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ANNEX A
NOTES OF A MEETING TO DISCUSS
THE POTENTIAL AUTOMATION OF DSS TRANSACTIONS (OPTION C}
HELD ON 30 JULY 1993
PRESENT: Dick Wheelhouse Keith Baines I
John Chiswell Chris Gosling I
Bob Peaple Paul Reed
Paul Rich Tan McClay
Andrew Scarborough Linda Hanratty
Adrian Gains
Meeting Process and Coverage
Those present agreed the agenda and objectives of the session.
“Smart Card based” Option "C"™ report - It was agreed that the Option
°c" report would be amended, completed and circulated in line with the
proposed changes in David Taylor's note of 21 July. Once that had
been done work on this option would be suspended for the present.
Positioning for POCL at meeting with DSS/BA - It was noted that there
was a need to give POCL participants in the meeting with DSS/BA clear
guidance on the line to take on 4 August. While thus far the
preparation work had been carried out mainly by POCL there was
evidence from discussions between David Riggs of Benefits Agency and
Richard Dykes that the client was happy to approach the issue in a
“low key", bottom up fashion.
The key principles of any joint work with Benefits Agency would be
that any system needed to be designed to secure:
{1} Customer acceptability
(2) Commercial advantages (Savings)
{3) Operational feasibility
The customers for the exercise were Richard Dykes and Michael Bichard
of the Benefits Agency. The idea was to generate an initial
report/statement of requirements by September with a full draft report
by the end of December and agreement on the way forward by February
1994. NPSP involvement would be kept to a minimum.
The purpose of the meeting on 4 August was to take DSS/BA through the
work done to date (at a high level) te show what might be achieved
through the "Smart" card option. DSS were currently very much
favouring the "ALERT" bar coding solution which POCL would make clear
that in presenting the "Smart card option they were in no way
prejudging the solution.
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Keith Baines then ran through the draft presentation highlighting key
issues,
tn effect DSS/BA faced a series of choices as there were options for
almost all features of the system:
(1) Terminal Provisions - what capability/how many?
(2) Infrastructure - use existing PO capability (eg.
Farnborough}
(3) Communications - PSTN, ISDN or Postline?
(4) Card or Paper based transactions?
(5) Tokens - Machine Readable, Throwaway, Multiple Use (either
as value identifier or as access implement to an account),
Single use cards etc.
whe choice of token was a crucial factor and depended on a
multiplicity of factors
~ Customer preference
~ Security
~ gffects on the overall system and its costs
- Other possible applications
~ Timing and feasibility
- Effect on Q of S.
Overall the presentation would highlight all the key issues, giving a
clear message of our desire to work with DSS/BA, and draw them out
securing a clearer view of their priorities and objectives, all within
the context of agreement by DSS/BA to a clear process of analysis led
by POCL.
In discussion a number of issues were vaiosed principally by Linda
Hanratty:
{1} The future of the Girocheque
{2} Self Service
(3) Positioning with NFSP/DTI
(4) Effects on client costs
rt was felt that the Girocheque issue should be kept as open as long
as possible in the interests of Girobank. Girocheques are not easily
substituted by a Smart card or other token and it would be for DSS to
indicate how they wished to proceed.
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The Self Service issue was 4 more complex one, affecting counters
Mission and Vision commitment to person to person service. It would
also create Competitive edge problems, reducing barriers to market
entry once the technology had been introduced and making Benefits
delivery more profitable for DSS/BA. Counters could net afford to be
too defensive on this issue but should make clear that it can counter
to Business strategy. A good line would be to leave the issue as one
of customer choice and affordability.
As far as NFSP was concerned Counters would have no objection to low
key largely technically/operationally based involvement. Direct
contact at Secretary of State or senior officials level was less
helpful and to be avoided if possible. If it could not be avoided the
objective would be to influence Baker's stance.@n costs we needed to
be clear with BSS/BA that they were an issue and to share
ideas/information to ensure that the solution was perceived as
mutually beneficial. ‘The key objective was to secure agreement to &
{ process which picked up all issues of concern to POCL and DSS and
produced a range of priced/costed options for progress.
5, Candidate Options for next stage of project within POCL - As well as
progressing the work with DSS it was necessary to push forward the
intended POCL project, which would cun in parallel but, for reasons of
commercial confidentiality, be insulated from DSS. In discussion the
following points emerged:
{1}. the full range of technical options should be studied;
creating a range of cost/capability packages;
i (2) the key driver should be DSS automation but the scope to
“piggyback” other clients’ transactions should be
investigated where this could benefit the Business bottom
Line;
(3) the project should not confine itself to "gront end” outlet
based automation, back office and central processing were
also important parts of the supply chain. Infrastructure
was as important as data capture;
{4) the baseline against which any solution would be judged was
the Business Plan service strategy (ie Personal Service,
ECCOs and APT, Automated Processing but no automation of
DSS/BA work).
{ ($) Customer acceptability was a key factor, and served as @
powerful “reality check” for the more technologically
advanced solutions. There was no point in trying to replace
ACT with something which was equally unpopular.
Overall, the key principles were to build off the Business Plan, to
keep options open, providing flexibility for ourselves and DSS/BA and
to use the exercise to educate all parties on the realistic routes to
move forward.
6. Issues to be addressed - The meeting debated the key issues for the
issues to be 3
project, seeking to categorise them by the nature of the action which
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needed to be taken to resolve them, and to establish their
relative importance and urgency. The results of that discussion
are given at Appendix A, but 4 number of additional points were
raised which are captured below:
(1) DSS Process Mapping - Whilst the physical Interface was the
key, it was also important to understand their overall
structure and be able to cost different aspects of
their operations.
(2) Fraud - The issue was a complex one - was the target better
detection or prevention (including avoidance of
counterfeiting)? What was the baseline?
(3) Agents' benefits - Could include beneficial effects on
private businesses.
(4) Competitors Systems - We needed to make sure that the work
was not wholly internally focused.
(5) Data Transmission Security - The issue here was as much one
of client perception as the reality of effective data
security.
I 7. faking the Project Forward - A number of organisational isaues were
i vaised at this stage. Paul Rich tabled the draft terms of reference
for a cross centre team for outlet based automation development (At
Appendix 8) but it was clear from the discussion that more fundamental
issues needed to be resolved:
(1) whether this was really a stand alone transformational
project, or rather merely a very big piece of Business
Development work;
H (2) where it fitted inte the process of Business
Development/Commercial strategy formulation;
(3) How it interfaced with the development of the overall
information systems strategy;
(4) How the cross-market, cross-business centre component should
be managed.
It was clear that a working level group of the sort proposed by Paul
Rich was essential, and that it should contain representatives from
both the Business Centres involved, and from Systems Consultancy, with
i SHO support. It was equally important that while 08S was recognised
j as the key driver it was not allowed to exclude the other
i applications. There were the key principles for the hands on
mariagement of the project, but the higher level control issue were
more intractable and it was agreed that they would be resolved by
discussions between the interested parties outside the meeting and
would be communicated to all invelved by Dick Wheelhouse, once a
workable structure had been developed.