Mike Wilkinson, Author at CACI

Helping BT price their services

Posted on: 24 June 2021

The challenge

The balance between price and churn is never an easy one. In a highly competitive market, even the smallest change in rate plans can have a significant impact on a company’s overall revenue.

With a sharp decrease of landline rentals and an increase reliability on bundle packages prices, BT needed to ensure they had full visibility of customer line rental usage as well as a deep understanding of how much they could push price increases without hurting their customer base.

The solution

For over 20 years, BT has partnered with CACI for dynamic re-pricing and analysis. Powered by an in memory powerful platform, this analysis has helped BT maintain its market-leading status.

Recently however, due to increased competition, BT needed more than just a generic analytics platform. They needed a holistic approach to predictive modelling.

To do that, BT utilised CACI’s many years of industry experience of implementing large-scale predictive analytics over granular data, enriched by the CACI service team. By using a complex modelling written in Python and R, including neural networks and complex forecasting methods, CACI has been able to provide BT with predicted outcomes based on BT’s full business customer base, rather than having to rely on samples of aggregated data.

Qlik Sense was used to deliver dashboard solutions to the BT teams, giving them a clear, easily digestible, visualisation of complex analytics. In addition, the Qlik Sense on demand App generation now means BT can change inputs into the algorithms and rely on the in memory platform to process the results in a timely manner.

The results

This strategically outsourced approach has allowed BT to control its costs without constraining creativity.

15 months’ worth of BT’s over all daily calls are analysed and re-priced, allowing BT to have full visibility of the impact of price changes on revenue and customers.

The predictive modelling gives BT much more than just the ability of analysing data at a granular level. It gives BT a deep understanding of its customer’s behaviour, allowing the company to balance churn and price with a minimum impact to customer retention.

Big data in retail banking

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The challenge

CACI were approached in 2003 by a British retail brand about to launch their first personal banking products including credit and debit accounts. They had not previously had a solution in place to store data and were looking for a data warehousing solution that would also support their marketing efforts.

Requirements included business intelligence and management reporting capabilities, including a campaign analytics framework, which led CACI to provide a managed service that would fulfil core functions, including a database management system, a data warehouse and daily finance marts for weekly credit risk evaluation.

The solution

Working in close collaboration from day one, CACI were able to establish the Bank’s requirements with a solution design and project plan. Oracle database, Informatica ETL and MicroStrategy BI reporting were recommended as the most suitable tools for system inception, alongside the campaign marketing tool and SAS analytics.

To ensure quality in delivery and effective controls over delivery, CACI planned and participated in code reviews, system testing and Disaster Recovery testing. CACI implemented Penetration testing and document findings, appointing a dedicated Project Manager as a single point of contact and escalation point for the resolution of issues.

The technical solution was constructed to the Bank’s exact requirements. Services provided included a Service Desk (ITIL compliant), Extract Transform and Load, provision of Basel reporting and provision of data to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. CACI executed marketing campaigns and daily finance reporting providing liquidity management output, based upon data. The data modelling and analysis services were provided with the execution of monthly finance reporting with consultancy services to analyse, design, develop, test and Quality Assurance, managed by an experienced team of CACI analysts.

CACI fulfilled delivery on-time and on-budget providing service management including 24/7 Oracle database administration, upgrading the warehouse database management system. Reporting client tools, processing data 24/7 into the corporate data warehouse, keeping it current, accurate, secure and available and running development projects allowed the Bank to receive and process data feed files from new suppliers and changing suppliers when required.

CACI’s project implementation methodology incorporated a realistic project estimate, detailed project planning and project management. The solution involved databases ranging from 100 GB to 4 TB in size, a database management system, data management and reporting systems and a strategic data warehouse system. CACI used their release management process guiding each stage through to completion. A mandatory code review and deployment checklist with mandatory testing along with a mature change management process and dress rehearsals prior to project implementation were also included, completing the project on-time and on-budget.

Over the past year, the database space has grown from 4 TB to 6.5 TB, as new data from website activities have been ingested, creating a steady growth rate of 40 GB monthly.

