Recent outcomes of Redesign work were noted by Members at yesterday's Highland Council meeting.
In the first year of the programme, 8 redesign projects were undertaken using a "Lean" approach and 36 staff have been trained as facilitators.
Recent projects included improving the process for billing and receiving income for wrap around care for early years, streamlining the process from 80 to 28 steps with a possibility of this reducing to 15 steps. The new process will automate data entry, reduce the backlog, and save £12k per year in postage costs.
In 2017 over 900 cases of fly-tipping had been reported but under-reporting was estimated at 50%. The improvements made by the Lean team include a new e-form to make it easier to report fly-tipping and a new mapping tool to identify hot spots where preventative action can be targeted and enforcement activity can be coordinated. In addition to avoiding future budget pressures, annual savings of £0.080m will delivered next year.
Grey fleet (staff using their own cars to do their job) accounts for about 82% of all travel costs, costs £2.2m, and results in 2000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions and considerable losses in productivity from time spent travelling.
The review aims to reduce the need to travel, and where travel is necessary, to reduce the spend and carbon emissions associated with it by greater use of pool cars, car clubs and for shorter journeys to use active travel.
Changes are estimated to provide around £500,000 in savings annually from next year (2018/19).
Another outcome of redesign will be that the music tuition service will transfer to Highlife Highland from 1 April 2018 to enable the service to be affordable, sustainable and with scope to grow, reaching other people and places. The Council has also agreed to the redesign proposal of generating energy through solar PV on its estate.
Chair of the Redesign Board and Convener, Bill Lobban said:
"The Redesign work is continuing to produce some exciting and innovative improvements with tangible benefits. We now have a number of examples of highly successful redesign projects and some 20 ideas from staff are currently being considered for future projects.
“Investment in solar PV on the Council's estate is just one stunning example of innovation, which will not only save the council money, but will actually achieve income.
“The methodology being used in the Peer Reviews helps to constructively and sensitively challenge current service delivery models and rightly involves staff in redesigning new and efficient ways of doing things."