framework Gold Standard. The wider framework approach is focused on identifying the organisations priorities and meeting specific objectives in terms of equality, people management and learning and development. The achievement of Gold recognition is the highest level of achievement within the framework.
40

Our focus during 2013/2014 will be on maintaining accreditation to the following: Accreditation Description This formal accreditation leads the development and delivery of customer service within customer contact centres. It provides key principles for good practice and continuous improvement, and offers an opportunity to benchmark both operational and customer performance. The internationally recognised standard for the quality management of businesses. It applies to the processes that create and control the products and services an organisation supplies and prescribes systematic control of activities to ensure that the needs and expectations of customers are met. OHSAS 18001 is the internationally recognised standard and the benchmark for Health and Safety Management System certification. Certification to this prestigious standard assures that robust health and safety policies, procedures and systems are in place; promotes a safe and healthy working environment by providing a framework that allows an organisation to consistently identify and control its health and safety risks, aids legislative and regulatory compliance and improves overall performance. The International Standard ensures that an organisations records (both paper and electronic) are properly maintained, easily accessible and correctly documented from their creation right through to ultimate disposal, be that archiving, imaging or destruction.

Contact Centre Association (CCA) Global Standard

ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems

OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System

ISO 15489 Information and Documentation Records Management

41

Accreditation ISO 22301 Societal Security, Business Continuity Management Systems

Description The International standard for business continuity management specifies requirements for setting up and managing an effective business continuity management system (BCMS) to define the business continuity management programme. ISO 27001 aims to ensure that adequate controls are in place to address the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information. The standard is designed to ensure the selection of adequate and proportionate security controls, which help the organisation to protect its information assets and gives confidence to any interested parties. RNIDs prestigious Louder Than Words charter informs people of the organisations commitment to providing the best possible practice to deaf/hard of hearing customers and staff. It demonstrates to the public that the organisation takes the needs of its customers and employees seriously. The Payroll Quality Partnership (PQP) is a quality accreditation from the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP) for organisations who can demonstrate, through a rigorous process of assessment, that they are committed to and delivering best practice in the development of payroll people.

ISO 27001 ICT Information Security Management Systems

Louder Than Words Charter Mark

Payroll Quality Partnership

42

Accreditation

Description The IIP Standard helps to ensure equality, people management and learning and development within an organisation. The new wider framework approach is focused on identifying the organisations priorities and applying the framework towards meeting these specific objectives and introduced three levels of recognition to acknowledge and celebrate higher levels of achievement within the framework. The achievement of Gold recognition reflects the number of evidence requirements the organisation has met. Developed to offer public services a practical tool for driving customer-focused change within their organisation. The standard tests in great depth those areas that research has indicated are a priority for customers, with particular focus on delivery, timeliness, information, professionalism and staff attitude. There is also emphasis placed on developing customer insight, understanding the users experience and robust measurement of service satisfaction. The Advice Quality Standard is a national quality standard for information, advice and legal services. Accreditation to this standard demonstrates to the public, who need benefit related information, advice and support that they can rely on receiving a quality assured service.

Investors in People The Wider Framework Gold Standard

Customer Service Excellence (CSE)

Advice Quality Standard

Table 3.1: 2013/2014 Quality Framework.

All Services have embraced the Quality Framework into the operation. Quality is an essential component of the way we do business. To ensure this is maintained across all areas of the business, we have established and trained quality champions within each area and developed an internal reviewer programme to ensure rigorous internal auditing is undertaken to safeguard continued compliance to the standards.

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Corporate Social Responsibility

The Partnership is committed to conducting its business responsibly. We recognise and embrace the responsibilities we have; on the environment, to our people, customers and the local community. Corporate Social Responsibility is an integral part of all our business operations and we continually monitor and proactively seek new ways of developing our approach.

