Strata 
@4

1In the beginning

Strata has always been recognised as a bold initiative, but where did it come from?

Information Technology. These two words have a rare ability to bring government officials out in a cold sweat, whether they tread the corridors of Whitehall or work in local authorities. The recent history of public sector innovation is littered with high-profile IT failures, such as the NHS’ doomed National Programme for IT (NPfIT), the glitches in the rollout of the Single Payment Scheme (SPS) for UK farmers, and the technical difficulties encountered in processing Universal Credit.

So it’s refreshing to spend time at Strata – an innovative collaboration between three local authorities to deliver a unified IT service provider that saves cost, enhances efficiency and improves the working lives of hundreds of staff.

A visionary joint venture between East Devon District Council, Teignbridge District Council and Exeter City Council

About Strata

Strata operates on commercial principles, at the same time as building on the virtues of the public sector.  It is focused on service delivery rather than profit, and takes a lead from the councils to use IT as an enabler for change.

“The crucial thing about Strata is that we don’t put a mark-up on our services or products”, explains Laurence Whitlock, the company’s overall manager and IT director. “We’re owned by East Devon District Council, Teignbridge District Council and Exeter City Council. Our balance sheet should always be at a break-even point by the end of the year. Our mission is to save the councils money and create efficiencies. So we share the ethos of the local authorities, rather than being driven by a desire to keep shareholders happy.”

That makes Strata sound like something of a revolution in public sector IT. Which begs an important question: where did the pattern-disrupting idea come from, and what gave these councils the courage to pursue it?

Origin of the species: Strata’s conception

Cast your mind back to the days of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, 2010–15. An era of austerity that was characterised by two clear trends in the public sector: an overwhelming concern to cut spending, and a desire for ever-greater efficiency. In other words, it was a time in which national and local government was challenged to do more for less.

Technology was seen as the great enabler of these objectives. It is no accident that national initiatives such as the G-Cloud and the Public Services Network (PSN) emerged in this period. They involved complex partnerships between the public and private sectors: a sharing of expertise and a commitment to involving commercial organisations at an early stage in IT procurement, so they had a hand in specifying projects as well as delivering against them.

Providing IT support and solutions for all three councils to deliver cost savings, enhance resilience, and improving the capacity and capability for change

Such public-private partnerships became de rigueur in central government IT, and many local authorities followed the trend. Bradford, Barnet and Northamptonshire soon signed deals with commercial contractors, giving them control over their technology in the hope of achieving a streamlined, more cost-effective, service.

East Devon District Council, Teignbridge District Council and Exeter City Council wanted to achieve similar outcomes. But they didn’t want to outsource their IT provision to a commercial operator. Instead, they conceived a bolder, more ambitious model: they would close their in-house IT departments and invest together in an outsourced IT provider, Strata.

The Strata model

Strata would be wholly owned by the three authorities, and have a clear mandate to deliver significant cost savings and enhance resilience. The relationship would be run on a client-contractor basis, with each council appointing a client lead to scrutinise Strata’s activity. Strata’s board would have representation from all three councils, who would ensure commonality of purpose and effective collaboration.

Written in these terms, the vision seems straightforward. But in the context of three councils with legacy IT systems that were unwieldy, out of date and prone to failure, a large cost base for technology spending, and significant head count in their separate IT departments, its boundary-pushing credentials are plain. Strata was a big deal. It had a lot riding on it.

Bringing the vision to life

The first task was to close each council’s in-house IT department and TUPE staff across to Strata. Inevitably, there were redundancies – this was a cost-saving initiative and global head count was reduced, even though the level of expertise available to each council actually grew.

The transition was painful for some, both the new Strata workforce and their former colleagues in the councils. “There was a moment at which staff went from being council employees to Strata employees,” explains Karen Jenkins, Strategic Lead of Organisational Development and Transformation at East Devon District Council. “Suddenly, their relationships with former workmates adjusted, as did their professional identity. For some, that took a bit of getting used to.”

The impact of such a change should not be underestimated. Strata is an exemplar of collaborative working between disparate authorities, but it is also an outstanding model of effective change management. Now, four years on, Strata employees have a clear identity: they wear branded polo shirts, work in offices across all three authorities that are clearly marked with Strata signage, and have a clear line of report through Strata’s hierarchy.

“Strata still feels quite new in local authority terms,” Jenkins continues. “That its identity is so well-established across the three councils is a significant achievement. It shows the adaptability of our workforce – something for which local government is not always given the credit it deserves.”

A staff of 75, including highly trained technicians, experienced IT professionals and proven project managers

Getting started

With a new workforce, Strata needed to deliver common IT systems across three councils that were until that point very different. “While each authority had a different set of requirements from Strata, there was a clear drive towards establishing a single robust platform that could be managed remotely,” says Laurence Whitlock. “That makes sense from a technology point of view, as well as financially.”

The migration from council-specific IT systems to a generic set-up was by no means painless. But the transition was made easier by the fact that each council retains its distinctiveness from an operator’s perspective. “Log in at Teignbridge and you’ll feel as if you’re using a Teignbridge system,” explains Strata’s head of support and infrastructure, Adrian Smith. “Likewise in East Devon and Exeter. The infrastructure is the same, but of course the systems are bespoked to some extent for each client, and the visual feel is specific to each of the three councils.”

With the people, processes and technology in place, Strata was ready to fly. But before it could deliver on its ambitions, it needed to earn the trust of users. Four years after being established, that mission is some way to being accomplished thanks to Strata’s success in achieving its objectives.

3Building tomorrow today

Strata has the potential to be an “agent for change”. Here’s how.

