RECONFIGURATION OF ONTARIO’S CHILD WELFARE SECTOR … · 2012-09-19 · cpscw – shared services...

CPSCW – Shared Services Recommendations of 19

RECONFIGURATION OF ONTARIO’S CHILD WELFARE SECTOR ‐ SHARED SERVICES

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE MINISTER OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH SERVICES

JUNE 27, 2012

Background

From the outset of its work, as Ministry regions and children’s aid societies (CASs) were visited, the Commission observed variability in the capacity of CASs across the province. It quickly became clear that greater pooling of expertise, resources and services could contribute to the sustainability of the sector.

A key component of the Commission’s strategy to enhance the sustainability of Ontario’s child welfare system is to reconfigure CASs’ structures and service delivery. Opportunities exist in several Ontario communities to leverage and integrate the strengths of individual CASs to create more effective, responsive, and sustainable services for the future. In some communities, reconfiguration may lead to a higher level of shared service and integration between CASs.

These changes are critical to ensure that all CASs have the scale to deliver consistent, high quality, and cost effective services and the capacity to adapt to the fast‐paced changes facing children, families, and communities. Accordingly, work was initiated by the Commission to assess the applicability of shared services for the sector and to make recommendations.

Shared services is commonly defined as an approach to business and/or service delivery that: consolidates selected functions on a sector or community basis, transforms those functions through modernization and runs them as specialist operations, and governs the shared functions under common management while being accountable to participating organizations.

To inform its conclusions and recommendations to the Minister on how to reconfigure service delivery through shared services arrangements, the Commission:

Consulted with the sector at the outset of the project to learn about shared services initiatives already underway in the sector and to get input into goals, framework, and criteria for shared services. Groups consulted included OACAS Service Directors Section, Financial Directors Network, leadership of each of the OACAS Zones, and the OACAS Human Resources Network.

Established a Reference Group composed of senior leadership from a cross‐section of CASs so that the Commission could draw on the breadth of knowledge in Ontario’s child welfare field and benefit from a broad range of perspectives to ensure a thorough vetting of the ideas and options that evolved over the course of the project.

Completed an environmental scan and consulted with those in other sectors with experience in implementing shared services arrangements to identify best practices.


Developed a framework and criteria against which potential initiatives could be evaluated.

Identified the services and functions that lend themselves to shared services arrangements, examined the related business processes, and applied a set of criteria to select opportunities for early implementation.

Consultations conducted throughout the sector confirmed that voluntary collaborations and partnerships were in abundance. These collaborations, while typically limited in scope and ad hoc, demonstrate that the sector values increasing capacity through shared approaches to specific issues. This culture of collaboration, if harnessed through structured and systematic shared services models of service, would significantly advance the benefits to the sector. There was widespread agreement in the consultations that shared services solutions should be investigated. The Commission’s conclusions and recommendations follow.


1.0 Major Findings

Many individual children’s aid societies in Ontario do not have the scale, capacity, or local networks to face changes in service demands, deliver full value‐for‐money, adapt to new requirements, and quickly incorporate fast‐growing knowledge. In some cases, both their future ability to fulfil their mandate and their financial viability are in jeopardy. The sustainability of the sector as a whole is therefore threatened.

The Commission’s proposals for modernizing Ontario’s child welfare system and gaining greater scale and capacity as a result, while safeguarding CASs community connections, are the focus of its work on reconfiguration. Our program of work entails both amalgamation of certain CASs and shared services arrangements. While both amalgamations and shared services entail “consolidation”, amalgamations involve combining organizations under one legal corporation while shared services involves the pooling of resources and skills while retaining the separate corporate entities of the member organizations.

There are many examples of collaborative arrangements among CASs throughout the province, but almost without exception they are entirely voluntary, limited in their scope, and/or do not have the structure typical of formal shared services arrangements. The training delivered through the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies is the one instance of a genuine shared services arrangement currently underway across the sector. CPIN, when implemented, will be a major shared service configuration under the direction of the Ministry of Children and Youth Services (MCYS).

The child welfare sector remains highly disaggregated. Combining the resources of CASs, through formal shared service arrangements, including the widest possible range of services and functions, with full participation of agencies across the province is a way to:

provide the critical mass and flexibility required to do more, within the available resources, than they can do as separate organizations;

improve province‐wide access and quality;

contain and avoid costs;

redirect resources from back‐office functions and infrastructure to reinvest in client services (as opposed to achieving savings in the sense of reduced spending);

increase the sector’s ability to cope with changing demands and constrained funding; and

reduce variability.


