Bringing a whole-of-government, customer centred approach to solving the toughest social issues

Disclaimer: This article was written by Todd Barclay in his personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this article are my own and do not necessarily reflect the view of KPMG.

1. Introduction

We are embarking upon an emerging era of modern government that is customer-centred, agile, and digitally enabled and inspired for future change.

Successfully navigating the debt journey facing many economies ahead will require governments to abandon traditional thinking.

They should strategically replace the typical reliance on program cuts and funding restraints with the pursuit of new programs, investments and innovations that underpin sustained economic growth and advancement.

Investment in revolutionary technologies, platforms, processes, and systems — this is what will enable government to be responsive, cost-efficient, and customer-centred.

To this end, there is an opportunity to achieve long-term structural change in how social services are delivered to solve the toughest social issues, by placing customers truly at the centre of service design and delivery.

Existing funding mechanisms prevent government from assessing each customer’s full, end-to-end social support needs, and placing these needs at the centre of service design.

As Taylor Fry’s NSW-focused report entitled, ‘Forecasting Future Outcomes 2018’ proved: For high-risk cohorts, their needs are often complex and extend beyond the bounds of a single agency’s operational remit, therefore requiring a more holistic, whole-of-government approach to service delivery.

In cases where there is an attempt to cater for these needs, existing operational footprints, privacy considerations, cross-agency information sharing restrictions, and a lack of cross-agency governance arrangements make it difficult.

Very rarely can complex challenges such as, ‘children at risk of poor outcomes as young adults,’ or delivering ‘better education outcomes for children with disabilities,’ be the sole responsibility of a single government agency.

What’s more, the customer journey extends across State and Commonwealth agencies under Australia’s federated system of government.

Yet how governments define these problems, fund initiatives to address them, and then organise and deploy resources operationally is done on this basis.

Due to the evolving societal needs, and an increase in levels of transparency around how government services are performing against these needs, government organisations are more overtly putting customer centricity front-and-centre.

The pandemic has given the world — and governments — an unexpected, but highly revealing glimpse of what’s possible.

Forward-looking governments are already using the momentum they have created for themselves during the pandemic, seizing an unanticipated ‘golden opportunity’ for historic innovation.

2. How public services evolve to meet customer needs and expectations is changing.

Governments can continue to evolve by building new capabilities for agility that ideally will position them to readily move in and out of the roles that they hold in supplying public programs and services.

Governments should challenge themselves to try something different – incentivise agencies to think about all the possible social services their most complex customers might need from government and work together to design a complete solution.

Governments that pursue agile and fully connected service design models turn systemic, multi-generational challenges that have dogged affected families and communities into opportunities for advancement.

The biggest challenge is not a desire, nor funding to change (a couple of years back, the Australian Commonwealth Government slated A$5 billion of funding to this over the succeeding 10 years), but transitioning away from legacy systems, policies, and processes.

There are several tangible examples from other jurisdictions which prove localised place-based solutions are the answer, such as the New Zealand Government’s Social Sector Trials program between 2011-17.

New Zealand's Social Sector Trials were set up by the John Key Government to test a new approach to improving service delivery by reorganising funding and decision-making processes across the social sector, and shifting control to local levels.

Focussed on 12-18 year olds, the high-level outcomes for the Trials were to:

1. Reduce truancy.
2. Reduce offending by young people.
3. Reduce alcohol and drug abuse by young people.
4. Increase participation of young people in education, training or employment.

The Trials were implemented in a partnership between the Ministries of Social Development, Justice, Health, Education and New Zealand Police, overseen by accountable ministers and their chief executives. Key achievements identified by an independent evaluation were:

1. The Trials have improved community collaboration.
2. The Trials have increased community responsiveness to issues faced by young people.
3. There is now a broader base of services aimed at young people in each Trial location.
4. The Trials have made progress in achieving outcomes for young people and the wider community.

The challenge for government includes abandoning the traditional continuum of working in silos, hiring in silos, and spending in silos.

This approach needs to be replaced with a services model that’s designed from the outside in, putting customers at the centre of a complete digital ecosystem that makes the most of all the data that exists about an individual to unlock timely insights and enable the delivery of a tailored, whole-of-government service to them.

As David Thodey’s 2019 Review of the Australian Public Service evidenced, the nature of skills in the public service needs to shift to allow for future changes in work, and to enable transferability in a ‘single public service’.

The future of government demands greater connectivity across agencies.

Step 1 requires building an understanding and mapping all the interdependencies and intersections of current social services, and the disparate funding envelopes which sit across each of the agencies supplying each service.

There then needs to be clarity on the governing legislation; the data needed and where its collected; what are individual agency versus whole-of-government goals; and who are the target customers.