Charitable Causes
Staff from all areas of Liverpool Direct Limited have been involved in fundraising for two Chosen Charities, as voted for by staff themselves: The Lily Centre: Is a Breast Cancer Support Group run by women who have themselves experienced breast cancer. They give their time voluntarily at the centre to provide a pleasant environment for women and men to meet and gain emotional and physical support. The Newborn Appeal: Is a charity which supports the Neonatal unit at Liverpool Womens NHS Foundation Trust to improve the quality of care available. The charity also supports research and purchases specialised equipment for sick babies over and above the NHS provision. Fundraising activities have included; dress down days, fancy dress competitions, cake baking, quizzes and many more. A total of 14000 was raised for these charities during 2012/2013. Liverpool Direct Limited staff also supported two national charities during 2012/2013, Children in Need and Comic Relief, raising 4000. In April 2013 staff said farewell to the 2012/2013 chosen charities and decided which charities they wanted to support in 2013/2014. Staff were asked to nominate two local charities, one adult and one childrens, that support our people and are based in the Merseyside area. Compiling the nominations into one form, staff were invited to vote for who they wanted to support throughout 2013/2014. The two charities nominated by staff and selected in the vote are The Walton Centre and Ronald McDonald House: The Walton Centre offers a world class service in diagnosing and treating injuries and illnesses affecting the brain, spine and
44

peripheral nerves and muscles; and in helping people suffering from long term neurological conditions. Ronald McDonald House Charities keep families together so children in hospital can get the love and comfort they need, by offering free accommodation to parents and carers so that a family member is never far away. We will be supporting the Ronald McDonald House located at Alder Hey Hospital in West Derby which has looked after over 16,000 families since opening in 1993. Liverpool Direct Limited looks forward to supporting these two very worthy charities in 2013/2014.

Duke of Edinburghs Award

As part of this commitment Liverpool Direct Limited works closely with the Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) Award North West with the aim of supporting the development of the DofE Edinburgh's Awards Programme. During the past three years Liverpool Direct Limited has continued to support the personal development of young people within the community through the partnership with the Duke of Edinburghs (DofE) Award North West. Donating 25,000 per year to the scheme, the partnership has witnessed hundreds of pupils from Schools across the city achieve the award at varying levels, enriching their development and providing them with valuable skills and experiences. In addition to supporting local schools in delivering the scheme, we also encourage and fund a number of our own employees to carry out and complete the DofE Gold Award. During 2012/2013 a group of young people, primarily made up of apprentices, embarked upon their Gold Award. An additional group is currently undertaking the Duke of Edinburghs Award Leadership Programme through which they are trained to mentor and support young people to complete the Award at various levels.

Environmental Management
As part of our commitment to reduce our workforces carbon footprint, we have embedded many environmental activities throughout the companys operations. These include promoting greener transport options to our employees, investing in green and
45

cost effective alternatives for meetings such as telephone conference facilities thus reducing the need to travel, a waste recycling scheme and a dedicated Save the Planet area on our intranet providing employees with environmental news/information, money saving suggestions and environmental awareness days which we encourage staff to participate in. During 2012/2013, Liverpool Direct Limited made significant achievements in the area of environmental management: Improved recycling facilities have been provided for staff to use, such as colour coded bins for recycling paper, card, plastic and batteries. Further audio conferencing facilities were provided to avoid unnecessary travelling. A Cycle to Work Scheme was launched which enables staff to purchase a bicycle through a salary sacrifice scheme. Over 80 members of staff successfully applied for the scheme. Expanded Save the Planet intranet pages were provided with information and tips for staff to be more environmentally friendly in the workplace. Liverpool Direct Limited recognises that its excellent performance is directly linked to its commitment to developing its workforce and positive relationships with its people. Our people are our most effective ambassadors and represent a key source of long term performance excellence and competitive advantage. We understand the role of our people in exhibiting our approach to Quality and Corporate Social Responsibility to bring real value to these elements of our business and enable us to consistently improve our business processes. We will continue to develop, engage and consult with our people with the support of the framework set out through Workforce Matters to ensure that we continue to harness the commitment and insight of our workforce to strengthen and develop our business.
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47

4. Planned Developments for 2013/2014

It is important to recognise the challenges of the economic climate we operate within. It is expected that 2013/2014 will see further funding cuts at a time of increasing demand. The challenge will be to continue to deliver the highest levels of performance whilst still delivering real added value, further price reductions (which our customers are now focused on) and represent real, long term value. To support this, the principle of high quality people supported by high quality ICT platforms will continue as a key priority. A set of financial targets has been agreed by the Board of Liverpool Direct Limited for 2013/2014. These are based on revenue and new business won to be delivered in 2013/2014: Actual Description 2012/2013 (million) 86.1 36.1 Target 2013/2014 (million) 80.0 15.0

Revenue Sales Order Value

Table 4.1: 2013/2014 Financial Targets.

