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Financial Management Award - Driving Job Centre Plus/Planning Response to the Current Economic Downturn
Job Centre Plus - Finance Directorate Economic Downturn Directorate: Winner of the Financial Management Award, sponsored by SAP
The Jobcentre Plus Finance Directorate Economic Downturn Team led work to rapidly develop a suite of management information resource models to provide robust business intelligence, evidence to support funding bids with HM Treasury, and organise a bespoke finance team to drive the Agency’s planning response to the current economic downturn.
We had a proactive approach to determining the likely impacts and effects of the economic downturn. This work was critical to ensure value-for-money expenditure, robust forward-planning, due governance, maintenance of customer service, and that resources were in the right place to meet demand.
The Jobcentre new claims average of 48,000 per week increased by 60 per cent, while the average caseload of 853,000 customers grew by 25 per cent. We worked closely with business colleagues to gain ‘buy in’ to the methodology and outputs.
Within the incredibly short time frame of 6-8 weeks, we had to develop business intelligence and analytical tools to develop radically new plans to respond to the downturn. The new tools had to quickly identify the right level of expansion for our workforce, estates and IT infrastructure.
Within 40 days we provided business intelligence and robust analytical tools which managers used to develop radical new plans to respond to the economic downturn. As a result Jobcentre Plus was able to: increase our workforce by around 20 per cent over six months, including providing effective training; increase capacity across our front office network of 860 offices in time to house the additional staff; and expand IT resource to sites to handle increased business volumes of up to 100 per cent at peak periods.
The project team then led in identifying and securing the extra resources required from HM Treasury: £2bn over the next two financial years to meet increased demand.
Last updated 242 days ago by Kevin Sorkin