The results

The bank was supported post-implementation by CACI’s Managed Services Programme combining regular reviews, call support of load processes and service availability.

CACI delivered the system integral to business operations satisfying the marketing, financial and regulatory requirements. A stable, secure and reliable system ensured that timely data was available to support all business functions and all 410 users.

In the years since, the data warehouse now stores 80% of the Bank’s data, enabling a single view of the customer across 54 million accounts and 3.7 billion transactions. With 68 data sources being ingested daily, the bank is able to market to existing and new customers in the best way possible, as well as manage their customer data to provide an excellent service.

The Bank have since engaged CACI for multiple projects across their data needs.

The Care Quality Commission’s journey to become more intelligence driven

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The challenge

In 2015 the Care Quality Commission (CQC) significantly revised their inspection methodology to become more intelligence driven. The new methodology required more resource and time to visit organisations, with up to 3,000 external resources added to an existing pool of 3,000 CQC inspectors to meet the demand of 20,000 inspections a year.

The old ways

Initially CQC managed the scheduling and processes for this change through localised spreadsheets, disparate systems, emails and paper. They quickly realised, however, that there were difficulties with this approach. A spreadsheet crashed or data accidentally got overridden, wasting time and adding pressure to an already complex operation. Resource allocation was not necessarily based on demand, which resulted in inconsistencies and potential for local variation. Recording how much actual time was spent on inspections was not visible, and management information was difficult to collect and interpret.

Changing course

To address these issues, CQC decided to invest in a centralised scheduling and operational management system. The vision was to find a single, national system that could handle scheduling right across the organisation and its various remits. This would need the flexibility to have different business rules for different areas, whilst still driving resource allocation as efficiently and fairly as possible. Additionally, the system would need to allow elements of digital self-service for the inspection workforce, as well as the ability to effectively record their work. Imperative to all of this was the ability to easily and clearly draw upon – and make business decisions using – reliable management information from within the system.

CQC were keen to implement a web-based cloud solution that would ease internal IT demands. They were keen that the new solution would interact with their existing core systems and would meet the stringent security levels required for processing their data.

The solution

Following a rigorous procurement process through a Crown Commercial Services framework, CQC selected the Cygnum system from technology supplier CACI. Cygnum is a digital solution for resource scheduling and case management that helps organisations work smarter, improve service quality and reduce risk.

Scheduling engine

Primarily CQC’s core functional requirements were to be met by Cygnum’s powerful demand driven scheduling engine. This functionality was configured to match CQC’s business rules, including automation and optimisation, and the provision of a centralised view of scheduling, inspections and resources.

Work-flow functionality

Additionally, Cygnum’s web portal was configured to give Inspectors their own self-service capability, with features such as declaring availability, swapping and accepting additional work, and requesting leave, all accessible and underpinned by Cygnum’s workflow functionality.

“The general setup of system was configured for how we work – with a centralised chart, we could see all inspections and resources. And then the underlying rules we could configure to our business. It’s a very flexible system, we change it a lot, there’s a lot of change in how we work!”
Tim Corringham, Resource Planning Practice Manager Planning, Change and Improvement Customer and Corporate Services, CQC

Timesheet module

Cygnum’s timesheet module was also implemented to record actual work done. Based on planned time, this feature allows staff to confirm what they have actually spent time on during a working week.

Reporting toolsets

The reporting toolsets within Cygnum were important to CQC too. Cygnum is shipped with many standard reports; however, the reporting tools were configured during implementation to provide additional graphical dashboards and reports for specific user groups, completely bespoke and relevant for CQC.

System implementation

CACI provided CQC’s Cygnum implementation as a secure, cloud-based solution, removing effort and risk for the internal IT department. The system was successfully implemented to integrate with CQC’s existing service-orientated integration tool, providing real-time integration with the NHS Payroll system and the in-house CRM system.

Using proven tools and process, CACI’s delivery team worked closely and collaboratively with CQC’s team to foster a strong partnership and successful delivery on time and to budget.