The future is about breaking down silos and getting connected. Connecting within clusters of agencies, and across clusters.

Future-focused governments are shaping new operating models in which every part of the government, end to end, is working with every other element to deliver against the big picture.

3. Most Australian governments know the statistical profile of ‘children at risk of poor outcomes as young adults.’ But what’s less clear, is how to operationalise in a connected way.

Constructing, deploying, and governing cross-agency case management teams that deliver targeted support packages to those most in need currently doesn’t exist.

If this can be achieved, not only will more children be kept safe, but less money will need to be spent in the future on resolving the residual health, education and social challenges that arise because of domestic abuse, and the myriad of other devastating traumas that affect these children through violence.

Focus on four things:

1. Understand what the actual pain points are.
2. Establish a customer-centred operating model which draws on the skills of all required agencies in a fully integrated way.
3. Tailor the model to suit specific and unique local needs.
4. Individualise the solution so it works for the individual and their family.

Orient solutions around four goals:

1. Remove duplication where it exists across multiple agencies who are working with the same individuals. Traditionally, customers are treated like a different citizen for each agency they deal with.
2. Successfully redefine what ‘service delivery’ means for social services across government, where the customer is entrenched truly at the centre.
3. Central agencies should incentivise delivery agencies to phase out legacy policies that no longer deliver the impact needed.
4. Prioritisation of programs that can show a whole-of-government approach and a strong investment case.

4. Questions to consider when designing and implementing a whole-of-government, outcomes-based model of operation…

Service delivery

• How do we break down the silos that have traditionally inhibited government’s ability to solve our toughest issues in society?
• How can multiple agencies work together to deliver services with efficiency and agility to fulfil a seamless and tailored service experience?
• How do state/territorial agencies work with their Commonwealth counterparts within the federated system?

People, structure and organisation

• What are the components of a customer-centred organisation and culture that aligns and empowers people to deliver on government’s promise to its customers and drive up whole-of-government performance?

Delivery processes and ways of working

What are the components of efficient and agile operational processes that intersect across agencies to fulfil the customer promise in a consistent and seamless way?

Who is responsible for the citizen, and/or the end-to-end value stream??

• How do you create accountability when each agency owns its own piece of the process?

Governance and controls

• What structures, policies, and controls are needed to balance risk, facilitate prompt and effective decision making, and ensure compliance?

Enabling systems and technology

• What are the components of intelligent and agile services, technologies, and platforms needed across each agency to bring this all to life?
• How do you ensure that how agencies work together is secure, scalable, and cost-effective?
• But to start, what technology and systems do each agency currently have and which need to be incorporated into the overall operating model? Enabling technology doesn’t need to be expensive.

Performance, insights and data

• What data, advanced analytics and actionable insights are needed to build a real-time understanding of each vulnerable individual and enable agencies to shape integrated care decisions.
• Are the right feedback loops in place so we can assess our impact later? What’s currently available by way of data?
• How do we link it all together?
• What are the insights that we can versus need to draw?

5. Conclusion

Rising above all the noise, there are four key considerations for political and non-political decision-makers.

Which people, where?

Use technology and data science to focus on individual populations. This enables policymakers to move away from, for example, broad after-school programs for early teenagers towards a bespoke after-school program for specific young people who are at high risk of underachievement and long-term welfare dependence.

Who can connect with them?

In some cases, this will be through respected local leaders, schools, or the health system, not welfare or corrections agencies, or the Police.

How will we know if we are making an impact?

Allow funds from different agencies to be pooled through multi-category, or cross-agency appropriations to address individuals. This will allow program funding for a population to be bundled to address the population in a specific manner, holding more than one agency accountable, while still meeting appropriation requirements.

While some of the complex social challenges facing governments are inter-generational, if the ‘investment approach' is sound, over the course of a political term you should start to see a reduction in some services (e.g., Youth Justice), attributable to increases in others (e.g., specific education programs).

After funding’s been secured, how can we make sure the programs are effective?

Make it mainstream: Ensure the approach is built into the mainstream, avoiding issues such as sidelining innovators away from core delivery to the identified populations.

Fund it: Governments also need to set longer term budgets of up to four years in order to focus spending on priority populations, rather than agency mandates.

Cross-agency accountability: Product owners with a cross-agency mandate could help to maintain a strong focus on the desired outcomes.

Clear accountabilities: Establishing clear decision-making processes and accountabilities through the design of bespoke whole-of-government target operating models which enable the delivery of tailored place-based services is what will bring it all together ‘on the ground.’

Disclaimer: This article was written by Todd Barclay in his personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this article are my own and do not necessarily reflect the view of KPMG.