Ekta Mehta, Author at CACI

How learning and development can improve recruitment in transport and construction

Posted on: 3 August 2023

Learning from previous projects, mapping skills to future tasks and identifying gaps in the workforce – learning and development can inform your recruitment needs

Recruitment is a vital component of the transport and construction industries. Being able to deploy the right number of appropriately skilled personnel to any given task is essential in delivering services and projects efficiently and on time. A robust learning and development programme can help large organisations in maintaining this balance. From upskilling existing employees to demand forecasting mapped against current and future work, having oversight of core skills and competencies across your workforce is fundamental to your ability to deliver work and services. With a holistic view of your workforce you can understand where any gaps may be emerging or may exist against future work, then remedy them with accurate recruitment.

Knowing when to recruit

Mapping the existing skills and competencies of your workforce against the demand for their skills and competencies against current and future work offers insights as to what you need. If your existing workforce doesn’t cover this, then recruitment is inevitable. If there are only a few gaps, training existing employees so that they are competent for the tasks required can help to plug gaps, but where a simple case of lack of numbers is identified, bringing people in is the only solution.

So how does learning and development help? As part of your wider competency management and training efforts, the overarching learning and development umbrella is essential in gaining a complete picture of your workforce, its competencies, skills and experiences. Maintaining this central database provides insight as to the profile of employee you need to add in order to fulfil projects and tasks.

This covers every aspect of your learning and development programme. From people on the ground to fulfil the tasks required of your services, to the people who conduct assessments of your workforce and run your training programmes. During periods of growth, it will be necessary to conduct more training and more assessments in order to keep your learning and development programme on track.

Ongoing assessment work is crucial to ensure work is being conducted properly. This covers safety and the appropriate fulfilment of tasks. Having the necessary number of assessors is important to achieving this. For more information on how Transport for London (TfL) assesses its London Underground drivers, please click here.

Similarly, getting new recruits up and running is a staple of any learning and development programme. Proper inductions and any training and briefings must be conducted before they start. You can read more about how Network Rail trains its 43,000 employees here.

Maintaining a future workforce pipeline

As projects start and finish, maintaining a core workforce is essential for ongoing work. One way in which transport and construction operators can maintain a healthy pipeline of future recruits is via apprenticeships.

According to the Constructions Skills Network, an extra 225,000 construction workers will be required in the UK by 2027. Filling these roles – and in a relatively short space of time – will be essential to the efficient and timely running of construction projects, many of which will cover the UK’s transport infrastructure, too.

Working with schools and colleges is a useful way of interacting with young people who might be interested in a career in construction. Offering them hands on experience alongside their studies provides practical experience which strengthens their skills and experience in the industry.

What happens once they start their career? Career development, once people have been recruited, helps to broaden the pool of skills and competencies available to you. Offering ongoing training courses and opportunities helps your existing workforce to be upwardly mobile, helping to address skills gaps internally without the need to recruit.

Conclusion

Joined up thinking is paramount in implementing a successful recruitment policy, feeding off the competency management and training aspects of your learning and development programme. Understanding your workforce is central to this. Where are there gaps? Who can be upskilled? This feeds into your wider project management; what current and upcoming work will require what skills and competencies?

A scattergun approach to recruitment is inefficient and expensive. Utilising the knowledge that you can create about your workforce helps you to pinpoint the skills and experience you need for current and future work, whilst creating efficiencies in your processes and accurate responses to your roadmap of work.

We have recently explored the topic of learning and development, including recruitment, in our white paper Learning and development in construction and transport: how can organisations enhance their workforce efficiently, in a data led way? You can download your free copy here.

Competency management: the heartbeat of learning and development in transport and construction

Posted on: 26 July 2023

Every employer conducts basic checks of their employees. Do they have the requisite qualifications, skills and experiences for the role for which they are being hired? Certificates, references and background research usually satisfy this. Then, to ensure that the person is actually appropriate for the job once they’ve started, a period of probation follows, supported by ongoing assessments at set intervals to keep tabs on their ongoing competence. In the transport and construction industries, however, competency management takes on far greater significance.

Forming part of a robust learning and development programme, competency management is essential to the smooth running of services and projects in these industries. Holding a qualification or a certain amount of experience is one thing, ongoing competence is quite another.

Take train drivers as an example. There are several assessments, exams and accompanied drives that must be completed before a driver is left to complete the task solo. That’s not the end of the process. In such a safety critical environment, with service users onboard as well, it is vital that ongoing competency management is in place. Taking Transport for London (TfL) as an example, they conduct regular assessments of their 4,500 London Underground drivers to ensure that they are fulfilling their role appropriately.

