CSNU Reduces Management Information Administration by at Least 25 Per Cent to Spend More Time Helping Young People
CSNU, the department responsible for collating data from Connexions Partnerships, the government’s support services initiative for young people, has implemented a Web-based data collection system for its 47 partnerships nationwide.
The new system was developed by working with Microsoft partner Capgemini. It has reduced administration by a quarter and provides better information to ensure the partnerships continue to meet targets of providing advice, support and guidance to young people aged 13-19 in England.
Situation
Children are the future, ensuring they have the opportunities, advice, and support to reach their full potential both at school, and beyond remains a key government objective.
The Department for Education & Skills (DfES) provides the government’s central policy for education and training. A key aspect of this is the delivery of services to young people both in compulsory education and beyond. Connexions is the government’s initiative aimed at 13-19 year olds in England. It provides advice, support, guidance and access to personal development opportunities for this group to help them make the transition to adult and working life. Its success relies on communication and listening and acting on the views’ of young people. This is achieved through 47 local Connexions partnerships that work to national plans. Services are publicly funded, delivered by the private sector and managed by local management committees (LMCs).
The DfES Connexions Service National Unit (CSNU) collects management information (MI) on a monthly basis from the partners and uses it to support policymaking and wider government initiatives. Information was collected using template spreadsheets and e-mail through the government office (GO) network. But the presentation and accuracy of this information varied from partnership to partnership and the whole process of data collection was not as smooth, fast or reliable as the department wanted.
Solution
The CSNU worked with its technology partner, Capgemini to design and create a system that met these needs and was capable of capturing data at any level using Internet technology. Initial discussions started in January 2003 and the system had to be live by the end of April 2003.
Capgemini worked with the department to brainstorm ideas and tease out all the dependencies and characteristics that the new system should have. This planning stage was lengthy in order to ensure that all potential areas were covered. User consultation was key in this process so that feedback could be incorporated into the initial design and future releases of the software.
The CSNU has to adhere to national and government standards, such as the e-government interoperability framework (e-GIF) for data transfer. So in addition to its own requirements for the solution it had to bear wider departmental strategy in mind. Front-end integration was also a must to enable URL links between applications as was the ability to support data layer extraction, transformation and loading from one database to another.
Based on these requirements, and the tight timescales, Capgemini opted to use the Microsoft® .NET Framework, which is the foundation of the next generation of Windows-based applications that are easier to build, deploy, manage, and integrate with other systems. It uses the Common Language Runtime and standard class libraries, which means that code used to generate underlying or common application functionality can be quickly and easily replicated and reused.
Capgemini broke the project down into manageable tactical and strategic chunks in order to meet the deadline. The end result was a site, which is accessed via http://nexus.dfes.gov.uk using a user name and password. It has been integrated with Microsoft Active Directory® to support 854 initial users and up to 200 simultaneous users concurrently in addition to 19,000 update transactions and 270,000 queries daily. It was written predominantly using Microsoft® Visual Basic .NET, the Shared Business Logic of which provides data capture, cleansing, and reporting mechanisms. A Web services authentication service provider called Stormkeep was also created using Microsoft C#® .NET to ensure access control and security. Microsoft ASP .NET forms and Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 were also used.
The CSNU uses a proprietary system called EMS Eureka that they use to extract data from the spreadsheets and analyse it. Eureka is no longer supported so Capgemini had to create extraction routines to bridge the two systems together.
Development took just seven weeks to reach user acceptance testing. Paul Smith, Project Manager, Capgemini, says:” A core team of five worked on this project, which at its peak had 10 people working on it. We were able to pick up .NET very quickly, and my view is that we wouldn’t have been able to achieve what we have with COM+ or legacy [Microsoft] Visual Basic.
“Debugging is certainly a lot quicker with the .NET Framework. We also saved a lot of time, as we didn’t have to deal with DLL hell or registry conflicts. Initially we only had one environment to test in, but through .NET it was possible to create several discrete environments within the one physical environment.”