Whilst these figures are less in real terms than 2012/2013 they remain challenging financial targets. They reflect the difficult times Liverpool Direct Limited operates within. They require Liverpool Direct Limited to be innovative in the services that it provides, develops and operates. It will require the customer base to continue to be developed and new services offered to organisations outside of Liverpool City Council.

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Planned Investments
Liverpool Direct Limited will continue to actively invest in the services provided to Liverpool City Council and (other customers) in 2013/2014. Planned investments for 2013/2014 are estimated to be over 8 million. These investments will support and help protect future performance and help deliver immediate (and in year) savings for Liverpool City Council. It is the belief of Liverpool Direct Limited that further real and significant savings can be delivered to Liverpool City Council and its customers through the hard work of its staff. The 4.5 million price cut in 2012/2013 now needs to be built upon and additional added value delivered in year.

Performance Service Levels

For 2013/2014 the following enhanced Service Level Agreements have been agreed:

Definition of SLA Revenues: Visits or make electronic checks on void properties (every 26 weeks) or in the case of long term voids (ie. empty more than 1 year), every 52 weeks (Council Tax). Revenues: Undertake visits or make electronic checks on void properties (every 26 weeks) or in the case of long term voids (ie. empty more than 1 year), every 52 weeks (NNDR). Contact Centre: % of all calls received answered by IVR. Careline: Total Calls answered.
49

2012/2013 Target

2013/2014 Target

95%

97.5%

95%

97.5%

5% 87.5%

10% 90%

Definition of SLA ICT: % Customer Satisfaction with ICT. Customer Access: Maintenance of broken links as measured by SiteImprove: to keep the number of invalid links on www.liverpool.gov.uk website below 1%. Customer Access: Maintenance of HTML as measured by SiteImprove: to keep the number of invalid pages (according to W3C) on the www.liverpool.gov.uk website below 5% (excluding 3rd party apps). HRP: DBS requests turned around within 2 working days on receipt of all documentation. HRP: % of payroll errors attributable to Liverpool Direct Limited. HRP: Pension starters processed within one pay period. HRP: Pensions Notifications of Absence (LGP29,30,30a) processed within one pay period. HRP: Employment offer documentation (both conditional and final) issued following receipt of the necessary approvals to recruit within 3 working days. HRP: Employee Relations initial contact within 3 full working days with manager following case referral.
Table 4.2: Enhanced Service Levels Agreements for 2013/2014.

2012/2013 Target 96%

2013/2014 Target 97%

<1%

0.75%

<5%

<4%

95%

97.5%

<0.5%

<0.25%

95%

98%

80%

95%

95%

97.5%

95%

97.5%

50

These enhanced (increased) service levels are at no additional cost to Liverpool City Council and represent real added value.

Planned Performance Improvements

As customer expectations increase the business will be challenged to maintain service excellence in line with the increasing demands and needs of our customers. Planned improvements in 2013/2014 will help to further embed a performance culture across the business. The Business Improvement Plans set these out on an annual basis. These are comprehensive and examples include:

Business Improvement Maximise e-Recruitment functionality.

Outcomes Identify and implement opportunities to streamline business processes and improve accessibility for customers. To develop further the full range of functionality within the Oracle system in order to maximise business efficiencies, to include improved management information reporting facilities. To provide managers and staff with easier access to and an enhanced understanding of policies facilitating more streamlined processes.

Oracle HRMS development.

Review, consult upon and implement a comprehensive suite of employment related policies and procedures. Discretionary Housing Payments will play an increasingly important role in meeting the needs of especially vulnerable customers with 1.6M available to award in the coming year.

The process of application, award and appeal will be reviewed and new processes established to help target those most in need.

51

Business Improvement Universal Credit will go live in October, initially only for claimants of Job Seekers Allowance. Roll out to additional groups will commence in April 2014. The Liverpool Citizens Support Scheme will enter live operation. Given this is a new scheme the extent and type of demand including financial value and customer demographics will require detailed understanding to help ensure the service is targeting the limited funds at those most in need. SharePoint 2010 Platform rollout.

Outcomes

The service will develop a plan for aligning its processes to meet the changing national system, which will gradually be implemented between 2013 and 2017.