2.0 Overall Direction of Change

Historically, the application of shared services models of service delivery has focused on back office business applications, such as finance and human resources, and other transactional services in electronic service delivery systems (e.g. electronic applications). Shared services models have less typically been applied to the core business of social service functions.

Research conducted for the Commission noted that many of the current collaborations among CASs in Ontario are in the core business of child welfare, where business functions are sufficiently similar, and sometimes prescribed, such that they facilitate shared approaches. Because of this characteristic of child welfare business functions, and on the strength of the sector’s culture of collaboration, the recommended scope of the shared services initiative for Ontario’s child welfare sector extends well beyond the traditional back office functions to include important elements of the core business of CASs.

Shared services, if well managed and large enough in both scope and volume of activity, will contribute significantly to the sustainability of the child welfare sector. They will enhance service, help address problems of scale and capacity of CASs, and improve value for money. By transforming the entire sector through shared services, benefits will be realized while maintaining responsiveness to local conditions.

Benefits will include service improvements (redirecting resources to direct service, and achieving better access to and quality of service), cost containment, cost avoidance, reduced duplication of effort, and reduced variability.

This initiative is fully aligned with the recommendation of the Drummond Commission to expand shared services to the broader public sector. It is urgent to proceed because the sector is already experiencing the impact of constraint that is likely to deepen in the very near future.

Recommendation 1: Overall Direction

Ontario’s child welfare sector should immediately move to undertake a full and robust program of shared services that includes all children’s aid societies.

Implementation Considerations

Despite the benefits to be realized across the sector, it is likely that there will be some resistance to moving forward with a Shared Services Program, based in part on the real or perceived erosion of autonomy of individual agencies. Communication, incremental implementation, clear direction, support, and a reasonable degree of consultation will


help mitigate this situation, but it is possible that directives from the Commission or Ministry may be required in some cases.

A change management component to the work will be required to manage potential issues associated with collective agreements, workforce adjustments/realignment and any misperceptions about “service reductions” and loss of local responsiveness.

3.0 Scope of Shared Services

The business activities of child welfare agencies were analyzed within a framework that categorized functions by core business (direct, indirect and supports to service delivery) and back office business functions.

Figure 1: CAS Service Framework

In general, the farther a business function is from direct (face‐ to‐ face) client service, the more appropriate are shared services strategies. Conversely, the closer a business function is to service being delivered directly to children and families, involving a relationship between a client and a social worker, the less likely that shared services will be appropriate.


Figure 2: Shared Services Approach for CAS Sector

The analysis and assessment of child welfare business functions, using the framework and approach described above, resulted in the conclusion that a wide range of child welfare business functions are amenable to shared services solutions. Even a small improvement in business efficiencies through reconfiguration and changed business processes across the major functions of children’s aid societies can produce large benefits. Small, ad hoc efforts will not be sufficient to achieve the required results. Attachment #2 identifies the services and functions that lend themselves to shared services.

Child welfare shared services that cross sector boundaries (e.g. with children’s mental health) hold great potential for improved client centred service delivery in the future. However, the CAS sector alone is large enough that benefits will make a real difference yet small enough to make implementation manageable.

Recommendation 2: Scope‐ General

A wide range of child welfare business functions currently performed separately by children’s aid societies, should be reconfigured, and implemented as shared services across all CASs



The design, development and implementation of shared services within the child welfare sector should not preclude integration, in the longer term, between the child welfare sector and other child and family centred services. A number of agencies that are designated as children’s aid societies are not only CASs. They also are mandated and funded to deliver a range of other services in their communities, such as children’s mental health services, developmental services, youth justice services, and others. In proceeding with the shared services initiative, care must be taken not to undermine the integrated nature of these multiservice agencies (MSAs) and the relationships that they have with each of the sectors of which they are a part.

Alignment of shared services implementation with currently amalgamating CASs also needs to be carefully managed to take advantage of their experiences in amalgamating services and functions and to avoid interfering with their progress toward amalgamation. Finally, while the program of shared services program calls for full participation and standardization, variations in service delivery may be appropriate in relation to a particular agency or zone. For example, in specific and unique instances, it may be necessary to adjust the way that an agency participates in relation to a particular service in light of existing arrangements that are currently subject to contracts or other binding arrangements; or to recognize the integrated nature of some business activities of MSAs, as has been previously noted.

