This interactive Q&A session identifies the key drivers, methodology, and impact of Luton Borough Council’s journey from process improvement to achieving audit compliance using the Engage Process platform.
Luton Borough Council has embraced Lean methodology, driven by its organisation-wide transformation project, “Luton 2040”.
Fred Ralphs, Senior Change Agent, whose background is rooted in Lean principles learned at Toyota and applied across manufacturing and logistics, is leading this initiative. Luton applies continuous improvement based on the premise that everything in life has a repeatable, reliable, and stable process, meaning everything can be improved. Process improvement activities have been widely applied across the council, including Adult Social Care (ASC), Children’s Services, Housing, Customer Services, and Legal Services.
The council uses the Engage Process platform for process mapping, noting its ease of use and speed compared to older tools like Visio. The platform facilitates rapid mapping; for example, 15 ASC maps were completed in approximately three weeks.
Key aspects of the mapping methodology include:
Process Owner-Driven: Fred Ralphs acts as a facilitator or “conduit,” gathering input exclusively from staff who actually perform the job. He does not dictate the process flow.
Collaboration: Sessions are typically conducted via two-hour Teams meetings, allowing constant collaboration, feedback, and updates outside of formal meetings.
Focus on Process, Not People: A core principle is making processes and steps redundant to work smarter, but never making people redundant.
Process Handbook: All published maps are housed in Luton BC’s electronic Process Handbook, which currently contains over 100 processes. The handbook serves as the standard method, a benchmark (the “as-is” state), and a starting point for the continuous improvement cycle. It is also valuable as an onboarding tool for new staff, giving them immediate visibility into their roles.
Audit Compliance Innovation in Adult Social Care (ASC)
The work in Adult Social Care was initially motivated by the pressure of an approaching CQC (Care Quality Commission) audit. The council needed to clearly demonstrate and vocalise their processes for auditors.
They achieved compliance innovation by agreeing to grant CQC auditors remote access to the relevant ASC processes within their electronic Process Handbook via the Engage generic viewer tool. This access eliminated the need for CQC to visit LBC premises for this aspect of the audit, setting a potentially extendable precedent for remote auditing by other bodies, such as Ofsted.
The application of Lean principles through Engage has yielded or is projected to yield significant benefits:
Efficiency Gains: The implementation of ‘To Be’ maps related to discharge and reablement is expected to save the equivalent of approximately 4,000 full-time employee hours annually (based on 1,930 hours per FTE). This allows the transfer of two full-time employees’ worth of work to the team without increasing staffing.
Quantifiable Data: The Engage platform allows for the measurement of key metrics, including the cost, time, and rework generated by various process steps and choice points, providing reliable data for analysis that was not available using older tools.
Standardisation and Consistency: The Process Handbook ensures a consistent approach across the council, which builds staff morale and confidence.
Community Sharing: Luton is committed to sharing its published process maps with the wider local government community to prevent other councils from having to “reinvent the wheel,” acknowledging that many public sector processes are similar or identical.