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Hitachi Consulting UK Enables Luton Borough Council to Improve Efficiency

Hitachi Consulting UK has announced the deployment of a Performance Management Portal for Luton Borough Council (LBC) based on Microsoft's Business Intelligence platform. The key objective was to help Luton Borough Council monitor and manage its performance by making it easier for LBC staff and partners, including local Primary Care Trust (PCT) and Police to collate and share the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) easily.

Out of 198 national indicators – as defined by the Audit Commission – up to 35 are chosen by each council to be achieved by 2011 and these form part of their Local Area Agreement (LAA). However, a recent report by the Audit Commission found that councils are sometimes basing important decisions on unreliable information.

LBC was heavily reliant on manual processes – reporting systems were labour intensive and access to information by relevant stakeholders and partner organisations, such as the Police and PCT, was not straightforward or readily available.

Hitachi Consulting UK provided business consulting, analysis and development services to assist LBC in the following areas:
- Define the business requirements for a Performance Management solution and
develop a roadmap, business case and strategy for the deployment of the solution
- Verify the use of the Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) platform to support the
Performance Management strategy and business requirements
- Initiate Phase 1 of the Performance Management Portal solution including the design, development and deployment of the solution to the LBC performance management corporate reporting team, departmental performance officers and LBC partners; Police and PCT
- Install and configure the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 environment to support the Performance Management Portal solution and other strategic portal applications
- Plan Phases 2 and 3 of the Performance Management Portal scheduled for 2010.

Hitachi Consulting UK implemented a Performance Management solution using the Microsoft Business Intelligence platform to support LBC performance management requirements today and in the future. It provides a joined-up and common framework to be used across all LBC's 18 service areas, as well as external partner organisations, via a Web-based portal, to access and input data. Not only does the system reduce the need for manual processes, increase day to day business and process efficiency associated with data collation from telephone calls, emails and Excel spreadsheets, and improve reporting capabilities, the Performance Management solution is a way in which LBC can realise the benefits and value of its Microsoft deployments since signing up to a 3-year Microsoft Enterprise Agreement in July 2008.

The council has also used the technologies purchased in the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, which has seen a saving of some £2.8 m over a 3-year period to implement this system. For the Portal, it is expected that further benefits will be seen, once this system is then utilised across the council, as the corporate system for the production and sharing of any information related to the performance of services across the Council.



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