review of existing Target Operating Model
Requirement Cabinet Office are responsible for overseeing the development and ongoing management of the Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS). In preparation for the reprocurement of administration services, Acuity was appointed to review the scheme’s existing target operating model (TOM). The objective of the study was to improve the understanding of the current operating and stakeholder environment and the key challenges faced so that these could be addressed within the future operating model design.
Delivery Our review needed to focus on the following factors relating to the CSPS administration service whilst taking into account the wider Government landscape (e.g. provision of existing HR shared services):
The end-to-end user journey.
The core roles and responsibilities of the scheme manager, administrator and employers.
How these roles will interact.
The governance arrangements and accountability framework.
The costs of existing administration functions.
Our assignment was structured into two main phases. The first phase was information gathering which was conducted via a range of approaches including:
Desk-based research.
The construction of a role/responsibilities matrix.
A series of semi-structured interviews with stakeholders including:
o Members of the Civil Service Team.
o Employers (of differing sizes and utilising different shared service models).
o The current administrator.
The second phase was to summarise our findings which entailed providing feedback on the information gathered together with an analysis of our most significant findings. Our feedback was structured into the following:
A theme analysis that provided a summary of findings via the following groupings:
o Delivery environment.
o Governance.
o Technical environment.
o Commercial.
Content was structured to provide:
o A summary of each theme.
o A selection of stakeholder comments.
o Our assessment of the inferred problem (where a problem existed).
o Our view of the potential impact of the theme for the Future Services Programme.
An updated pensions administration roles/responsibilities matrix that reflected feedback from our interviews.
A diagrammatic mapping of the key inferred problems against the primary stakeholders within the existing pension eco-system.
Result The output of this work provided a clear evidence base for redefining the current operating model for the CSPS. It not only became a core reference document in the creation of the TOM, Outline Business Case and service transformation plan but a key tool with which to engage and elicit the support of senior stakeholder up to director general level.