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The Department for Work and Pensions and Capgemini Consulting create a new operating model aligned to four key business areas

The Department for Work and Pensions and Capgemini Consulting create a new operating model aligned to four key business areas

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The Department for Work and Pensions asked Capgemini Consulting to design a new operating model and suggest a paradigm shift in the Planning and Performance Management Directorate’s processes and interaction with its key stakeholder areas in the DWP. An impending Spending Review meant timeframes were tight: Capgemini designed and delivered a new user-acceptable operating model within three months. This highly consultative project drew on the expertise of Capgemini Consulting’s finance transformation team and resulted in improved information structures enabling effective budgetary forecasting.

Managing and financing programmes of change or development can be a complex process, especially so in organisations that are both in the public eye and involve different departments often vying for the same budget.

At the UK Government’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), this was very much the case as an impending Spending Review loomed on the horizon. This Review would inevitably place heavy demands on costs, performance and funding capabilities and the Planning and Performance Management Directorate urgently wanted to get its house in order.

With a proven record of successful delivery within the DWP and other public sector organisations, Capgemini Consulting was asked not just to design a new operating model, but to suggest a paradigm shift in the Planning and Performance Management Directorate’s processes and interaction with its key stakeholder areas within the DWP.

One of the areas in need of urgent change was the inability to prioritise projects so that often the most pressing issues were overlooked in favour of projects (or project teams) better equipped to make a stronger case for funding. There was little in the way of collaboration between departments and the finance function within the Planning and Performance Management Directorate had insufficient information on which to base forecasting and budgetary decisions.

A key challenge would be the timescale – the directorate wanted its new ways of working to be operational in time for the forthcoming Spending Review. Capgemini obliged by designing and delivering a new user-acceptable operating model within three months.

This was a highly consultative project, drawing on the expertise within Capgemini Consulting’s finance transformation team for what would essentially be a transformation in ways of working and collaborating.

A number of key deliverables were expected of Capgemini:

  • To turn things round quickly
  • To enable better decision-making
  • To achieve a single version of the truth
  • To develop people and capabilities
  • To provide the tools to keep new processes and methodologies working
  • To ensure senior points of contact had KPIs that would ensure success.

Capgemini liaised closely within the DWP’s four key areas of business to create a framework of responsibilities that was then shared with each area. A series of workshops played a central role in the early discovery stages.

Commitment from the leadership was important so it was vital for Capgemini’s framework to reflect the different executive level objectives and then for the project team to ensure information could be cascaded down from the very top.

A calendar of deliverables defined a roadmap throughout the three-month programme of transformation and the finance team within the Planning and Performance Management Directorate was restructured. A sequential approach to funding has now been introduced – everyone knows who does what and when, and there is executive sign off for each of the business areas. Previously, project funding was allocated in an ad hoc manner.

Information structures have been improved so that ultimate ministerial sign-off for expenditure is based on accurate information on project priorities and costs. Forecasting is now carried out on a rolling forecast with a three-year horizon.

Simon Parkes, Director of Finance in the DWP’s Planning and Performance Management Directorate, was asked for three words to describe working with Capgemini. His response was: “I think partnership, and we very much worked in partnership with them. Pace, twelve weeks was very challenging. But above all, and I think most importantly, delivery.”

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