3.1 Back Office Functions

In general, the farther a business function is distanced from direct (face‐ to‐ face) client service, the more appropriate are shared services strategies. Because back office services do not rely on the worker‐client relationship, they are amenable to shared services arrangements. Procurement of goods and services (e.g. purchasing of drugs, insurance, translation) some components of human resources (e.g. recruitment, developing job descriptions, human resources information systems) and finance functions (e.g. accounting/bookkeeping, payments to suppliers, payroll, travel cards), should all be included in the Shared Services Program.

It is recommended that the back‐office shared service be implemented as a single, province‐wide organization. More details are provided below.

The full benefits from shared services will be realized over a period of years but in view of the potential for early savings in some back‐office functions (related to shared purchasing), initial benefits could be seen within several months following the decision to proceed and would be sufficient to justify the initial investment in 12 to 18 months.


Recommendation 2(a): Scope of Back Office Functions

Back office business activities in children’s aid societies should be consolidated and shared province‐wide as much as possible.


Although all back‐office services should eventually be included in shared services, procurement of goods and services presents a major opportunity for early implementation and material benefits. There is a greater state of readiness in the sector for procurement as a shared service. Moreover, opportunities exist to leverage Ontario Buys and to build on the shared purchasing arrangements (e.g. of insurance) that many CASs participate in voluntarily through OACAS. Consequently, there is also a greater likelihood of early benefits realization by reducing duplication, increasing purchasing power to negotiate lower rates, and applying expertise in procurement across the sector.

Some back‐office services are dependent on implementation of the Child Protection Information Network (CPIN) such as functions that rely on the new financial module. However, procurements of all types of goods and services are appropriate candidates for inclusion in shared services and most can proceed even before CPIN is in place. Finalization of requirements for CPIN should have regard for the scope and extent of system reconfiguration through shared services.

3.2 “Core Business” Activities

Typically, shared service initiatives in the public sector have focused almost exclusively on back‐office services and on some transactional services (e.g. completing application forms, making payments, mailing documents). These shared arrangements usually entail co‐location of service “agents” or the use of a common electronic service channel. They seldom include complex, “high touch” interactions between the service deliverer and the client.

In Ontario’s child welfare sector we propose that the range of services and functions included in shared services should extend beyond transactions and back office functions, to include some services and processes involving interactions that contribute directly or indirectly to the actual service to clients.

In child welfare, as with many human service programs, direct service includes all complex face‐to‐face interaction between the client and service provider and the related case decisions. Direct service is heavily reliant on the helping relationship, worker judgment and social work practice (e.g. investigation and risk assessment, conducting forensic interviews, counselling, placing children in foster care). These services tend not to be readily amenable to shared services. However, there are a small


number of direct service activities in child welfare where sharing of specialized resources or skills would improve access and quality and could be included in the suite of shared services (i.e. some of the processes in After Hours Service, French Language Services, and financial literacy training for youth).

Indirect services and support to service delivery include those activities that are necessary for the provision of direct service but are once removed from the client (e.g. training of staff, quality functions, recruitment of placement resources). Many of these functions are good candidates for shared services.

Some direct services and some supports to service delivery (referred to together as the “core business” of CASs), can be organized under a single province wide organization (e.g. French Language Services), while others also will require a “region”‐level management structure (e.g. foster/kinship and adoption home recruitment) to benefit from local assets and opportunities.

Recommendations 2(b): Scope of Core Business Activities in Shared Services

A common suite of direct child welfare services and functions that support delivery of child welfare services should be consolidated as shared services across the province.


The core business functions in child welfare that are recommended for early implementation of shared services include:

recruitment and assessment of foster/kin/adoption homes;

managing the relationship and arrangements with outside paid resources (OPRs): tracking their availability, ongoing review of their capacity and results of service to children placed by CASs, grounds for use of special rates agreements, etc. (“OPR” refers to group care and foster care purchased from private providers);

procurement of specialized assessments, ( e.g. psycho‐educational assessments, psychological assessments of parents or children, drug testing);

after hours service (the initial screening and related activities);

French Language Services (e.g. maintaining an inventory of French‐language capabilities in and beyond the sector, and access to a roster of French‐language capable staff); and

knowledge exchange and certain quality functions. In summary the shared services initiative can be seen as an incremental set of change initiatives, starting with early foundation projects, early back office initiatives and early core business shared services initiatives.