To manage this process, TfL utilises CACI’s Cygnum software. The system is used to schedule assessments, log their results and arrange any follow up activities. This helps TfL to maintain a holistic view of its London Underground drivers and their competencies, maintain service user safety and address any issues that arise.

A robust competency management framework, as part of your learning and development programme, is required to monitor, assess and train employees for their tasks. Having the technology in place to link everything together is essential, which is where systems such as Cygnum come in.

Where a large workforce is present with a vast array of skills, experiences and core competencies, staying on top of monitoring this, understanding it and carrying out regular assessments requires careful coordination.

From having an overview of your workforce, to linking projects to demand management and forecasting present and future projects, technology is assisting large organisations in keeping projects on track, creating efficiencies and managing the workforce. Competency management is a central component of this.

Aside from ensuring that people are fit for purpose, competency management can also help to unlock areas upon which to target workforce training. Regular assessments will reveal patterns; perhaps there is a common area in which assessments are failed, or raise red flags? This enables large organisations to data map their workforce and focus on areas for improvement. If certain tasks are regularly underperformed in, then this can feed into you training programme, helping to get ahead of the issue by highlighting it with the workforce and providing the necessary training to help alleviate the issue.

Competency management further feeds into recruitment. If you have a holistic view of your workforce, its skills, experience and competencies, then you can identify where there are gaps that need filling. This helps to refine the recruitment process by enabling you to focus on specific competencies required for projects and tasks. In larger infrastructure and construction projects, this can be linked to demand management and forecasting, helping you to have full oversight of the resources required in order to complete present and future projects.

Competency management is the backbone of learning and development. It feeds into every area of an organisation’s operations; assigning tasks to the right people, ensuring that the workforce is appropriately skilled for the tasks at hand, informing training programmes and guiding recruitment needs. Where workforce and service user safety and convenience are major considerations, failing to run a robust competency management framework as part of your larger learning and development programme isn’t an option.

Competency management further helps to realise efficiency gains by ensuring that the right people are in the right place at the right time; enabling schedulers and administrators to be able to pinpoint staff to specific tasks quickly and easily makes overarching project management easier and more transparent. A full depth of understanding of your workforce’s competencies is also useful in reassigning staff during times of strain, safe in the knowledge that they are appropriately competent for the tasks being asked of them to keep projects and services running.

We have explored this topic in our recently published white paper which focuses on learning and development, How can organisations enhance their workforce efficiently, in a data led way? It is available to download for free here.

What is InView?

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InView is CACI’s data platform that is specifically designed for the NHS. It is modular by design with over 30 modules out of the box, and makes data sharing for ICS simple and efficient through its standardisation and safety in data management. The flexibility, maintenance and content provided by a standard data platform built in-house can only go so far. Considering the many pressures faced by NHS Trusts daily, they need a data platform that supports—rather than hinders– them.

InView empowers NHS Trusts nationwide to enhance their reporting and unlock the potential of their data by ensuring that all data reporting is correct, consistent and complete within a singular integrated solution that will transform patient care outcomes.

But how exactly does InView work? And what makes it so beneficial for the NHS? This blog will dive into everything you need to know about InView so you can make informed decisions about your own data platform.

How does InView work?

To meet the high volume of mandated statutory changes and local reporting requirements, your Trust should be equipped with a solid data platform that is easy to use and fully maintained. InView is risk-free*, robust and easily maintained, ensuring that you and your Trust can meet these requirements by providing all key statutory outputs and fully maintaining them in line with NHS change notifications as part of core product releases.

Designed and built in a way that promotes rapid implementation of a solution within a Trust, InView secures you with plenty of pre-built content from all disparate data sources in one unified, trustworthy solution. Each of InView’s 30 modules is built from a sophisticated, layered design that will keep future maintenance costs down and future proofing up. Its layers include:

Acquisition Layer: This layer accepts the data from incoming data sources and is designed to accept data in a raw format prior to any data checking.
Integration Layer: As the middle ground between the Acquisition layer and the upcoming Translation layer, this layer moves data from one source to the other and performs matching between data sources. Trust-specific business rules are implemented and dictate how incoming data affects the information stored in the data warehouse.
Translation Area: Data quality and integrity checking are carried out during this layer. This part of the processing also restructures data into a “star schema” model.
Data Model: The aforementioned “star-schema” model is created at this layer, which is optimised for ad-hoc querying and historical data storage. It supports the historical storage of fact data, manages changes to dimensional data and hierarchical structures and ensures historical reporting is conducted effectively.
Serving Layer: This layer interacts with the InView user graphical user interface (GUI) to simplify configuration. Database views can be created at this layer to support reporting with minimal effort required from the end user. Real time data can also be presented at this layer, and non-InView data can also be combined to supplement any data you need to report on.
Compliance Layer: This layer is where all statutory outputs are maintained and released to the Trust.

