1. Portfolio/Number/Name:O/T1 - Registers of Scotland |
2. Programme/Activity: Registers of Scotland (RoS) is pursuing an ambitious programme of change to improve service delivery and quality, dealing with an increasing workload, including upgrading IT, re-engineering processes and greater use of on-line services. |
3. Efficiency | 3.1 Current target; £m | | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 |
Cash | -0.088 | 0.702 | 1.228 |
Time | 0.580 | 0.619 | 1.864 |
3.2 Efficiencies delivered; £m | | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 |
Cash | | - | - |
Time | 0.56 | - | - |
4. Accountable Officer for delivery | James Meldrum, Keeper of the Registers of Scotland |
5. Project Manager | Frank Manson, Managing Director |
6. EGDD Portfolio Manager | Rowena Simpson |
7. Description of efficiency and actions to be taken | 7.1 What is the efficiency improvement? How will the efficiencies be made? The savings will be generated as an outcome of an extensive programme of business change. The elements of this programme will generate time-releasing and /or /cash saving efficiencies. RoS is not on the Vote but is financed by fees and charges for its services. In future users of the Agency's services will pay less for them due to the impact of fee reductions. RoS has, in 2005-06 introduced a new fee order for information fee with an overall reduction in the region of 9%. RoS will also be proposing fee reductions for registration services in which respect there is expected to be significant reductions over the period. The savings also are based on a projection of future activity in the Scottish property market and the staffing RoS would require to meet that demand. Actual activity will be different from this projection so the savings figures delivered in future years may differ from those detailed above. |
7.2 What are the main actions that are needed to secure the delivery of this efficiency improvement? RoS has long recognised the need to create a framework to support effective business transformation and has put in place organisational structures to support this. A major output from this activity is our Organisational Change Plan and associated Benefits Realisation Plan, collectively designed to manage all the transformational activities and interdependencies. Critical to our success is the delivery of a refreshed IT infrastructure and the adoption of new working practices. The introduction of electronic workflow and automated registration of land and property will improve operational performance and deliver staff savings. |
8. Associated costs | 8.1 Are there any development or redundancy costs associated with the delivery of this efficiency? We are planning that, where possible, staff will be reduced through natural wastage, redeployment and not recruiting. However no guarantees can be given that there will be no redundancies and some contingency for redundancy costs has been made by the Agency in its plans. |
9. Measurement | 9.1 What are the inputs that will be measured? Each part of the change programme has a business case, which contains the benefits that will be realised through implementation. A benefits realisation plan has been developed. The realisation of these benefits will be measured through monitoring: - Staff levels against the baseline
- Non staff costs against budget
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9.2 What are the outputs that will be measured? - Speed and accuracy of work
- Customer satisfaction
- Fee levels
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9.3 What is the baseline for inputs and outputs? The baseline will be the budget data for 2004-05. |
10. Quality cross-check | 10.1 What quality indicators are being used to ensure that quality of service is maintained or improved? RoS operates numerous internal quality assurance procedures notably speed and accuracy of work and also surveys its customers. |
11. Monitoring | 11.1 What are the arrangements for monitoring the delivery of efficiencies? These efficiency savings will be generated by a portfolio of projects that will deliver specific benefits in the coming years. To ensure the effective management of the portfolio and the achievement of predicted benefits, individual projects are structured within an integrated change management programme based upon guidance issued by the Office of Government Commerce. RoS uses Prince 2 as its project management methodology, supported by the OGC Gateway process and in-house Managing Business Change Guidelines. (RoS won the Prince 2 prize in 2002 in recognition of the innovative ways in which it had been implemented within RoS. RoS will not rely on specific individuals to monitor progress but has created systems that allow appropriate governance boards to meet on a regular basis to review progress towards the achievement of the change programme. |
12. Reporting | 12.1 What are the arrangements for reporting the delivery of efficiencies? Reporting takes place within RoS's executive governance structures on a monthly, quarterly and by exception basis. |
13. Dependencies | 13.1 Explain if your efficiencies are dependent on legislation or other structural changes being achieved. Certain elements of the change programme are dependent on legislative change, specifically the enablement of electronic documents to permit automated registration and de-materialisation of the Land Certificate. |
14. Use of efficiencies | 14.1 How are the efficiencies released from improvement activity being used to improve front-line services? In addition to the improvement the value for money of its services resulting from fee reductions, efficiency savings are to be used to deal with new services being delivered by the Agency and improving response times for existing services. |