4.0 Province‐Wide Direction, Oversight, and Management As is typical for all shared services initiatives, there will need to be structures established or designated that can provide oversight and management, initially for the project phase, and eventually on an ongoing basis as the shared services initiative matures. The child welfare sector will need to have structures for oversight and management for both province‐wide and zone‐based shared services.

If the Shared Services Program is to meet its objectives, there is a need for a province‐wide body to guide the design, development and implementation of all back office, province‐wide shared services, and to provide direction for province‐wide parameters for zone‐based core business shared services. In addition, the province‐wide body would facilitate coordination and evaluation for zone‐based shared services, sharing knowledge from the field, and making recommendations for replication across the province to encourage consistency and maximum benefit. The Commission has asked the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies (OACAS) to consider assuming this role.

There is also a need to establish bodies that will plan and manage those initiatives that will be delivered at a regional level. While working within the province‐wide parameters set by the provincial body, the regional bodies will ensure familiarity with local services and communities, propose limited regional variation as might be required, and enable full participation of all agencies as partners in service delivery and management while honouring the governance authority and responsibility of their respective Boards of Directors. For delivering on the goals and targets of the Shared Services Program, the regional bodies should be accountable to the provincial body.

Recommendation 3: Shared Services Direction, Oversight and Management

A Provincial Shared Services Body should be established to direct, set parameters for, and oversee both province‐wide and regional shared services.

Implementation Considerations:

A number of options should be considered to determine the final structure and location of the Provincial Shared Services body.

The OACAS could be asked to establish, within its overall structure, a distinct and dedicated shared services division. The Association currently provides province‐wide training and has some of the requisite capabilities to serve as the province‐wide shared services body. In addition, as a membership organization for CASs it would be possible to create a structure that protects and uses the authority of the designated agencies to deliver child welfare services. However, to do so the Association would need to increase


its capacity and would need to be prepared to adopt a different perspective on its leadership responsibilities.

Other options could include a collaborative governance structure amongst CASs outside the purview of the OACAS or other arrangements that include the ministry in the provincial body.

Zones (OACAS groupings of CASs) are proposed as the geographic boundaries for management and delivery of “regional” shared services, as a means of leveraging the familiarity of the agencies with their communities and with one another and to build on existing collaborative efforts. There are five OACAS Zones, which allows for larger groupings than the MCYS Regions. However, other options, including MCYS Regions and aggregations of agencies based on patterns of service usage could be considered.

Within the framework of full participation and standardization, appropriate variations may be appropriate in relation to a particular agency or zone. For example, in specific and unique instances, it may be necessary to adjust the way that an agency participates in relation to a particular service in light of existing arrangements that are currently subject to contracts or other binding arrangements; or to recognize the integrated nature of some business activities of MSAs.

5.0 Implementation Project Team

Implementation on this scale is complex. It is a multi‐year initiative that requires leadership, investment, and careful planning. Agility and continuous adjustment to the plan will be needed along with decisions about investments and ongoing attention to the realization and measurement of benefits.

A project management approach is called for, led by those who have the expertise and authority to direct the undertaking to maturity. A province‐wide implementation team should be established to design, develop and plan the implementation of shared services for all back office, province‐wide shared services, as well as set the parameters for regional (zone‐based) core business shared services. The team should also secure the necessary decisions and resources from government to proceed with detailed planning and implementation.

As the team will require the expertise and authority of both the Ministry and the sector, membership should be comprised of both. During the early stages of implementation, the team should agree upon the suite of services to be included in each iteration, set targets for both service and financial benefits, collect and share knowledge from the field, and determine the roll‐out plan for shared services applications across the sector. Additionally, the team should develop and propose the structures for ongoing direction, oversight and management of delivery.


Recommendation 4: Implementation Project Team

Implementation should proceed under the direction of an implementation project team, consisting of Ministry of Children and Youth Services and sector expertise.


The team should be dedicated to shared services implementation and will require both staff resources and funding.

The implementation project team should direct and guide the implementation of the shared services program until longer‐term direction, oversight, and management mechanisms and structures are put in place, and mature.

6.0 Implementation Strategy

The strategy for successful implementation of the anticipated range of shared services will be achieved incrementally, over several years, but should begin immediately.

Beginning with the early opportunities that have been identified, in the first iteration of the strategy, each Zone should be responsible for developing and implementing a shared service for a different service/business function, within province‐wide parameters, with an eye to rolling it out across the province. This approach allows several initiatives to proceed in parallel while managing risk before replication across the sector. The province‐wide body should coordinate evaluations and knowledge transfer and plan the subsequent roll‐out as well as identifying shared services to be included in subsequent iterations.