Where can InView be deployed?

InView can be deployed either on premise, in the Cloud, or hosted in CACI’s HSCN environment. Once deployed, our highly skilled technical experts forming the Managed Services team will work alongside you to ensure that you and your Trust are constantly supported after InView goes live. We will support you throughout the entire project implementation through fully transferring the necessary skills that will help you and your Trust feel more self-sufficient when using InView.

Benefits of using InView

NHS Trusts need accurate, reliable and readily available data for critical reporting and decision making. While this is crucial, it can be one of the biggest challenges for data professionals across the NHS to overcome. InView’s range of benefits can help you and your Trust overcome these challenges through its:

Consistency: As a proven in-house solution that promotes a single version of the truth
Availability: As a maintained product that can supply end-to-end reporting and can be implemented with all local rules correctly applied to incoming data
Efficiency: As a partner that is committed to continuously enhancing its solution
Flexibility: As an easy-to-use, extendable solution that is tailored to your Trust’s requirements and ensures your Trust will adapt to changes quickly
Reliability: As a modern, interactive solution that allows for sharing not only within your organisation, but with ICS partners and NHSE too.
Volume: As a solution that reduces the onus of statutory changes on the Trust
Low cost of ownership: As a low total cost of ownership solution with maintained product content and changes that a Trust can action themselves.

InView use cases

InView produces a single, governed version of the truth that will drive consistent numbers that will enhance decision making, financial measurement, forecasting and information sharing across your Trust. By leveraging InView, you can present data for all purposes from one cohesive source to your Trust’s existing BI Toolset, which will simplify the reporting process and minimise the training needed for your Trust’s analysts.

To get a sense of just how streamlined these processes within your Trust can be, take a look at some our of client case studies:

CACI as your InView provider

CACI has been providing Trusts with a solution that evolves and meets the demands of NHS reporting for over 20 years. Our very own data platform, InView, integrates all disparate source systems to optimise reporting across your Trust. By removing the statutory maintenance burden and time-consuming running of mandated reporting datasets, you and your Trust can focus on achieving priorities while meeting requirements and responding to any ad-hoc or urgent changes as they arise. To top it off, you will gain access to a user community for collaborative content and idea generation and learn how you can further enhance your own InView experience through other users’ takeaways.

To learn more about InView and how our data warehouse solution could help your organisation, visit our InView page.

*Risk-free for mandated statutory requirements

Five reasons learning and development are so important in transport and construction

Posted on: 17 July 2023

The technological landscape is rapidly evolving, something being experienced across the transport and construction industries. New technologies bring about new ways of working which in turn mean that large organisations need to have robust learning and development programmes in place to keep up. Learning and development extends beyond the frontline too. Whilst there is an obvious focus on engineers and operators in the transport and construction industries, back-office staff are also realising more effective and efficient ways of working as new technology is introduced.

This blog will take a closer look at five key areas in which learning and development can be best utilised across the transport and construction industries to deliver high quality, efficient and safe services for all. For a deeper dive into this topic, our recently published white paper, How can organisations enhance their workforce efficiently, in a data led way? Is available to download for free.

1. Workforce and end user safety

From health and safety protocols to simply using equipment correctly, ensuring that your workforce is operating within defined regulatory standards and your own internal business rules is essential. Frontline workers in both industries are often performing safety critical tasks that carry some form of jeopardy to themselves, their co-workers and end service users, such as passengers on a train. Learning and development is essential in ensuring that your workforce is equipped with the necessary training, experience and knowledge to perform tasks correctly and safely.

This extends to schedulers and administrators in ensuring that tasks are correctly assigned to members of staff. New systems can help large organisations in scheduling tasks, with aspects such as auto-scheduling easing the administrative burden by matching skills, competencies and experience to tasks and reducing the element of human error in doing so.

A robust learning and development programme will help ensure that all staff are competent and trained for the tasks they are being asked to undertake.

2. Ensuring the highest quality of work and standards

In a similar vein to ensuring the safety of all staff and end users, learning and development plays a central role in ensuring that work is carried out to the highest possible standards. By continuing with learning and development programmes across your workforce, you can expose staff to the latest ways of working as well as providing ongoing opportunities to maintain and expand their professional skillset.

