Transforming the Housing Needs & Strategy service (Phase 1)

"We have commissioned Crisis to undertake future phases of work in light of the excellent services provided" Head of Housing Needs & Strategy, London Borough of Islington

October 2021 - February 2022 | Service Transformation

Challenge

The London Borough of Islington appointed Crisis as a critical friend to help challenge the Housing Needs and Strategy service, supporting its mission to become the best service in England. This included an assessment of the current service against best practice and setting the “direction of travel” for a reorganisation. The scope was both statutory homelessness and social housing allocation functions, with over one hundred officers supporting these activities.

Solution

Phase 1 of the programme included a rapid diagnostic of current service performance and the development and testing of proposals for a new structure/ service model.

The Council had already carried out a number of diagnostic activities so our initial focus was to complement these and fill in any gaps, including:

• Using case files to map 10 real customer journeys through the service (covering a range of users, scenarios and journeys from prevention through to the main housing duty) to help assess how “user-centred” the current service was
• Developing an accountability matrix to visualise which teams were accountable for which activities - highlighting gaps, duplication, teams that were “spread to thin” and facilitating easy mapping to the new structure 
• Completing a demand vs. capacity analysis to build the case for more investment where it’s needed
• Documenting the current structure in a consistent format to support the reorganisation, including the current organogram of the service and a review of spans and layers, a one-page service visual, FTE baseline and current Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

We then completed a practice review of how other ambitious local authorities have set up their homelessness services, and combined this with the principles of the reorganisation and the strengths/ weaknesses identified in the current service. This enabled us to develop a range of options and proposals for a future model, covering:

• Visual functional models with key accountabilities and capabilities
• Example high-level customer journeys
• Supporting narrative with key risks and assumptions

These were then tested with all officers in the service for feedback and validation, including working sessions where the emerging proposals were explained and a survey that went to all staff to share their thoughts.

Impact

Phase 1 has provided a strong foundation and direction for the next phases of transformation and signals the start of a collective journey. Sharing the emerging proposals and options with staff at an early stage has enabled the project team and service management to test some of the initial assumptions and risks, whilst validating emerging proposals. 

The focus of the next phase is to complete the “planning stage” of the Council’s Organisational Change Procedure so the service is in a position to commence consultation. Crisis will continue to support this and lead the accompanying “detailed design” work needed to give the reorganisation the best chance of success.

Further Reading/ Resources

Template and completed example to map your own customer journeys (resource)

Reorganisation options and proposals for a local authority homelessness service (resource)

Accountability matrix template (resource)

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