“We liked the user interface, it was a user-friendly system. It had good reporting capabilities, and we wanted to report using the data. We could see travel times.”
Tim Corringham, Resource Planning Practice Manager Planning, Change and Improvement Customer and Corporate Services, CQC

The results

CQC now use Cygnum to schedule and resource all their inspections, across all inspection directorates. This includes 1,500 inspectors that utilise the self-service capabilities of Cygnum daily, self-scheduling inspections for their portfolio.

Automation

Additionally, in 2018/19 up to 45% of annual inspections were scheduled automatically based on CQC specific rules using Cygnum’s auto-allocation software. This has freed up time for inspectors, enabling them to focus on other work and has ensured fair and consistent schedules are maintained.

Cygnum also manages resource availability and absence, with an end-to-end workflow process in place from user request through to approval, which streamlines the process, reduces administrative cost and generates centralised management information.

Introduction of timesheets across the organisation has been a major change of culture but is now proving invaluable for CQC in carrying out demand modelling for future planning and budgeting.

“We record where people spend their time. We use that data for resource modelling: how many inspectors do we need to deliver against our business plan and strategy. We’re now using almost entirely Cygnum data for that. It was based on assumptions before, now it’s based on data; you need this many staff.”
Tim Corringham, Resource Planning Practice Manager Planning, Change and Improvement Customer and Corporate Services, CQC

Independence

A further significant benefit for CQC has been the ability to maintain aspects of the system themselves. This has meant that CQC’s trained team can change areas such as reports, forms and workflow settings without having to contact CACI.

CQC continue to build on the investment made in Cygnum with an ongoing system change scheme in place to consider agile and incremental ongoing improvement for the future.

Moving projects, scheduling and services forward remotely

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The value of remote, off-premise delivery solutions rose exponentially during the outbreak of Covid-19, accelerating moves towards virtual environments which had been mooted for many years. The framework existed, it was simply a matter of taking the plunge and committing to such delivery methods for meetings, training and project management.

Caerphilly County Borough Council has been using Cygnum from CACI for 11 years to provide its workforce management solutions, ensuring that it has the right people in the right places, performing the right tasks. As a council, Caerphilly needs to stay on top of several different areas, so a requirement for flexibility sits at the heart of its operations. It was vital, therefore, that Caerphilly found nimble solutions, quickly, when faced with the mandatory lockdown put in place at the outbreak of Covid-19.

FUSION is CACI’s project management delivery methodology, which helps its clients to shape, create and utilise its services. FUSIONhub is an extension of this methodology designed to encompass and embrace off-premise project delivery.

Acting as a virtual consultancy, FUSIONhub enables all users to keep in touch and keep up to date, wherever they are. All of CACI’s processes, tools and deliverables are available whenever and wherever they are needed. Taking advantage of an increasingly connected world, FUSIONhub delivers unparalleled flexibility in project management and delivery.

About Caerphilly

Caerphilly County Borough Council uses Cygnum to operate its Home Care and Reablement services. These provide vital care and support to those in need within the borough, supporting people to stay at home. The smooth running of these services is vital to ensure that Caerphilly can look after those in need in a timely and appropriate manner. To operate an effective service, Caerphilly relies upon a team of approximately 300 staff, which it schedules through Cygnum.

Caerphilly and FUSIONhub

Frontline services didn’t stop in the face of Covid-19. Councils still needed to deliver their key services and Caerphilly was no different. With previously office-based staff now working from home, it necessitated a rethink in how Caerphilly received account management, training and support from CACI in its use of Cygnum.

“We still have projects and services to deliver, so we were interested to see how we could keep adapting and improving our use of Cygnum in a way that was unusual to us at first,” explains Peter Williams, HART Senior Scheduling and IT at Caerphilly County Borough Council. “We were well set in a routine of using Cygnum in our work, contacting our account manager or the support desk when we had any queries and inviting members of the Cygnum team to join us at our offices for more comprehensive account meetings and training sessions.

“Doing this remotely hadn’t really been a consideration previously. We’ve got a busy office of people and generally like to interact face to face. That has always been my preference at least, but Covid-19 made us explore other avenues.”