Attachment #3 depicts the early projects that we recommend be undertaken.

Recommendation 5: Implementation Strategy

Implementation should proceed on an incremental basis with individual Zones taking the lead to develop and implement a shared service in preparation for its rollout across the province.

The Commission is continuing its work with the sector via the Reference Group to refine the processes to be included in each shared service and develop our advice on communications and change management activities, the establishment of the project team and setting up implementation teams. We will also provide input on the size and timing of benefits that can be anticipated from each shared service initiative. To assist with implementation planning we will develop project initiation documents for initial projects as well as an implementation guide for use across all projects.


In the weeks immediately following the endorsement of these recommendations, and to set the stage for launching projects related to the shared services themselves, certain “foundation” projects should be initiated:

Leadership, oversight and capacity

Incentives and Investments

Benefits identification and realization plan

Implementation Start‐Up should be underway within three months of the decision to proceed, as reflected in the timeline below.

Time Line for Shared Services Implementation

Commission Support Implementation Team Permanent Structure

Immediate 3 months up to 24 months 2 to 5 years Ongoing


Attachments

Attachment #1…………………Summary of Recommendations

Attachment #2…………………Candidates for Shared Services

Attachment #3………………..Recommended Initial Projects


Attachment #1

Summary of Recommendations Recommendation 1: Overall Direction Ontario’s child welfare sector should immediately undertake an aggressive Shared Services Program that includes participation by all children’s aid societies. Recommendation 2: Scope‐ General A wide range of child welfare business functions currently performed separately by children’s aid societies, should be reconfigured, and implemented as shared services across all CASs

Recommendation 2(a): Scope of Back Office Functions

Back office business activities in children’s aid societies are entirely amenable to shared services and should be consolidated and shared province‐wide.

Recommendations 2(b): Scope of Core Business Activities in Shared Services A common suite of direct child welfare services and functions that support delivery of child welfare services should be consolidated as shared services across the province.

Recommendation 3: Shared Services Direction, Oversight and Management A Provincial Shared Services Body should be established to direct, set parameters for, and oversee both province‐wide and regional shared services. Recommendation 4: Implementation Project Team Implementation should proceed under the direction of an implementation project team, consisting of Ministry and sector expertise. Recommendation 5: Implementation Strategy Implementation should proceed on an incremental basis, beginning with each Zone implementing a shared service, in preparation for its roll‐out across the province.


Attachment #2

Candidates for Shared Services in the Child Welfare Sector Back‐Office Functions Procurement of goods & services

• Information technology/support, secure systems (e.g. email), set‐up and ongoing support

• Drugs • Translation of written material • Benefits/pension/employee assistance • Insurance

Human Resources • Development of job descriptions • Recruitment • Worker safety & return to work • Labour relations /bargaining • Human Resources Information System

Finance • Financial system (CPIN financial module) • Accounting/bookkeeping • Payments

To suppliers such as foster parents To staff such as payroll and travel

• Travel cards and purchasing cards Core Business Services and Functions

A. Those that are a support to service delivery • Training development and delivery including common training

locations/trainers for Staff Volunteers Foster families

• Common policies, processes and forms for program delivery • Quality functions • CPIN (being developed by the Province) • Fundraising • Communications


• Web design and maintenance • Publications development and distribution • Translation

B. Those that entail delivering services to clients, but indirectly

• Placement resource Identification • Foster care recruitment, assessment and training • Kin care recruitment, assessment and training • Adoption recruitment, assessment and training

• Placement resource support • Specialized services • Legal—support services • Specialized assessments

• Orthodontics • Addictions consultant (drug testing) • Psychological services

C. Direct Client Services

• After hours service • Financial literacy for youth • Service delivery in French


Attachment #3

Recommended Initial Projects

Shared Service Foundation Projects

Acquire Procurement Support

Specialized assessments

IT Support

Foster/Kin/Adoption Recruitment

OPR

After hours service

French Language Services

Quality and Knowledge

Back Office, Province‐wide Procurement Projects

Core Business, Zone‐based Early‐Implementation Projects

Leadership, oversight and capacity

Incentives and investments

Benefits identification and realization plan


RECONFIGURATION OF ONTARIO’S CHILD WELFARE SECTOR … · 2012-09-19 · cpscw – shared services...

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