Transforming a Government NDPB

Background

Our client – a National College – was established in 2001 to improve leadership in schools. The college was staffed by 330 employees – mainly ex head teachers and training professionals – and employed numerous external training individuals/agencies. The campus activities extended over three sites with a budget of £120m.

Our client was concerned that the organisation had grown in size and remit beyond its original intent.

Consulting Assignment

Our client asked us to make the organisation more efficient and to reduce costs.

Key Project Activities

Analysis and Design

We undertook a detailed analysis of the activities to understand the scope of potential change. The analysis covered:-

Objectives, activities, hi level processes, structure, culture
Staff attitudes
Stakeholder and customer views on remit and service levels
Cost to serve

The areas for improvement consisted of:-

Services which would more effectively be outsourced i.e. preparation of training materials
Services which had grown out of proportion to their value-add which needed to be re-evaluated and trimmed

Implementation

We designed a change programme to implement the above which would include the management in the process and thereby gain by-in. The programme comprised two change teams from the business:-

Outsource Team. This team looked at the current activities and service levels. Eliminated non value-add activities. Mapped the remaining processes and improved same. Prepared a business case and ITT detailing the services to be outsourced. Prepared an implementation plan.
Re-Organisation Team. The team reviewed the current activities and service levels. Mapped the key hi-level processes. Costed the processes. Re-designed the processes, eliminating those which overlapped or where non value-add activities. Profiled the requisite skill sets to perform the processes. Re-designed the departmental teams around the processes based on like skills. Prepared an implementation plan.

Client Benefits

The benefits included:-

Re-organised and focused executive team
Executive team reduced from 33 to 8
Staffing headcount reduction of 25%
Budget reduced by 25%