Having a team of highly competent, highly trained operators is a great way of meeting high standards across your projects. The better the competency of your workforce, the more likely you are to deliver projects on time and in budget, owing to a reduction in errors and repeating work. The final delivery is also likely to meet the desired outcomes of a project. In transport, it is crucial that skilled operators are performing service delivery tasks competently to ensure the safety of end users and the smooth running of timetables.

3. Keeping up with evolving technologies

Innovation has been a constant in the 21^st Century and shows no sign of abating. New and improved versions of old tools and systems are constantly emerging, which poses a challenge to large organisations in not only obtaining the right tools for the job, but keeping the workforce abreast of such developments and appropriately trained to operate them. The same goes for emerging processes and practices; how can the latest technology and thinking be deployed to realise upticks in efficiency and quality of output?

Needless to say, learning and development is central to staying ahead of industry trends and technologies. Exposing your workforce to ongoing training opportunities helps them to develop their skills and experiences within your organisation, thereby helping them to enhance their careers with you.

4. Improving staff retention

Career development is crucial to staff retention. Your learning and development programme can play a significant role in staff morale. If training and career development opportunities are presented to staff, it means that they can progress within your organisation, rather than seeking new opportunities elsewhere.

This can have a knock-on effect in regard to recruitment too. Persuading staff to join your organisation is made easier if you can demonstrate career progression pathways to potential employees.

5. A more efficient workforce

A robust learning and development programme will help to ensure that your workforce is competent and appropriately trained. If you can be sure that each staff member is the right fit for their role, it makes assigning tasks far easier and enhances your chances of projects and tasks being completely properly and on time. Whilst learning and development cannot eradicate human error – mistakes are inevitable at times – it can help to minimise it and its impact.

Avoiding delays and poor workmanship means that fewer tasks need to be repeated, leading to a more efficient process overall in terms of time and cost committed to projects and tasks.

A robust learning and development programme carries myriad benefits for large organisations, notably in the transport and construction industries. With so many moving parts, having a competent and skilled workforce is essential. Failing to conduct training and to create an overview of skills, qualifications and experiences makes the task of assigning tasks incredibly complicated and wide open to error. In understanding your workforce and appropriately managing it, learning and development is essential.

How can organisations enhance their workforce efficiently, in a data led way? It is available to download for free here.

How Synergy revitalised Dorset HealthCare’s costing team

Posted on: 23 June 2023

Background:

Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust offers a range of mental health and physical health services to people of all ages from children to elderly. These services are delivered in both hospital and community-based settings.

The costing team at Dorset HealthCare has long used CACI’s patient-level costing solution, Synergy, to reach various goals due to its high-quality outputs and proven abilities in easing the National Cost Collection submission process. According to Chris Badminton, Head of Income & Costing at Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust, “I couldn’t see how another provider could compare with its capabilities.”

Challenge:

As long-time Synergy users, Dorset HealthCare’s costing team knew that CACI’s patient level costing solution would help them navigate their most pressing challenges, such as:

Acquiring the necessary patient level costing information that would inform decision-making about clinical care at Dorset HealthCare, which had been exceedingly difficult.

The team was previously equipped with indecipherable data. It was input manually into spreadsheets and could not supply the necessary intelligence to overcome hurdles. “Without Synergy4, we’d never be able to generate outputs to support the challenges that we faced,” Chris explained.
They struggled to get results out to stakeholders or present the results in a dashboard format that could be shared internally.
Limited engagement from the necessary stakeholders became a blocker when trying to make the most of data and tools available to the costing team.

Solution:

Through Synergy, Dorset HealthCare has been overcoming challenges and revitalising their costing teams’ capabilities in several impactful ways. For example, consultancy and support from CACI in the form of a help desk has helped keep the costing team up-to-date and running smoothly.

“I access the helpdesk quite a bit. [The help desk] is always incredibly helpful and we always get the solutions and the answers that we desire,” Chris explained. “I also have regular customer care meetings and they’re really useful as well.”

CACI’s Synergy User Group has also helped inform Dorset HealthCare’s clinical care planning and patient engagement strategisation through knowledge sharing opportunities with other NHS organisations.

“The Synergy User Group is also a great space for sharing and understanding how other [NHS Foundation Trusts’] challenges are being dealt with and for idea sharing,” Chris continued. “This has been really useful not only for the use of the product, but for understanding what the outputs need to be in order to get that engagement internally to support how we deliver clinical care at Dorset HealthCare.”

Synergy has also bolstered the costing team’s management abilities ahead of annual National Cost Collection (NCC) submissions.