During the 11 years that Cygnum has been supporting Caerphilly, a well-established relationship had been formed along more traditional lines. Remote meetings and training have always been a possibility, but have never previously been a necessity.

“I’m not sure that this is an avenue we’d have gone down without the change in circumstances,” says Peter. “We were very happy with the way things were regarding Cygnum and the team there. We know all our main contacts there and generally speaking, it’s usually good to see them!

“Once we understood the impact that Covid-19 would have on our operations, we quickly realised that we needed to find a way to stay on top of our training and development and the team at Cygnum came forward with FUSIONhub.”

In order to maintain delivery of a smooth and flexible service, Cygnum uses CACI’s FUSIONhub methodology to ensure that all meetings, training sessions and other deliverables can be completed remotely. Using third party software, it means that the Cygnum team was able to deliver training to Caerphilly via their preferred platform, in this case Zoom. FUSIONhub is available via other virtual meeting rooms such as GoToMeeting, Teams and Skype, too.

“I had used Zoom before, so that was at least familiar,” says Peter. “Whilst I may not have necessarily opted for Cygnum training in this way, I was familiar with the software we were using and I have met Guy Pembroke, who delivered our training, previously. It was an interesting opportunity to see a different way of working, so we all had an open mind going into it.

“There were two of us being trained, myself and a colleague. The training took place over four days and with the lockdown in place, we were in different locations, so having that flexibility was crucial. There was also the added bonus of the remote session saving us time and money – no one had to travel, no one was worried about the session over running so that they could collect the kids from school and we didn’t have to provide lunch, book meeting rooms weeks in advance or anything like that. It was incredibly straightforward.

“The session itself was better than I expected. I was worried it would be difficult to interact without being face-to-face but by being more vocal and using the functionality available in Zoom, it was easy to get the trainer’s attention and re-run through scenarios. I thought Guy did an excellent job in catering for the change of approach to what we’re used to. Once everyone was settled in it was easy to follow.”

Would Caerphilly opt for remote training again in future?

“Yes, we would,” states Peter. “Like everything there are pros and cons, but the flexibility, efficiency and cost savings are certainly appealing. We didn’t feel like we’d missed out on anything by not being in a room with Guy and we got what they needed from the session, too. All in all, it worked really well.”

FUSIONhub is a central component of CACI’s FUSION methodology, helping to ensure that all projects can be managed and completed wherever they are.

Delivering effective product training – enhancing Gwynedd’s use of Cygnum’s reporting functionality remotely

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In the face of a global pandemic, traditional training methods have been disrupted. CACI devised FUSIONhub to keep projects moving remotely. This case study looks at how the Cygnum team successfully delivered remote training to Gwynedd Council.

Gwynedd Council uses Cygnum to support its care services across the county, scheduling carers and keeping track of those in care. These essential services have remained in full flow throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and it has been vital that they have been kept running smoothly to ensure the ongoing safety of those in care and those providing the care.

Deploying a team of 330 carers to operate their services, Gwynedd has been using Cygnum for 10 years. There have been many changes, not least in personnel, during that time, so Mark Hughes, systems manager at the council, required training for himself and his colleague, Chris Griffith, systems officer.

The challenge

“Neither Chris nor myself were in our current posts when Cygnum was first implemented at Gwynedd,” says Mark. “It is something I’ve inherited following an internal restructuring and I was keen that we get up to speed with the system as quickly as possible in order that we can get the most from it.

“Chris was more familiar with the system than me, having been trained on it by his predecessor, but we wanted some formal training to better understand Cygnum’s reporting functionality.”

In normal circumstances, CACI would have arranged for the course trainer, in this case Cygnum product manager, Matt Lewis, to visit Gwynedd’s offices and deliver a two-day training course to Mark and Chris in person. With lockdown rules in place, however, this was not possible.

The solution

CACI devised its FUSIONhub project delivery methodology around virtual management. Just because people have stopped going to the office so frequently, it hasn’t meant that projects have shut down. Keeping them moving has been vitally important not only to CACI, but to its customers as well.

Matt used Cygnum’s standard training course in a way which was responsive to Gwynedd’s specific needs around Cygnum’s reporting functionality. The course was set to be delivered across four half-day sessions, rather than the usual two full days, via Microsoft Teams.

