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Glossary

  • ACORN  - A commercial product which splits people and families into different groups who share common characteristics based on where they live. Each of these groups has a profile which describes what they are like in terms of a wide range of behaviours and circumstances. Produced by CACI with a European wide version and one for each country in the North Sea region based on local data.
  • Business Process re-engineering – basically changing the way you do things and deliver services. This generally involves looking in detail at the internal processes you use – who collects information, where is it sent, who makes decisions, how are they actioned – to see if some of them can be speeded up or removed. It often involves comparing how similar processes are delivered and looking at e-government tools to see if they can deliver improvements such as electronic forms.
  • Channel Shift – persuading customers to use cheaper – generally online – ways of getting services or information instead of more expensive ones. This is particularly the case where services can be accessed on a self service basis via things like electronic forms or directories.
  • Channel Strategy – Describing what is the best way for customers to contact the local authority in terms of customer satisfaction and cost effectiveness and then producing an action plan to deliver that. The action plan can include making sure the services are available in a way people can easily use and marketing the new ways we want them to access them.
  • Co-design – Working together with customers to decide how services will be delivered. This generally means more than simply carrying out a consultation process asking for views and involves talking to them face to face. In the best cases it will include in depth customer testing and even asking them to say how services work before starting to design them.
  • Community profile – a pen picture of what we know about a particular area. This should include statistical information about the people and businesses based there and issues like crime, health, education etc, but can also look at the physical environment – open space, roads etc – hard and soft resources such as schools, health services, clubs and societies, and the range and level of services being delivered in that area
  • Control – in testing new resources or approaches a control is an area which has similar characteristics to the place where the test is taking place but where you do nothing new. This means you can be reasonably sure any changes in the test area are the result of what you are doing rather than general outside changes.
  • CRM – Customer Relationship Management: the computer database on which you record information about what services people have requested and been given
  • Customer Journey – the process people go through to access a service from their point of view rather than that of the organisation. Who do they have to talk to (and how many), how long do they have to wait, what information do they have to give, and how are they treated and feel at each stage. The output looks like a standard process map, but includes an assessment of their level of satisfaction at each stage.
  • Customer Profile – A pen portrait of a group of people or families who share similar circumstances. These circumstances include the sort of homes they live in, income and employment, skills, the size and age of the family, and their habits in things such as health, entertainment, shopping etc. It will also include which services they regularly use.  These are produced by matching statistical information (80% of people in this sort of job live in this sort of house) and building on this by attaching survey and other information where you look at the views or behaviour of each profile.
  • Data matching – Taking two or more data sets with a common element such as address and adding them together so you can see where there are statistical matches – 60% of people who borrow library books also go to museums.
  • Data Protection – Making sure personal information gathered by public or private organisations in the delivery of a service is not used for other purposes or shared without the permission of the individual involved.
  • e-Government – using information and communications technologies – especially the internet – to deliver services that in the past have been delivered by talking to a person face to face or on the phone or on paper. These services can be internal processes as well as customer services and will include using internet or computer based information to support person to person service delivery.
  • Focus groups – a representative group of customers who are brought together to talk through issues based on their knowledge and experience. They can be representative either because their characteristics match those of the general public or because they have particular needs or interests or belong to a particular group. Generally focus groups will have specific questions you want them to give answers to, but the discussion is more open ended than you would get with a questionnaire.
  • Geospatial data – any data which has an address attached to it. This can be a postal address, an area such as local government electoral division, or a map reference.
  • GIS – Geographic Information Systems. Computer systems that present information in map form rather than words, figures or other sorts of pictures.
  • ICT – Information and Communications Technologies. Not just computers but also telephones, and any technology that stores, manipulates, communicates or displays information electronically.
  • Indicators – Data which helps us understand what is happening in the real world. These can relate to
  • process (what we do such as the number of forms we process )
  • outputs (what we produce such as the value of welfare benefits we pay) or
  • outcomes (what difference we make such as a cut in the number of people below the poverty line).
  • They can be indicators of
  • actual change (numbers of qualifications children get) or a
  • proxy indicator (the number of potholes we fill in as indication of how good the roads are).
  • In some countries such as England, central government sets out National Indicators which other public sector organisations have to report on regularly and which are used to assess how well they are serving their local citizens and businesses.