“With regards to the National Cost Collection of the mandatory element of the functionality, that has far exceeded my expectations,” Chris continued. “The piece of work that’s been developed by [CACI] makes our management process on an annual basis incredibly easy.”

Results / Benefits:

Overall, the costing team’s evolution as a result of Synergy has been, as Chris stated, “over and above”.

“The speed of [Synergy] and the way that you can calculate and produce results is phenomenal… including its usability and how intuitive it is,” Chris continued. “It’s above what we would’ve expected.”

Equipped with Synergy data, Dorset HealthCare’s costing team is now developing analysis to support decision making for their improved access to psychological therapies (IAPT) service. Currently, the data that Chris has presented back to the organisation through Synergy is being deciphered, and the costing team is finding ways to reiterate the analyses for other areas of the Trust.

“I think [this service] is going to become something that is rolled out across all services within our mental health function to enhance the care that an individual could receive,” Chris explained. “It’s on the cusp of becoming something big for good evidence that has been supported by Synergy.”

Outcomes/Future:

Going forward, Dorset HealthCare hope to receive a regular analysis that can be used across the organisation to guide the way that clinical care at Dorset Healthcare should be delivered and further improve patient outcomes. Not only would a regular analysis enhance patient experiences, but it would also encourage the costing team’s conscious, intelligent allocation and spending of funds.

In the meantime, the costing team will continue focusing their efforts on health inequalities. They are currently looking into deprivation data, a process that involves manually exporting data from government and other websites to generate data that can be compared against or linked to existing patient level activity data used for Dorset HealthCare’s costing submissions and costing reports. The goal is that the costing team will eventually be able to use or link the data to compare results to other NHS organisations. This would help them better understand what a patient’s pathway looks like, the costs associated with specific types of care and how Dorset HealthCare can learn from other organisations to apply best practices to their own.

How InView enhanced Stockport’s data collection & processing capabilities

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Background:

When Stockport NHS Foundation Trust first looked to procure a data warehouse, they were adamant about choosing a provider with a proven track record and experience of delivering products and services to the NHS. Following recommendations and success stories from other users of CACI’s NHS data warehouse solution, InView, it was clear that a partnership with CACI would guarantee Stockport a smooth process with a mature and established provider.

Challenge:

Stockport needed one platform that would contain all data in one place to simplify the collection process and help the team regain control of their data. Over the years, numerous reporting database tables evolved to the point that multiple individual servers were created. This resulted in many duplications with multiple databases across multiple tables, data not being consolidated or structured, analysts having to work across servers and inconsistent information being produced. Having one unified platform would ensure that everyone would pull data from the same source and would avoid analysts working in silos and creating their own new sources of data. A consolidated data platform would provide much needed resilience and structure.

Stockport also wanted to take control of their statutory data processing and reporting. They needed flexibility and control over their own data developments, including more automated data submissions and reporting.

Solution:

CACI’s InView equipped Stockport with a mature data platform that has defined all statutory returns and commissioning datasets. It supports the team’s existing grouping and pricing processes and significantly reduces their month end manual processing, freeing up their time to dedicate their efforts to additional data analysis instead.

Through InView, the team also gained access to a unique support desk headed by a team of CACI’s technical experts, ensuring that any issues arising at Stockport could be mitigated precisely and timely.

“You don’t normally get someone that could just as easily have developed the product on a support line. [Our CACI support lead] knows InView inside out… not only does he know the products, but he also knows NHS data quite well,” Rory MacDonald, Lead Analyst at Stockport, explained.

“We have a lot of confidence in the fact that CACI’s [team of customer care individuals] understand NHS data and keep up to date on policy decisions to be able to respond quickly to changes,” Debbie Hope, Chief Data Officer at Stockport, continued.

Stockport was also able to identify gaps in the recording of patient observations, with a customised InView module specially developed by another one of CACI’s delivery support leads to enhance Stockport’s reporting capabilities. Through InView, the team could rest assured that all statutory elements would be addressed and that building any added functionalities within the platform would be done quickly and easily.

The latest enhancement that CACI’s delivery support lead is developing for Stockport is for their audiology data extraction and collection, whereby data is extracted from their system and data quality reports are being created to find any issues. This helps Stockport streamline some of their diagnostic waiting times reporting.