When Exeter City Council’s chief executive Karime Hassan says that Strata is helping the authority to “think big” about the future, he highlights the company’s evolution over the last four years. Originally focused on saving cost, enhancing resilience and driving efficiency, Strata now has a remit to facilitate change, disrupt the councils’ ways of doing business, and cast a vision for the future.

IT director Laurence Whitlock is aware of this, and sees it as an exciting opportunity. “You could say we’re entering the phase of Strata 2.0,” he remarks. “We’ve shown that the initiative delivers tangible cost savings and improved resilience. Now, we’re broadening our impact, to enhance the way our councils work, and improve their interactions with citizens.”

Driving innovation through enterprise-grade IT support and solutions, delivered with an understanding of local government’s needs

Working smarter

Here’s a good example of how Strata’s expertise is helping the three councils work smarter: the company is introducing a focussed project management methodology to deliver technology upgrades as efficiently as possible. When a Business Change Request (BCR) is logged, it initiates a process in which clear goals are established, and progress is monitored by reference to them until delivery is complete.

“By following a logical, sequential and task-focused approach, we can get projects over the line more speedily and more cost-effectively”, Adrian Smith reports. “It’s an example of Strata as a supplier sharing expertise with the councils as customers. We’re helping the councils operate more efficiently, at the same time as responding to their business needs.”

Despite being a collaborative endeavour, there is an identifiable customer-supplier relationship between Strata and the councils when it comes to governance, which the project management initiative bears out. “The councils set the agenda, and Strata helps us pursue it”, says Teignbridge’s Phil Shears. “We have our own policy objectives [which inevitably differ between the authorities, especially given their demographic differences]. But we understand the significant role of technology in successfully implementing them. That is the common thread that Strata brings across Teignbridge, East Devon and Exeter.”

High flyers

A good example of this is the day Laurence Whitlock and his team took a drone to the cliffs around Jacob’s Ladder in Sidmouth. They conducted a visual survey of this popular East Devon beauty spot – a task that has historically involved restricting public access while a team of roped climbers inspect the condition of the rock and surroundings. It seems like a small initiative, but the cost and efficiency savings could be significant to the authority.

While difficult to measure, the potential gains for citizens of deploying drone technology in this way are impressive: less disruption, the opportunity for more regular inspections, thereby minimising the risk of accidents, and improved access to the area. As well as enhancing the experience of visitors to Jacob’s Ladder and streamlining the council’s inspection process, this deployment offers value for money to council-tax payers.

So there is low-hanging fruit, which Whitlock and his team believe can enhance the way all three councils operate and make them even better at delivering high-quality public services. Another example is the use of a mobile phone app for Exeter residents to report graffiti. They simply take a photograph of the graffiti on their smart phone, send it to the council, and a cleaning team is dispatched to the relevant area. It’s a seamless service for users, making it easier for the council to keep the city environment pleasant for the population. It helps citizens feel empowered, because they have a hand in caring for their neighbourhood, and feel as if the council trusts them to do so.

Intangible benefits

The latter benefit is one of those intangible gains that Strata’s technology enables, but which is hard to measure. This is the new reality in which the company is operating. “People want a council that speaks to them, is available to them and serves their needs,” says Mark Williams. “IT is an enabler of this – especially when in the hands of an innovative operator like Strata.”

Therein lies the rub when it comes to the Strata initiative. Because it has attracted top talent from the technology sector, has clear progression opportunities for gifted staff, runs a successful apprenticeship programme to nurture home-grown talent, and has an understanding of the pressures that local government operates under, it’s ideally placed to effect change. The authorities are already capable of thinking big. Strata helps them to think even bigger.

Brave thinking

Strata was founded on a brave idea: for local authorities to outsource IT but own the outsourcer. That was a novel operating model, and it’s proved a success. Now is the time for even braver thinking, thinks Whitlock, which may have implications for Strata’s long-term funding.

“We can always deliver savings,” he reports. “But it’s my instinct that we can actually become a source of revenue, because we have a successful model that could be delivered elsewhere.”

For example, Whitlock and his senior team are of the view that Strata’s solutions, often bespoked to local government needs, have a value for other authorities. “I think we could develop proprietary solutions, processes and services that are marketed to other councils,” he says. “Developing them would enhance the technology we deliver to Teignbridge, East Devon and Exeter. But it would also provide a revenue stream, freeing up even more resources for the authorities to spend on other things.”

Enhancing service delivery by identifying areas of best practice

Big data

If that idea seems ambitious, a shorter-term goal for Strata is to use its data stores to help guide decision-making by the councils. “We have a huge [secure] data repository,” says Strata’s head of security and compliance, Robin Barlow. “We’re already using it to help the council allocate resources, focus service delivery, or maximise revenue. But with the right analysts, who we’re already in the process of recruiting, that data could be a hugely powerful tool when the authorities are making decisions about serving customers.”

Developing solutions that can be marketed to other authorities, thereby establishing a fresh revenue stream

For example, Katherine Reed, one of Strata’s geographical information systems officers, reports how the company’s use of address data has increased council tax receipts. “Using satellite imaging, I identified a number of what looked like dwellings in a wood with no planning permission,” Katherine says. “These four properties have now been added to East Devon District Council’s records, bringing in a total of £23,928 in additional revenue to date.

“Similarly, we located 50 business units without planning permission that were not paying business rates. These have now been rated, and the occupants have started to pay their fair share.”

Examples such as these show Strata refining the councils’ practices and using time effectively to increase revenue and maximise cost effectiveness. That’s undoubtedly what the future looks like for this most innovative of operations: to continue working in partnership with the authorities in pursuing the art of the possible, thereby enhancing the lives of citizens and council employees alike. Strata’s next phase won’t just be about saving cost and enhancing resilience, therefore. Now is its moment to help the councils think creatively about the nature of service delivery in the 21st century.