“Matt was very professional and really knew his stuff,” explains Mark. “He ensured that the sessions were very informative and interactive, and kept it interesting at all times. Matt was brilliant, to be honest.”

There had been some apprehension for Gwynedd around delivering such an important training programme virtually, but it was a step that needed to be taken.

“The sessions over Teams worked really well, much better than we anticipated,” says Mark. “Utilising Teams meant we could share screens seamlessly and we could ask for assistance with exercises when required. Matt could easily show us his screen to show us what to do. Running four morning sessions instead of doing it in two long days was a great idea, too, and made it easier to digest.”

The results

“The training has been invaluable,” says Mark. “It has enabled us to make richer use of Cygnum’s reporting functionality and to improve some of the work processes we have in place. We have managed to automate several reports and decrease the manual intervention to format others, giving the end user and managers better quality reporting to use across our services.”

“The training has also enabled us to create reports much faster than before, and it has really opened the door for us to improve other areas of our services as well.”

FUSIONhub is a central component of CACI’s FUSION methodology, helping to ensure that all projects can be managed and completed wherever they are.

Caring for a community

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Scheduling large numbers of workers is a difficult task for any organisation, but when the end users of your services are reliant upon your smooth running for vital care services, the task of scheduling and communication with employees comes with added importance.

This case study looks at how Norfolk County Council uses Cygnum, from CACI, to power the scheduling of its care network, Norfolk First Response. We spoke to Denise Forder, head of service at Norfolk First Response and Kate Saunders, business support manager with Norfolk First Response.

The challenge

Norfolk County Council started using Cygnum in October 2017. “Previously, setting things up and implementing any changes meant lots of phone calls backwards and forwards,” explains Denise. “Whenever you’re relying on that, there are several errors that can occur. Someone writes it down and gives it to someone else and suddenly you’ve got a mix up in the communication. Bringing everything and everyone onto a single system has alleviated a lot of this for us.” Denise Forder, Head of Service, Norfolk First Response

Changing course

Norfolk County Council needed a system that would provide consistency from a single source of truth, helping to reduce instances of human error and proving straightforward to operate across the userbase. “The ease of use was a major factor,” says Denise.

“People come in and out of our services frequently; there is a lot of change,” explains Kate. “We can have five or six new people coming in every day, with five or six going out. Previously we had to phone the workers and then we had a cascade system: we’d phone the first person who was due to go in and so forth. The problem was that connectivity in Norfolk isn’t very good, so it was an issue just getting hold of people.” Kate Saunders, Business Support Manager, Norfolk First Response

The solution

Acting as a central data repository, Cygnum offers Norfolk County Council a 360-degree view of their care services and how they are delivered. Their centrally located management team can keep track of where their carers are, who needs their services and where any gaps are appearing in their service. Using Cygnum’s mobile app extension, inTOUCH, Norfolk County Council can dynamically send schedules and messages to its carers, whilst receiving back completed forms and updates from them whilst out in the field.

Cygnum enables Norfolk County Council to schedule and communicate with care workers to ensure the continued smooth running of its key services.

Implementing a new solution

“One of our biggest problems was the fact that a lot of our support workers had never used technology before,” says Kate. “Getting our support workers to use technology was challenging – the culture change was huge.

“New staff coming in who didn’t know the old service picked it up and got on with it straight away. They took to it easily, certainly far more easily than existing staff. Some of the negativity from frontline managers impacted on some of the support workers, but generally they have been a lot more receptive to the change.” Kate Saunders, Business Support Manager, Norfolk First Response

“Most of them love it now!” adds Denise. “When we have down time, everyone freaks out a bit which shows how well the software has integrated with our services.” Denise Forder, Head of Service, Norfolk First Response

Planning and scheduling

A lot of Norfolk County Council’s care work is planned and using the wallchart functionality in Cygnum it can auto-allocate schedules for its carers and communicate this with them via InTouch.