  • Intermediaries – people who help customers get access to our services who we do not directly employ. They can be friends and family of the customer, voluntary organisations helping particular groups, or other public sector organisations who offer one stop services or can signpost what is available from other agencies.
  • Knowledge Management – A structured approach to making sure what people know in the organisation about how services are delivered and customers being served is available to everyone in the organisation who needs it, when they need it. This is commonly done using networked computers including intranets or the internet.
  • Local Government Audience List
  • Local Government process List
  • Local Government Service List
  • Marketing – The process of making sure your products or services achieve their full potential in terms of sales or take up. The full marketing process includes understanding customers and rivals in the marketplace, product design. And pricing as well as Marketing Communications (Marcomms) such as advertising, branding and publicity.
  • MOSAIC - A commercial product which splits people and families into different groups who share common characteristics based on where they live. Each of these groups has a profile which describes what they are like in terms of a wide range of behaviours and circumstances. Produced by Experian with a European wide version and one for each country in the North Sea region based on local data
  • National Indicators – In England central government sets out National Indicators which other public sector organisations have to report on regularly and which are used to assess how well they are serving their local citizens and businesses.
  • OAC – An open source product which splits people and families into different groups who share common characteristics based on where they live. Each of these groups has a profile which describes what they are like in terms of a range of behaviours and circumstances. Produced by the Office of National Statistics in the UK.
  • Outcomes - What difference we make, such as a cut in the number of people below the poverty line or reduction in CO2 gases.
  • Outputs - What we produce such as the value of welfare benefits we pay or the number of people we train.
  • Personas – The description of a typical member of a group such as a customer profile or priority group as if they were a real, named, individual.
  • PRINCE – A UK based very structured project management methodology which is widely used by the public sector. The full PRINCE methodology is thorough and can be over complex for small projects so many councils in England use “cut down” versions which are more appropriate.
  • Process mapping – A visual way of representing the process of delivering services to internal and external customers. This will typically look at each stage to understand which agencies and officers are involved, what the information flows are, where decisions are made and any points where eligibility criteria are used. It is particularly useful where there are several ways in which the process can be started. Having mapped out the process it is then easier to compare with similar processes to se if there is room for improvement. For example is the process for applying for a concessionary bus pass the same for a student as a pensioner or someone on state benefits?
  • Qualitative Analysis – looking at information which has been gathered as a result of open ended questions. There is often a quantitative element to this through either comparing the number of people who gave similar answers or raised similar issues or through taking the answers from a small representative group and multiplying them up by the number of people in that group across your area. Although the questions are open ended it is still important to use the same set of questions with everyone so comparing answers is easier.
  • Quantitative Analysis – looking at information which has been gathered as a result of questions which have predetermined answers which people choose from. Sample sizes are generally bigger than for qualitative work although they are generally still representatives of the population as a whole rather than the whole population and answers are them multiplied up to estimate the view of the whole population.  There is still a subjective element to rake account of as the answers given depend on the way the question is asked.
  • Note that it is generally advisable to use both qualitative and quantitative techniques – you can use qualitative work to test the questions and answers with a bigger sample group or you can take the answers to quantitative work to get more detail with an in depth discussion with a smaller group
  • Social marketing – using marketing techniques to change people’s behaviour rather than simply increasing take up of a product or service. Examples would be encouraging people to take more exercise or eat more healthily, or to recycle more of their rubbish. Encouraging channel shift is a social marketing exercise.
  • Super Output Area – The geographical area at which information from the national census is published in Britain. Generally speaking this is the smallest area at which statistics are published and SOA’s are used to build up to larger areas like local government electoral boundaries or areas such as post codes.
  • Systems Integration – using software and data standards to link together or share information held on different computer systems. It is more and more common to do this using internet based standards such as XML schemas.
  • Unit costs – The average cost of delivering a particular transaction or service. For example customers may have to fill in a form to request a service. The unit cost of this will vary between face to face, telephone or online methods because the cost of staff supporting that transaction and the building costs of face to face services will differ for each channel. Which costs are included, and then divided by the volume of transactions, can vary, but direct customer access staff and buildings and ICT costs should always be included.
  • User needs – understanding what customers need, not just in terms of the services they get, but the way they get access to those services. This should always be assessed by actually asking customers, although there are a range of ways in which you can do that.
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