Benefits
Speed of Development and Strong Partnership
The system had to be developed very quickly in order to meet the CSNU data collection deadlines at the end of April this year. The .NET Framework, with its reusable code and other developer-friendly features, in addition to the huge collaborative effort between the department and Capgemini made this possible.
The project was a learning experience for the CSNU, and many of its IT team have been able to take on board the management and hands on knowledge demonstrated by the Capgemini team. “We were very impressed with Capgemini’s ability to understand the business side of our organisation . I never had any doubts about its technical capabilities, but it picked up on some of the nuances and politics with a small and large ‘p’ that we need to deal with as a government department very quickly,” says Brenda Alexander, Management Information and Systems Director, CSNU.
Reliability, Scalability and Performance
Data is retained online for a minimum of five years, so to meet this requirement, the solution conforms to DfES IT Department archiving standards, which archives data using automated file-based processes. The system supports a minimum of 350,000 records and 75 documents to a total of 500Mb over five years.
New Process, New Look
The look of the site was very important to the CSNU. It needed to be attractive and intuitive for users to use it and also adhere to CSNU corporate colours , which are purple and orange. It supports the DfES IT Department standard for screen resolution, which currently includes 1024x768 and 800x600 screen resolutions.
Ease of Use and Time Savings
Partnerships access the site from any browser-based PC using a password and sign on name. Internal users benefit from a single sign on as Microsoft Active Directory has been integrated with Stormkeep. Ease of use was a key consideration in the development, as the department did not want any barriers to prevent or dissuade people from submitting information. The site has also passed the World Wide Web (W3) Consortium’s standards for accessibility and readability and new users can be added quickly and easily.
As well as being easy to use, the new data collection channel has delivered efficiency gains and timesavings. Alexander says: “The system has been very well received by all the partnerships as they now have a great deal of flexibility in how they operate. We have been able to set up various permissions so that people only have access to read or change the data that is relevant to their role.
“It was taking an awful lot of time to collect and analyse data, which has always been viewed by many chief executives as a burden that was fed into a huge governmental black hole. But we’ve worked very hard to ensure that partnerships realise we are only collecting the minimum information needed to help monitor their performance. We have reduced the amount of administration dedicated to information management by at least a quarter, and any time savings we can make in this area enables us to dedicate more resources to the business of dealing with and helping young people.”
Accuracy
Smith says: “We created a number of business rules so that inaccurate data entries are flagged before they become a problem using an error tracking and warning level validation tool. Users can also more easily review the data collected in line with what Ministers are asking to prove that the partnerships are being successful and are having enough interactions with young people to provide the advice and consultancy that they need.”
Flexibility
It is very easy to change information, and to correct mistakes such as an incorrectly entered figure. Because the system supports multiple users, the partnerships and CSNU staff can log in and look at the same data at the same time and change information there and then.
Rob Walcott, Management Information Manager, CSNU, says: “Both the CSNU and the partnerships can review the data together, make an instant decision about what needs to be changed and do so at the touch of a button. Previously there was lots of email or phone contact to make sure everyone was referring to the same version of data. Now we don’t have that problem as the same, current, version of information is in use throughout the country.”
Meeting Targets
Smith says: “Previously, CSNU staff would literally tick off what data had been submitted and from whom. It was a case of ticking off that partnership x had submitted datasets one, two and three but not four, and then chasing them up to find out why. The new system is much more efficient as it flags up any data sets that are still outstanding and enables the department to be proactive. “
Future Plans
Now that the CSNU has successfully completed the bulk of its original project aims, it is confident that it has a foundation to build on. Long term plans for exploiting the technology include replacing Eureka with Microsoft Analysis Services Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) engine allows reports to be produced and viewed dynamically. Again, the .NET Framework will enable easy integration of these technologies.
Walcott says: “To a certain extent we are tied by ministerial wings, so we never know until the end of the year what our data collection priorities will be for the following year, and that has always been a problem for us. We spent a lot of time with Capgemini discussing future proofing and now have a system that can easily accommodate change. We are now well placed to meet ever-changing priorities and whatever comes out of future government green papers.”