Results / Benefits:

According to Rory, CACI’s consultancy and support has far exceeded the organisation’s expectations. “The consultants were all really good in terms of both their technical expertise and dynamic advice,” he commented.
A noticeable reduction in the overall time spent processing overnight. After setting up a delta load, Stockport realised that every piece of information in their system dating back from the 1980s was being copied over. This process took progressively longer each day because the amount of data being copied over was continuously increasing. They worked with CACI on setting up a delta load where they could identify using interface messages, pull any necessary information and load it into the data warehouse, which significantly sped up the processing time.
The availability of data. “It’s available to be reported on from early in the morning,” Rory explained.
The enhanced data warehouse solution allowed Stockport to produce their own national CDS extracts. “We were reliant on and restricted to the pace of our PAS supplier previously for the development of those extracts when there were national changes,” Debbie explained. “We’ve removed that reliance and taken full control of those national extracts.”
Moving away from manually processing commissioner assignment within the PAS system. “It was a very manual process for using the contracting functionality within our patient administration system to assign the Commissioner for who pays for a particular piece of activity,” Rory explained. “Now that we’ve got all the national commissioner assignment method (CAM) rules written in the data warehouse, we’ve been able to switch off the functionality on the PAS system and transform the work of our data quality team.”

Outcomes/Future:

Stockport’s future ambitions include completely switching off all of the old servers with the legacy reporting databases so that the organisation can have only one development server and one production server for the data warehouse. They are also keen to increase the provision of real-time reporting. CACI will continue to support Stockport by analysing patient flow and frequently refreshing in-patient data to help Stockport understand exactly who is in the hospital at that time, what service they may be waiting for and how waiting times can be reduced, and overall support with the maintenance of their data warehouse.

How can local authorities monitor elective home education pupils?

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Elective home education (EHE) has been on the rise since the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. A recent report by Schools Week suggests that elective home education has risen by 60% since the pandemic. Up to 125,000 children now educated in this way. There are obvious safeguarding issues for local authorities to follow up on, from children missing education to ensuring that those children who are being home educated are in a safe environment and receiving an appropriate education. There are significant barriers to this for local authorities, however, not least in the form of there being no legal requirement for parents to inform local authorities that they are educating their child(ren) at home. So how can the challenge of monitoring these children be met?

This challenge is particularly acute for children who simply never enter full time education. Where a child was previously attending a school prior to receiving elective home education, schools have a duty to inform local authorities of their deletion from the school roll. A joined-up data approach is essential in order that correct and robust oversight is available.

As the Schools Week report highlights, however, growing numbers of elective home education pupils will inevitably result in a greater strain on local authorities in relation to monitoring and safeguarding. With more children to keep tabs on not being met with a similar increase in the number of available resources, it is vital that authorities find the most effective and efficient route to fulfilling their obligations.

How can authorities monitor elective home education students?

Data sharing is one obvious area in which authorities can help themselves and each other. Having a technology ecosystem in place that facilitates data capture from schools, local authorities, parents and any other professionals involved in a child’s educational journey plays a significant role in creating the transparency required for local authorities to act.

The background context for each elective home education child is another aspect that helps local authorities. If a child is known to local youth justice services, has identified special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in England – additional learning needs (ALN) in Wales – or has previously been excluded from school, then there are areas around safeguarding and appropriate provision of education to them. This ties into the emerging area of trauma-informed practice when it comes to dealing with children and young people across the education and youth justice sectors. Put simply, context is vital, yet can only be factored in with a joined-up approach is adopted.

Of course, none of that is to say that every elective home education child has safeguarding concerns around them. Many parents and families opt for elective home education for myriad reasons and do a perfectly good job of educating their children. It is still important, however, that is satisfied in the eyes of the local authority.

Fulfilling obligations to elective home education students

So, how can local authorities fulfil their obligations for elective home education children? Making the capture of relevant data as easy as possible is the first step. If a child is taken off the register at the school, the school has an obligation to inform the local authority. How is this data received by the appropriate personnel at the authority? Once visits are scheduled to families, how are the outcomes of such visits recorded within the authority? If a child moves into or out of a local authority, how is that data received or shared with their next authority?

Technology is at the forefront of this. Removing the need to manually trawl through records makes the process far more efficient. If practitioners can easily access full case records, they can pick up and understand a child’s journey quickly. They can then record the outcomes of their own work against a child’s record. This maintains a single thread of information relevant to the child.

Conclusion

Portals can play a significant role, too. For example, IMPULSE Nexus from CACI is a modular system which features school, parent, provider and professional portals. Each touchpoint with the child has the ability to record relevant information which is then stored against a single record. This helps to maintain a holistic view of every child, with relevant data being made available to relevant parties. In the case of elective home education children, local authorities being notified instantly when a child is taken off register or excluded will trigger the appropriate follow up activities for the relevant personnel.