“We roster 380 staff though Cygnum,” says Denise. “We do auto-allocation of rosters with manual intervention where holidays or sickness occur. This has been easy and we put the information into Cygnum and it is received as a message by the staff member via inTOUCH, which is where Cygnum really comes into its own for us. It can take a bit of time to get right, but it’s absolutely worth it because it results in high quality, reliable information for us and our staff.” Denise Forder, Head of Service, Norfolk First Response

“I’ve got two managers who absolutely hated the idea of Cygnum initially but are now evangelists for it!” adds Kate. “It has made a real difference to the way in which we can work.” Kate Saunders, Business Support Manager, Norfolk First Response

The results

Norfolk started using Cygnum in October 2017, meaning that around 5750 people had been through its services by March 2020. Over 700 care practitioners had been assigned over 100,000 action points in relation to Norfolk’s care services in that time, too.

Care plans: keeping a track of what care is needed, down to individual tasks for service users, is vital for an empathetic and effective service. Norfolk uses Cygnum’s care plan to do this, ensuring that service user preferences, needs and timings are always understood and considered
Scheduling: Based on service users’ needs, Norfolk’s care workers are scheduled in the right place, at the right time, using Cygnum’s powerful matching functionality
Mobile working: via Cygnum’s mobile app extension, inTOUCH, Norfolk can publish the schedule and communicate with its care workers in real time
Management information: Norfolk uses Cygnum’s reporting tools to keep a track of how its service is performing

Youth Justice Services Cheshire

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Youth Justice Services in Cheshire (covering Cheshire East and West, Halton and Warrington) is one of the largest youth offending teams in the country covering four local authorities. The service benefits from a future-focused, multi-agency and multi-professional youth justice system that complies with the YJB AssetPlus framework, whilst supporting data exchange with 3rd party systems.

The challenge

Youth Justice Services in Cheshire is at the forefront of multiagency innovation with initiatives such as their liaison and diversion services, public protection management, safeguarding and complex-needs boards. Such initiatives depend on timely and effective intelligence and information exchange between multiple agencies that can be accessed securely at any time from a wide range of locations and networks.

The solution

CACI is working with Youth Justice Services in Cheshire, through the recently launched Centre of Excellence partnership, to explore new ways of organising and accessing common data. So far this has involved integrating data from a number of sources across the four local authorities and piloting a new mobile app to enable partner agencies to input case data through a single interface.

The results

CACI’s partnership with Youth Justice Services in Cheshire has helped to better serve young people and their families and generate better life outcomes at lower cost. This is delivered through innovation in the way in which they manage their service and information exchange across the four local authorities, irrespective of political imperatives and priorities.

“Centre of Excellence status is a great opportunity for us to accelerate our plans. It gives us the opportunity to further develop service delivery with innovative technology and functionality, ensuring we can work at the forefront of regional and national practice.”
Gareth Jones, Head of Service, Youth Justice Services in Cheshire

Southampton City Council

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Southampton City Council’s 14 Children’s Centres help ensure children get the best start in life. Since 2007, CACI’s Children’s Centre Manager (CCM) has been used across all centres to record family registration details and the services they use.

The challenge

The solution

Southampton City Council Children’s Centres data team benefit from having access to data from other agencies. Being able to integrate this data was critical but the amount of work involved in managing this process, on ever tighter budgets, was proving difficult for the council. CACI introduced the Hub – a sophisticated data quality and data matching application – which integrates and automatically updates data records between the council and other agencies. After the automated process is complete the user receives a report outlining import results.

The results

Southampton City Council are now able to complete their data integration process within a significantly reduced time period, and have also seen an increase in their data quality.

“Over the course of a year it used to take us in the region of 60 days of effort -this can now be completed in closer to 10 days. This saves us 10 weeks a year!
On top of that we have seen an improvement in data quality. The Hub revealed to us existing quality and duplicate issues that we were unaware of, and we can easily spot any occasional duplicates that may be entered into the CCM database.”
Andy Hart, Management Information Officer, Southampton City Council

Newham Council

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The challenge

Newham Council serves a population of 310,000 and has one of the largest cohorts of pupils in London. It processes in excess of 5,000 reception applications and around 4,000, Year 7 applications every autumn. In addition, it must allocate school places in response to 7,000-8,000 in-year applications per annum.

