Throughout 2003/04, the Benefits Service of Eastbourne Borough Council was performing poorly. It was in the bottom quartile for all of the key performance indicators and to make matters worse, the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate visit in March 2004 was painful; revealing that little had been done since their previous visit and producing 286 recommendations.
Out of eight management/supervisory posts, only two were permanently filled. There were thousands of benefit documents that no one had reviewed for months. Systems and procedures were poor, the structure of the service was a barrier to improvement, and staff morale was at rock bottom.
It was against this background that Steve Lowndes arrived in April 2004. By February 2005 the service had been transformed from bottom to top quartile.
Using the BFI findings as a baseline, the underlying causes of the problems were identified. From taking over 70 days to process benefit claims, almost all are now being done in less than 30 days. There has been no increase in staff numbers or use of any other resources.
"The key components of the improvement were a commitment from the highest level at Eastbourne and, the hard work and determination of the staff. Public Sector Consultants' method is to work with the Authority as genuine partners. This shows how we can provide the expertise to allow an authority to release the potential of their staff", says Steve.
As an added bonus, Steve was able to secure nearly £200,000 from the Department for Work and Pensions, for future improvements to the service.
Bruce Bird, Assistant Finance Director at Eastbourne Borough Council added "Our Benefits Service has made the journey from failure to success over the past year only with the significant help and expertise of Public Sector Consultants. They provided one of their leading consultants, Steve Lowndes, who brought us the Company's wide experience and knowledge, his people skills and common sense, and added these to a new sense of purpose and commitment within the Council. All of this has helped me to redirect the service away from the edge and towards a steady climb up the performance ladder. I would not have been able to achieve such rapid improvement without Public Sector Consultants’ help and commitment."
