Modernising back-office services in local government

Back-office functions are the behind-the-scenes administration tasks that are usually invisible to the public. They do not tend to get the attention they deserve from elected officials, given that the benefits cannot be easily seen and communicated in the same way as, for example, investment in physical spaces or the excitement of a new initiative.

Officers outside of finance and corporate services, and elected officials, can underestimate how a well-run and integrated back office can be a key enabler to reduce costs, expand local government’s ability to collect, use and analyse data, and enhance customer satisfaction.

Traditionally, local government organisations have been designed from a departmental perspective, creating silos and inefficient manual efforts. Organisations have attempted to resolve this through their focus on the front end, digitalising customer transactions and customer requests – but without innovating back-office systems that deliver the true benefits of front-office changes.

This approach simply creates more pressure and demand on the middle and back office to respond to increased ‘electronic’ communication via manual processes.

Forrester research on behalf of KPMG shows that on the topic of ‘seamless interactions,’ just over half (56 percent) of organisations believe their services are integrated within and across departments and the wider ecosystem. Forrester notes that organisations that are better able to execute on objectives spanning the front, middle and back offices are 1.5 times more likely to successfully harness data, advanced analytics and actionable insights with a real-time understanding of the customer and the business to shape integrated business decisions.¹

A well-designed back office can help drive true customer centricity, reduce costs and employee manual effort, improve the ability to perform more value-adding activities and analysis, and improve the employee value proposition by enabling them to do more meaningful work. It can also increase the capacity of councils to invest in more meaningful initiatives and reinvest back into the community.

For back offices to become better at analysing data, new connections and processes are needed. Linking data on customers can help enhance personalised service and identity management, as outlined in other sections. It can be a challenging task, with some organisations managing multiple records on the same customer – all on separate siloed systems.²

Some core back-office systems, for example finance, asset management and property management, should be connected to each other. Line-of-business systems will be needed where core systems cannot provide the necessary functionality for effective service delivery, but these should be integrated into the core system to help drive the benefits of a connected enterprise. A holistic, organisation-wide approach is therefore crucial for seamless customer-centric service.

An integrated ecosystem creates an opportunity to transform core processes, increase efficiency and productivity, and realise the benefits of robust, real-time data on service and performance. Forging strong middle-office links with front- and back-office processes will be particularly important in delivering appropriate customer-centric service.

A back office that draws on a range of linked data can make predictions that enhance the quality of service delivery. For example, the ability to combine customer demographic data, asset quality or maintenance data, and demand or usage data, can provide valuable insights into the placement of future facilities or where budgets should be prioritised to meet evolving public needs.

For example, the ability to combine customer demographic data, asset quality or maintenance data, and demand or usage data, can provide valuable insights into the placement of future facilities or where budgets should be prioritised to meet evolving public needs.

In the UK, for example, service-sharing platform oneSource, developed for the London boroughs of Havering, Newham and Bexley, is generating significant back-office savings by reducing management costs and work duplication, while driving efficiency gains by re-engineering traditional processes. It can provide support to HR, finance, payroll, legal, facilities management and IT operations.

A further option is to establish a skills platform of specialists accessible to a subscribing local government, helping the sector to attract talented staff, reducing competition between individual organisations, reducing costs and managing peaks and troughs of activity. Such sharing at present typically involves neighbouring areas but can equally work for groups of organisations across a region, state, country or even internationally.

• Customer centricity: Seamless interactions between the front, middle and back offices will help local government services become more customer-centric and outcome-focused.
• Data integration: Data can help back offices become proactive rather than reactive, treating service departments as customers and helping them solve problems. For this to work successfully, these back offices require access to a range of linked data.

• Expertise sharing for cost reduction: Sharing expertise, whether through organisations or skills platforms, can help local governments meet the costs of improving back offices. Councils should educate and challenge their unions, update their workforce and employment policies, and build a strong business case for the local benefits of employing remote expertise.

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