The council had an existing geographic information system (GIS) that was used to calculate home to school distances to help allocate school places according to strict over-subscription criteria, including which catchment area and parish children live in. This system was very cumbersome and did little to speed up what was a time consuming, complex and stressful task for the council’s school admissions team.

Checking the distance measurements was a rigorous task and an inefficient use of team leader’s time. Newham Council wanted to focus on the family and avoid mistakes so every child received the correct school offer. If, for example, home-to-school distances were inaccurately calculated, it could lead to an increase in appeals, substantial administrative and legal costs, damaging negative publicity and a loss of trust in the community.

While council staff found the demands of the admissions process complex, so too did parents, carers and guardians. Many families found it hard to understand how places were allocated, and high volumes of calls were made to the council’s call centre every year requesting information on home-to-school distances and the precise catchment boundaries. These telephone enquiries were costly for the council, weren’t always helpful for parents, carers and guardians, and the information between the front and the back end systems did not always match.

The solution

Newham Council implemented a two-fold approach, in partnership with CACI they developed a new distance measuring system which rapidly calculates accurate catchment and distance information for each pupil and their school preference. It also integrates with the council’s Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) to give accurate, up-to-date address information.

CACI and Newham Council also worked alongside Esri UK to implement a geographic information system (GIS), named School Locator app, which integrates with CACI’s admissions system. The app acts as a public-facing web portal, where parents, carers and guardians can see catchment areas, Catholic parishes, closest schools, interactive maps and the all-important home-to-school distances tie-breakers (both shortest walking and straight line), most of which would previously have been impossible for the public to determine without contacting the council by telephone.

The results

The implementation of CACI’s more accurate admissions system and integrated School Locator app, enables the council’s school admissions team to work more productively, processing applications more quickly and efficiently. Significantly, this solution has given Newham Council true confidence in the rigour of its school admissions process and reduced risk. Newham Council’s admissions decisions are now based on even more accurate location information and the same criteria are applied consistently to all applications.

The greatest benefit, for Tracy Jones, Head of Pupil Services at Newham and her team, is the clarity the solution delivers for residents. Schools and families can now simply visit a web portal to see exactly which catchment area pupils live in, identify their nearest schools and calculate distances. There is now complete transparency between the information the council and the parents sees, resulting in complete openness about school admissions decisions.

Newham Council typically handles more than 1,500 school admission appeals a year, at a cost of around £50 each. If the recent implementation of CACI’s admissions system and Esri’s School Locator App were to decrease this figure by just 20 per cent, it would save Newham Council £15,000 a year. By reducing the odds of appeals progressing to judicial review, the new system could potentially save the council many more tens of thousands of pounds.

Hackney Youth Justice service

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Hackney Youth Justice Service works with multiple agencies in the London Borough of Hackney to reduce youth offending and reoffending, and mitigate the impact of crime on families, communities and victims. Information sharing between these agencies is critical to managing the risks and vulnerabilities associated with young people, their families and the community.

The challenge

Hackney Youth Justice Service stores files about young people in its service using a document management system, Open Text eDocs. Adding data to this system was very manual and time consuming, and involved sourcing information from multiple systems. This opened up the risk of error and sharing the wrong information with the wrong people, as well as making data sharing very difficult.

The solution

CACI integrated eDocs with the ChildView youth justice application, ensuring all documents are accessed from a single source. Integration works both ways, so when a file is added to eDocs it is immediately added to the person record in ChildView. The system is used by youth offending workers to access documents from across the council and other agencies including social care and health services.

The results

Since adding an integration layer between eDocs and ChildView, Hackney Youth Justice Service has been able to save considerable time in storing, sharing and acting on information. And because documents are now stored in one place they have also been able to save on IT storage and associated costs.

“The difference that integration between eDocs and ChildView has made to our service cannot be understated. Something as simple as having every single document all in one place saves us time and money, and ensures we are acting on the right information all the time.”
Brendan Finegan, Service Manager, Hackney Youth Justice