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Stevenage Borough Council, Business Objects partner Blueprint monitor performance with BusinessObjects XI

Stevenage Borough Council logo "The consolidation of reporting into a central information resource based on one toolset from Business Objects is a highly manageable, scalable long term business intelligence strategy that is underpinning the development of a performance management culture across Stevenage Borough Council."

Adrian Stones
Housing Programme Manager
Stevenage Borough Council

Challenge

Stevenage Borough Council delivers services to 70,000 people living in Stevenage, England. In common with other local authorities across England and Wales, the council is keen to create a strong performance management culture.

However, monitoring diverse performance indicators, which range from condition of council property to the percentage of waste recycled, has been a resource-intensive task. Best value performance indicators (BVPIs) touch every single service area across the council and, as a result, demand a wealth of information, much of which is not contained within core council systems.

Furthermore, there is a growing demand across the council for excellent information to support day-to-day decision-making and underpin ongoing improvements in operational performance, from housing and finance. Stevenage Borough Council identified its housing organization, Stevenage Homes, as a priority area for improved information and performance management. As head of business improvement at Stevenage Homes, Adrian Stones, housing programme manager, Stevenage Borough Council, explains, "Accurate, real-time performance information is critical to support the council's strategic capacity building exercise."

Approach

Stevenage Borough Council has worked closely with Blueprint to improve the information that's available from the core housing software from Northgate. Blueprint is a partner of Business Objects, an SAP company.

Blueprint mentored the Stevenage team in using BusinessObjects™ Data Integrator to load information into an Oracle data warehouse. In addition to storing three years of Northgate data, the warehouse also holds information from OptiTime, a repairs appointment system.

Using BusinessObjects Web Intelligence® for Web-based query and reporting, Stevenage Homes now has unprecedented access to near real-time information across many aspects of social housing, from rent collection and debt management to repairs. The business intelligence (BI) solution also automates key performance indicator (KPI) reporting.

Stevenage Borough Council is now planning to expand the data warehouse to include rents and finance, which will further automate the production of KPIs and drive the development of a performance culture across the organization.

In the interim, Blueprint has also developed a simple KPI data entry application, enabling the council to enter performance-related information via a Web page. The council uses Web Intelligence to automate KPI summary reports, along with benchmarking performance and allowing users to input commentary of underlying trends. Reports are produced as PDF files and distributed to about 30 managers across the council.

Results

By consolidating reporting on BusinessObjects Web Intelligence, Stevenage Borough Council automates the production of KPIs while delivering the real-time, in-depth information required to drive up day-to-day performance across the organization.

"With Blueprint's assistance in implementing the solution, BusinessObjects XI provides Stevenage Homes with a very strong performance management tool. Daily reports now identify problem areas enabling rapid, proactive action that underpins continuous performance improvements," Stones says.

BI benefits include better insight into housing management, such as repairs and voids. For example, Stevenage Homes now has detailed information into housing repairs, including trend analysis of performance over the past three years. Real-time reporting of KPIs include:

Stevenage Homes can now assess the work of individual contractors carrying out such tasks as glazing, fencing and roofing work, as well as internals for other maintenance. Additionally, improved trend analysis enables better scheduling of services to meet peaks and troughs in demand.

Highlighting void properties enables the team to drill down into the reason for the property to be empty, such as the need for repairs. Reducing void properties is a key goal for every housing organization.

Stevenage Homes also has greater awareness of rent arrears. Daily monitoring of rent collections improves debt management and facilitates greater understanding into causes of late payments.

Stevenage Borough Council now has a range of BVPIs and KPI reports showing performance against targets and revealing performance trends. Information is input by each department and automated reporting provides managers with real time visibility of performance against targets at all times. Stones says, "Improved monitoring of best value performance indicators is raising the awareness of performance targets across the council, enabling a shift towards a strong performance management culture."

Stones concludes, "The consolidation of reporting into a central information resource based on one toolset from Business Objects is a highly manageable, scalable long term business intelligence strategy that is underpinning the development of a performance management culture across Stevenage Borough Council."

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