Bracknell Forest

Background
Bracknell Forest Borough Council is a Unitary Authority, situated in an area known as the ‘Golden Triangle’ between London, Crawley and Reading with a population of 115,000. The Council is committed to providing high quality services to its citizens through the use of innovative solutions to improve efficiency and effectiveness in the way services are delivered. The Council has recently received an ‘excellent’ rating for its Benefits Service from its CPA Assessment.

Implementation
In 2005, Bracknell Forest embarked on the implementation of Anite’s Pericles Benefit System converting data from Anite’s legacy HBIS system. RB Solutions were contracted initially for its Professional Services to assist with the implementation of the new system.This provided Bracknell with on site consultancy, training and floor walking services, which were utilised initially on the large data cleansing exercise Bracknell faced and testing interfaces, particularly the interface to Housing, which was causing Bracknell significant problems. Benefits Manager Shanaz Alam said ‘The resources provided by RB Solutions contributed significantly towards the successful implementation of this project. Their efforts specifically in testing and resolving issues with our Housing Interface allowed us to proceed with this project’.

Remote processing
Although the system implementation was successful, Bracknell Forest suffered from a 6-week closedown period and were faced with an immediate backlog of New Claims and Changes in Circumstances. Prior to the data conversion exercise,  Bracknell had processed all outstanding claims and change of circumstances and had been a top quartile performing authority.The Council had foreseen this problem and had already contracted to use RB Solutions’ Remote Benefits Processing Service for an initial 2 month period. This service provided an initial period of on-site processing by highly trained and experienced staff which enabled the benefits processing to be tailor made to the requirements of the authority and to fit seamlessly with  their existing procedures and policies.  Thereafter, processing was carried out from the RB Solutions remoteprocessing centre in Ashton Under Lyne. Benefits Manager Shanaz Alam said ‘I was impressed with both the quality and performance of the benefit staff provided. They were all extremely hard working and helped us clear the initial backlog. Having the staff initially onsite in Bracknell also gave us confidence in them for when they returned to their Ashton office. They certainly eased the pressure on my staff when we starting using Pericles’.

Quality and experience
Bracknell Forest BC, like any other authority have had their fair share of staff vacancies and their location, being close  to London and all the  major Motorway links means they are competing with many other authorities to recruit quality trained and experienced Benefits staff. RB Solutions have been able to continue their Remote Processing Service, which has enabled Bracknell Forest to avoid slipping back into a backlog position. In addition, RB Solutions have provided additional services, such as Quality Checking, processing Appeals and Backdating Requests. Benefits Manager Shanaz Alam said ‘RB Solutions have provided quality and experienced staff whenever we have asked them to and have continued to help make this system implementation a success’.