Ultimately, treating each family and child fairly and transparently is paramount. Every child has a right to access education, ensuring that families are appropriately providing this ultimately falls to the local authority. The tools exist to make this process more effective and efficient for everyone. Our data sheet takes a closer look at elective home education, what local authorities need to do inline with the Education Act and how they can best support children and families. You can read it here.

Cygnum from CACI used by Network Rail as planning & administration solution for training across its workforce

Posted on: 13 June 2023

CACI is delighted to announce that its Cygnum software is now being used as Network Rail’s planning and administration solution for training its 43,000-strong workforce.

Cygnum supports all aspects of Network Rail’s training management, from automated creation of courses based on demand, intelligent allocation of staff, trainers and resources to courses, to communication of planning and optimisation of changes. Cygnum will assist Network Rail in achieving a holistic view of all its training and results, helping it to realise efficiencies across the process and ensure that all staff are appropriately trained. The attendance and results of courses are logged in Cygnum, with the system submitting course invitation and joining instructions to Network Rail staff, as well as actioning any follow-ups as required.

“We are delighted that Network Rail has chosen CACI’s Cygnum software to support and underpin its training planning and administration process,” says Ollie Watson, Group Business Development Director at CACI. “We are looking forward to supporting Network Rail in achieving a more efficient and streamlined training programme that delivers necessary and ongoing training to its workforce as optimally as possible.”

For more information on Cygnum and how it supports businesses, please visit: https://www.caci.co.uk/software/cygnum/

Making the most of Synergy through our User Group

Posted on: 1 June 2023

Of the many benefits that Synergy, our PLICS system offers NHS costing teams, did you know that unrestricted access to a user-led group community was one of them?

What is the Synergy User Group?

The Synergy User Group unites NHS organisations from the UK, Ireland and Scotland in an online forum that is entirely driven by Synergy users themselves. This brings a genuine and beneficial collaboration opportunity to Synergy users across the UK. We facilitate monthly User Group virtual sessions (and more frequent clinics closer to the mandated submission time) that are for you, by you and to your benefit. Participants can ask each other questions, learn from shared experiences and gain tips on best practices.

How does the Synergy User Group work?

Step 1: CACI invites users to the Synergy User Group

We invite all Synergy users to join the Synergy User Group with new users always welcome to join the cohort of experienced long term Synergy users. Organisations themselves can determine which of their employees should participate in the group. If you’re a new user from an existing customer of ours, or a brand-new customer all together, we will oversee the invitation process and make sure you have access as soon as possible.

Step 2: Chair of the User Group & CACI align on the agenda

Ahead of each monthly meeting, users will set the agenda collectively with the chair of the meeting. CACI and the User Group chair will then meet to discuss what will be included in the agenda, covering off what participants need or want to get out of the meeting. This helps our experts understand what can be improved – whether that’s new functionality, setting up “how-to’s” for users, scheduling more demos, etc.

Step 3: Monthly User Group meetings take place

During the monthly meetings, CACI’s Synergy lead will help guide the session using their wealth of costing and Synergy knowledge. Anything from how the solution works to how it can support priorities being met can be discussed. While CACI help lead the meeting, the meeting ultimately belongs to the User Group attendees and is their time to share, collaborate and discuss. You can also tell us what you’d like to see or discuss in future meetings, from upcoming requirements to outstanding questions you have about the solution.

In addition to the monthly User Group meetings during the busy critical mandated submission period, CACI offer weekly open-drop-in clinics online for all Synergy users. These clinics are held by the highly experienced CACI team. These sessions are scheduled as soon as the submission guidance and software are released and take place well in advance of submission time.

Why should you join the Synergy User Group?

Providing outstanding customer service and support is at the heart of what we do. CACI want to ensure that our Synergy Costing and Finance teams feel supported individually and collectively – with the ease of use and flexibility of Synergy being the driving force to great outcomes. Your self-sufficiency will flourish by joining the User Group and being given the freedom to control the conversation; getting the answers you need to enhance your Synergy experience and carry out your tasks in the most efficient way for you.

The User Group:

Promotes self-sufficiency by allowing our users to work together and use the roadmap as their own.
Brings more to the table than just a costing solution. The User Group is there for you to utilise as you see fit. You can have as much or as little support or involvement from us during your usage as you want.
Allows you to get the most out of Synergy whatever your technical background. Synergy is built with every employee in mind, freeing up your team’s time to dedicate effort and resources to improving your business functions.

What are Synergy User Group participants saying about the group?

