We are constantly hearing about Government IT projects that have lost millions of pounds and never get off the ground. I am therefore delighted to be able to report that a major scheme, the £1.3 million Customer Access and Service Transformation Project (‘CAST’), that has been introduced by Babergh over the past five years, has been completed on time and under budget. It has also delivered significant ongoing cost savings while improving customer access to services.
Since becoming a Councillor I have sat on the Task Group that has been responsible for the oversight of the project’s implementation and it has been very fascinating . An over-simple way of explaining the scheme is to say that what are effectively call centre practices have been introduced into a number of departments in the Council. This has meant that many queries can be resolved, quickly, and generally in the course of one phone call.
All hasn’t been entirely plain sailing. A culture change has been needed among the members of staff who have retrained to operate the new system. This relies heavily on computers, and in addition to giving the public a faster response, it also supplies management with very useful information which can be used to drive on further efficiencies. One positive aspect of this is that if Local Government Review goes ahead, the operators of the system will have learnt some good transferable skills!
There are also still some glitches during periods of very heavy demand. We decided against the queuing system that plays Mozart to you while your telephone bill clocks up the minutes. This means that when all lines are busy people get the engaged tone. Some have found this frustrating, particularly since I do not think that you can use ‘call back’ on this system. This is being looked into and it is very possible that an answer-phone will be installed which means that during busy periods a message will be taken and an officer will call the enquirer back.
Now that the project is more or less complete the CAST Task Group is to be wound up. Today’s meeting was the last one. I am quite pleased about this in one way since I seem to be chasing my tail these days trying to keep up with everything. On the other hand it has been nice to be involved with the project and the hard working officers at Babergh who have delivered it successfully.
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