Consultancy Review For Rural Priorities

Background

Scotland's rural economy is extremely diverse, ecologically significant and deeply embedded within the country; with far-reaching economic implications it presents many challenges and opportunities.

Some of these challenges (e.g. climate change, population drift, economic returns, etc.) required the government to provide direction and financial support for meaningful rural change.   An EU fund of over £1.6 billion was therefore created specifically to enable a Scottish Government programme of economic, environmental and social measures to develop rural Scotland between 2007 and 2013.   The ideals of the Scotland Rural Development Programme (SRDP) are very exciting as they present a real opportunity for environmental good and act as a spur for rural investment and development.

The Scottish Government's Rural Payments and Inspections Directorate (RPID) has been  entrusted to manage the distribution of SRDP funds and ensure that the money is spent wisely and will lead to meaningful rural development in Scotland.  RPID has managed rural payments for many years, but this fund is much larger and more complex than any previous fund; it is also the first competitive land and capital application scheme of this size in Scotland, with payments being awarded only to applications which can best deliver agreed regional priorities.  

Rural Priorities

The Rural Priorities team within RPID is responsible for managing the fund's competitive mechanism and must ensure that payment allocations meet the conditions of the European funds – no mean challenge!  A real priority was to ensure that payment mismanagement as experienced previously elsewhere was not repeated in this case, as it could lead to funds being withdrawn.

Rural Priorities quickly realised that their current structures and processes would not enable them to deliver the agreed high-level government objectives or efficiently manage the additional complexities of the competitive fund.  Yvonne Summers Rural Priorities Manager explained, "we anticipated that the programme would require new ways of working and we wanted to be sure that we had the 'right' organisational structure with the 'right' operational focus to maximise throughput and efficiency."  

Sopra Group was asked to provide a consultancy review of Rural Priorities' current internal staffing and delivery structure.

Solution

Sopra Group recognises that there are many factors involved in delivering meaningful organisational change – there have to be the right number of people with the right level of skill, combined with supportive management throughout the change period.   Our consultants have a great deal of experience and understand that recommendations need to be practical and achievable for our clients, rather than simply theoretical.

Sopra Group undertook detailed workshops, many structured interviews, questionnaires etc. to establish facts and identify any issues such as staff motivation and contribution.  Using best–practice techniques Sopra Group developed a pragmatic operational structure that Rural Priorities could begin implementing.  Resources (internal staff) were then matched against this new optimum structure to ensure they were capable of best supporting the new rural fund.

Benefits

To date the new fund has been a success in that it has encouraged the submission of many innovative applications for projects that have the potential to deliver real change within rural Scotland.   As a result of Sopra Group's consultancy review the Rural Priorities team is in the process of establishing increasingly more efficient approaches to managing resources and organisational structures, and in turn, is supporting the application delivery process more effectively to help meet the agreed future needs and directions of rural Scotland.

Cultural change can often be a sensitive issue when performing assignments of this nature, but the Rural Priorities team, including senior management, actively supported the suggested changes and is now on track to:

• Reduce operational risk
• Reduce the volume of queries and errors
• Improve staff utilisation to become more balanced, focused and productive
• More productive use of staff time has improved responsiveness and quality of service delivery for key customers/contacts
• Reduce the risk of non-compliance with the EU directive
• Increase capacity building as field officers now have a greater understanding of EU policy and procedures required to process applications more efficiently.