Michelle Barnes, Assistant Director of Finance at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT), told us why the Synergy User Group has had such a profound impact on her team’s success.

“The User Group forum feels like it belongs to the Trusts – it’s not a sales update for CACI. It’s a chance to ask each other questions, as well as the CACI consultants. For example, peers might demo what they’re doing with reports – it’s a really good forum because it shows how people use the system in practice. It’s truly collaborative and interactive. Spin-off groups have emerged for different aspects, like the dashboards, and it’s so useful to be able to talk directly to other mental health and community trusts, because our needs can be different from acute trusts,” she explained.

“It’s a strong relationship – we’ve had great support and interaction with everyone from the account manager to the trainers and helpdesk. We had a few IT issues related to our firewall and making connections through it. CACI’s consultants were really responsive and came back to us very quickly to get this sorted. They were always progressing what they needed to and checking that things were satisfactorily resolved. The Synergy User Group is great – it helps us continue to explore and make the most of the solution, to deliver more decision insight and value for our Trust.”

If you’d like to find out more about getting involved in the Synergy User Group, please contact our expert, Susan Brooks, or take a look at Synergy, our PLICS system and what our customers have to say about it.

How Milton Keynes Youth Offending Team uses ChildView to support its work

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Milton Keynes Youth Offending Team, is part of the multi agency youth justice partnership involving Milton Keynes Council, Thames Valley Police, Education and Public Health. The team started using Childview, a specialist youth offending information system from CACI, in 2009 following migration from their previous YOIS System. ChildView is used by 31 multi-disciplinary workers at Milton Keynes Council and the team has 160 active youth justice cases at the time of writing.

The administrative problems solved by ChildView

The youth offending team at Milton Keynes Council was using a system of spreadsheets to process and record information. The team realised that ChildView would provide an integrated whole service recording and reporting solution to reduce and enhance oversight across cases and referrals into and out of its services.

“ChildView can hold all the information we need and allow active case management,” says Phil Coles, business support and information manager Milton Keynes Youth Offending Team. “I know some YOTs have issues with aspects of their youth justice work. Generally, I’ve found that these issues are due to not having defined business processes that support (or dictate) the recording practices. Using a system like ChildView helps us to define our processes, whilst maintaining all our data in the same place.

“An example of this is the active management of referrals. By using agreed recording processes, we can instantly see which cases have been referred to another agency and whether they have reviewed the case yet. Then we can see when they accept the case and, finally, when they complete their work for us. This used to be managed in folders, then it became a spreadsheet but – by mapping processes – we’ve now got it to a single ChildView report which has a variety of views for each type of referral and whether it’s active or complete. We are also able to provide all stats that have been requested so far, for example how many referrals have been made (or completed) during a period.”

The benefits of ChildView for Milton Keynes YOT

With the underlying importance of the complex work increasingly undertaken by the team, this enables risks to be captured and tracked in near real time. This facilitates holistic case formulation to ensure vulnerable young people in the area achieve the best possible responses. To this end, being able to report on activities and send and receive data in real time on incidents and cases is vital.

“I have written about 150 reports, many of which contain multiple views, and have found that ChildView facilitates rapid access to information for myself and my team,” says Phil. “We are able to store all necessary documents within the application and are just looking at using the communications module to further integrate letters into the system.”

The built-in reporting functionality with ChildView has also supported Milton Keynes YOT. “It’s sufficient for the majority of requests that we receive,” adds Phil. This helps to meet the needs of the service, with relevant information being captured in locally defined reports. ChildView also uniquely transfers whole case data records between YOTs, which increases accuracy and reduce the effort and risk in tracking young people as they move localities.

Being able to send, receive and view the full case management story, relational history and context swiftly and securely makes it much easier for YOTs to engage and formulate an effective response with incoming cases, crucially being able to understand what has happened to each young person.

Support from CACI’s specialist team

“I’ve always had excellent support from CACI when making queries or raising issues,” says Phil. “There have been times when a resolution has taken time to arrive at, but they are always worked on. Raising queries is very straightforward and the team is always quick to respond.”

CACI, as part of its service level agreement, responds to all ChildView support queries received by 5pm on the same day. This helps to give clarity over how issues and queries are dealt with and to provide practical next steps. The support desk is staffed from 9-5:30 Monday to Friday, with 24/7 web support call logging available as well.

“Myself and my team have generally found ChildView to be easy to use,” concludes Phil. “It does what we need it to do and I haven’t been asked for anything that I haven’t been able to get out of the system.”

For more information on ChildView, please visit: www.caci.co.uk/childview