Post Office Business Support Programme
Terms of Reference
Purpose
The purpose of the Business Improvement Programme (BIP) is to improve the
effectiveness and efficiency of the support we provide to our subpostmasters and
operators in the running of their Post Offices from an operational and engagement
perspective by:
e Reviewing the life cycle of the subpostmaster and all touch points with the
business
¢ Taking input from owners, users and recipients of Post Office policies and
processes
¢ Designing policies and processes that deliver improved ways of working with our
subpostmaster network in a cost effective and engaging way
e Reviewing all our interactions with Spmrs and making recommendations on
structure design for the network and admin support function touch points.
e Developing an implementation plan to move from existing to future state
Background
To address concerns raised by some subpostmasters over recent years about the
Horizon system, the Post Office in 2012 commissioned an external firm Second Sight to
undertake an independent review of their cases.
Second Sight published an interim report on 08 July 2013 View Horizon Interim report
that confirmed that no system wide problems had been found in relation to the Horizon
software but suggested that the Post Office should examine its support and training
processes for subpostmasters.
The Branch Support Programme was initiated in July 2013 to review the level of
support the Post Office provided to subpostmasters to operate their post offices and to
introduce improved levels of support having taken feedback from subpostmasters. As
the findings of the Branch Support Programme unfolded it became evident that the
scope of this programme needed to be wider to ensure that the required cultural
change was to be embedded within the business as usual with the Post Office. This
was not simply a network consideration but essentially the DNA of the Post Office.
Consequently the Programme has been renamed the Business Improvement
Programme with a wider scope which is detailed within this paper.
Scope
The focus of the Programme is predominately how the Post Office supports the agency
network and the policies and processes that impact on the Subpostmaster. What is in
and out of the scope of this programme is detailed below:
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In Scope
Out of Scope
Cash management
Finance Service Centre (FSC)
NBSC
Training — design & delivery
Audit — design & delivery
Communications
IT changes to support BIP
Spmr/operator selection process
Spmr contract breaches
Sales support — delivery methods
Structure design for the network and
admin support function touch points
Crown — where the touch points are the
same for the Crown network then these
are in scope
Crown network as an entity
Supply Chain as an entity
NTP as an entity
Wider business organisational design
Programme Workstreams
Nine workstreams have been identified and have a business owner allocated as
detailed below. The aims and the change required to make the required level of
improvements are detailed at appendix 1.
Training — Julie Thomas
Physical Support - Pam Heap
Leavers Process — Craig Tuthill
IT — Andy Holt
Interdependencies
Pre-appointment Process — Craig Tuthill
Operational Support — Kendra Dickerson
Early Identification Tool - Gayle Peacock
Performance Management — Julie Thomas
Communications — Richard Weaver
There are two other strategic programmes that have been identified as key to this
programme:
e Sparrow ie Initial Complaint Review and Mediation Scheme. Sponsor — Chris
Aujard. Programme led by Belinda Crowe
e Business Operating Model — Sponsor — Lesley Sewell. Programme led by Brian
Deveney.
Programme Resource
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The Programme has to date been light touch in terms of resource and programmatic
governance. Gayle Peacock as Programme Manager with the support of Anne Allaker
has been working on the Programme to date full time. A business analyst, Peter Prior-
Mills has recently joined the team.
A budget of £750k for quarter 4 has been requested to enable this work to continue. A
budget bid for £4m was submitted for 14/15. Finance believe that this spend can be
treated as exceptional and linked to Network Transformation Programme via a business
case which is currently work in progress
Governance
The Business Improvement Programme will operate with a formal programmatic
approach supported by the necessary governance and resource. The rationale for this
is that a cultural change in behaviours will be required and therefore the right support in
each of the workstreams and business areas will be needed to ensure that the changes
are managed effectively and successfully embedded within the organisation.
e ExCo Programme Sponsor — Kevin Gilliland. Monthly update will be provided to
ExCo and POL Board
e Programme Board will meet monthly. Members are:
Kevin Gilliland, Chair
Fay Healy, Chief HR Officer
Michael Larkin, Head of Agency Sales and Service
Harry Clarke, Head of Customer Experience, Property and
Modernisation
Brian Deveney, Procurement
Michael Brown, SPMO
Alana Renner, Deputy Comms Director
Sharon Bull, Finance
Angela Van Den Bogerd, Programme Director
Gayle Peacock, Programme Manager and Programme Board Secretariat
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Programme Timeline
The milestone plan for each of the workstreams is currently being scoped and will be
completed by the end of March 2014. Some of the workstreams will have longer
timelines than others due in part to the interdependency on other workstreams to
complete or other business considerations — the IT workstream is a good example of
where delivery will depend on the requirements of the other programme workstreams.