After the first quarter of operation a detailed review of the service will identify further developments and improvements to the design and operation of the scheme.

Organisational wide collaboration knowledge sharing platform.

and

Web Content System Migration.

Management

To provide a cost effective future proof technology platform for clients improving responsiveness, support and development times for existing and new projects. Improved performance for Queue management in One Stop Shops: improved management information on one stop shop performance. Increased customer choice and satisfaction reduction in cost to serve. Increase in customer satisfaction, providing a greater choice of channels to meet the requirements of the changing customer needs.
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Queue Management System One Stop Shops.

Automated Services.

Upgrading the Infrastructure.

Telephony

Business Improvement

Outcomes To provide a cost effective technology platform which will improve how staff access processes. Increase in customer satisfaction due to greater choice of channels. Reduction in cost to serve.

Replacement Solution.

of

the

Moxie

Development of a One Stop Shop/ Library Hub Services.

Ensuring library services remain in the local community.

Exploit the investment in VBlock technology.

Much faster provisioning process for server based solutions and improved performance of migrated servers. Integrated incident and problem management activities to reduce frequency and improve overall service availability. Improved management of risk vulnerabilities across the network. and

Move to new Service management toolset HP Service Manager. Implement the McAfee Risk Advisor across the corporate network.

Implement the McAfee Security as a Service (SaaS) Solution.

Provide off-net management and protection of corporate devices used for agile working connected over public or private wireless networks. Improve collection rates and reduce cost through automating some further processes. To continue to increase take up of e-billing and reduce printing and postage costs through; promoting by Customer Access, mailshot and promoting with all documents issued.

Further enhancements Northgate and eRevenues.

to

e-billing.

Table 4.3: Enhanced Service Levels for 2013/2014. 53

The performance highlights and key successes set out in this Review have been achieved through a commitment to effective and customer centric partnership working, exhibited by all stakeholders throughout the year. As we continue to grow and evolve, our focus remains on achieving service excellence to continue to meet the needs of our customers. Without question the coming year will be one of challenges. However with the support of all partners, the solid foundations we have in place, strategic investment and the continued commitment of our stakeholders, we will continue to demonstrate performance excellence and to deliver first class services.

Winning New Business

Liverpool Direct Limiteds business development and sales strategy has been built on its core competencies of people and ICT infrastructure. It has the stated objective of growing the business. It has the commercial ability to trade with other Over 40,000 customers applying organisations and exploit potential opportunities with other public and Housing and Council Tax Benefit had private sector businesses and their application, as per the Benefits organisations. This was a primary economic objective in 2001 and Service Ten Day Promise. remains today. The partnership has enjoyed considerable success (eg. out of hours services for; Liverpool Mutual Homes and London and Quadrant Housing Association; and web services for; Northumbria Police, Gloucestershire County Council and North Ayrshire Council). The business will actively market a range of its services and service developments to a broad market. This will help protect and grow the job base. The 2013/2014 financial targets for the business include generating new contract value work of 15 million. This target will require an aggressive approach by Liverpool Direct Limited to; growing its business with other organisations, expanding its customer base and service and developing its product portfolio. This expansion will be managed in a controlled environment with a focus on service excellence. Any new business will be sustainable and fit the existing product portfolio.
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Over the next twelve months Liverpool Direct Limited will focus on growing the business through: Getting the basics right. Placing the customer at the heart of the business. Supporting the work of the City Council. Developing all its relationships. Delivering service and performance excellence. Promoting its sales collateral across all channels. This general model is based around the basic building blocks of; products, market (segment) and available channels: Products Schools ICT Payroll Web Services Careline Contact Centre e-learning Transactional Services
Table 4.4: Broad Approach to Business Growth.

Markets Government BT Unitary Councils District Councils BT

Channels

Partners Direct Tenders Relationships 'Within'

The following business development work is in progress: Liverpool City Council: A programme of Service Take Ons is now underway within Customer Access and Benefits. A central government contract around telephony and contact centre. Telecare across Councils in the UK.
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Review of the Business Development Strategy and development of range of Service offerings for: o Out of Hours telephony for local authorities. o Careline Out of Hours services. o Lone Worker Monitoring Services. Our strategy will also promote the capabilities of Liverpool Direct Limited to BT to encourage services brought into the Partnership and jobs into the City.

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www.liverpooldirectlimited.co.uk

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