Case studies

Councils are constantly seeking to deliver efficiencies and boost income, which makes revenue collection a logical area of focus. At Brent, Social Engine was appointed as our productivity expert, and their expertise was used to design and deliver a randomised control trial (RCT) to test application of behavioural insights to the rent arrears recovery process.

The Productivity Experts Programme grant funding supported the redesigning of the commissioning of our placement function for Children’s Services and considering future integration with the Adult’s services; as well as developing effective performance management processes and systems, and a quality assurance framework.

Region: South West Theme: Regeneration, Housing (in OPE), Land Release Fund (LRF)

The council set up an online relationships education, relationships and sex education (RSE) portal to provide resources and quality assured information to teachers and parents. This case study is an example of the many pro-active and positive approaches which local authorities are taking to support inclusive RSE.

As part of a transformation project, the council set about exploring ways in which it could operate regulatory activity more effectively and efficiently. This case study forms part of the productivity experts resource.

In December 2017 Cornwall Council underwent a corporate peer challenge which called for the organisation to embark on a ‘digital revolution’ to transform service delivery to customers.

Allerdale Borough Council is a small borough council with big ambitions. What we do, we do well but we need to do it more effectively and at a lower cost.

A new integrated adult Community Learning Disability (LD) Team has been uniquely co-located with children’s social care and education services in purpose-designed premises to improve outcomes for residents of all ages with disabilities.

A mixed method approach was adopted and a pragmatic behavioural insights framework was employed to inform the redesign of the service offer with the aim of making treatment uptake easy, attractive, timely and social (EAST). We explored factors affecting treatment uptake through a behavioural insights survey (Phase 1) collected between September 2018 and January 2019, and qualitative interviews (Phase 2) with HART service users conducted between October 2018 and May 2019. Recommendations were implemented between September and December 2019. We used routinely collected data to compare service uptake rates pre and post service redesign.

Norfolk County Council already have processes set up to broadcast Full Council, Cabinet and Scrutiny meetings on YouTube for public viewing.