The high level timeline assumption at this stage is that the Programme will run until end
of March 2015.
Success Criteria
The Programme has two main key performance indicators (KPIs) - Agent Engagement
and Operational Cost Reduction:
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e Agent Engagement - the formal measure is the Spmr annual engagement and
in particular the support category of the survey. This will be supplemented with
Pulse surveys undertaken by Comms at quarterly intervals throughout the year.
Reviewing the life cycle of the subpostmaster and all touch points with the
business
¢ Operational Cost Reduction - the cost of support to the network will be
baselined as part of this Programme. Headline numbers suggest that 40% of
the current support to the network is spent on recovery support ie correcting
things that haven't been done right first time
Each of the nine workstreams will have performance measurements that feed into the
two main KPIs.
Angela Van Den Bogerd
4" Feb 2014
Appendix 1
Work stream Owner Objective Level of change
required
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Training Julie To provide co- Full review of who,
Thomas ordinated, flexible, where, when, what and
effective training to post I how we train our
office branches, branches. Includes IT
delivered by highly development and
trained individuals structure review.
supported by a multi- Business change
channel approach. processes for delivery
of training
People change required
for delivery of training
and the accountability
Communications Richard To ensure all of our Full review of how we
Weaver communications are interact with branches
personal, simple, co- and development of
ordinated, relevant, new channels or
accurate and timely. materials to support
They must also be that interaction.
signed off by arelease I Specific
authority, be communications to
measurable and visible I support the visions of
to all. the other work streams.
Cultural change to
embed the principles
across the business
IT Peter To provide effective Transaction processes
Prior-Mills I support and meaningful I to make things easier
MI to colleagues, for customers and
customers and clients, branches
enabling sales and Tools for branches to
improving support access help and
support, and to improve
the experience
Tools and systems for
internal teams to
support and record
contact
Systems and MI in
place to reduce
inefficiency among
teams
Behaviour to support
new ways of working
Pre-appointment Craig To ensure our agents The information that is
process (agents) Tuthill are consistently provided to applicants
informed, supported,
knowledgeable,
confident and feel part
of Post Office Ltd. To
ensure that our leavers
in this process also feel
and how we share that
How we support people
through the process,
both from a structure
and behaviour process
The process of how we
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informed, supported
and valued.
recruit agents
The process of how we
support agents leaving
Operational Kendra To ensure consistent, Structure of the
support Dickinson I quality, efficient and co- I operational support
ordinated support is model and change in
provided to branches to I business process
ensure they can serve Development and
customers effectively deployment of tools and
and have their issues technology to support
resolved in a timely and I the model
quality way. Way we deal with
suppliers
Streamlining of
transactions causing
business inefficiency
Behaviour towards our
branches
Physical support Pam To engage and support I Structural review of
model Heap our branches effectively I support and necessary
to ensure great transition including
customer service is recruitment,
provided and business I assessment and
growth. transition
Roles and
responsibilities,
including behaviours
Development of
different skill sets
Performance Julie To ensure branch How we manage data
Management Thomas performance is within the business,
managed in the most including the structure
efficient way that and also the tools and
enables action to be technology
taken in a timely and The intervention
effective way to process for managing
improve income, branch performance
improve compliance, How we identify issues,
reduce losses, or problems and the way
reduce risk. we react
Leavers process Craig To ensure that quality Review of the
Tuthill and consistent support I suspension process,
is provided to branches,
issues are investigated
before contractual
decisions are made and
agents supported
during the exit process
and
policy and contractual
approach
Behavioural change in
how we treat agents
with issues
Structural change to
support processes
Approach to how we
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support agents with
issues with assistants
Early Identification
Tool
HORice pilot
Gayle
Peacock
To test the
effectiveness of a real-
time data tool to
support the early
identification and
intervention of
accounting and
transactional anomalies
in branch.
Earlier identification and
intervention regarding
unusual branch
behaviour which could
be an indicator of non-
conformance or fraud.
The real-time element
will enable analysis to
be undertaken at the
point it happens rather
than waiting for
historical data to be
gathered.
There have been
specific historical cases
of significant losses (i.e.
£185k) where having
this data would have
identified a pattern or
behaviour within one to
two months rather than
after 1 year.
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