Challenge 8.2: How can technology help drive effective resource management for a multiskilled workforce in a constantly changing environment?

Key information for applicants

Please note: you must apply for this Challenge via Public Contracts Scotland

Launch date
Monday 31 October 2022

Closing date
Midday, Monday 28 November

Exploration Stage interviews
Tuesday 13 December 2022

Exploration Stage
9 to 27 January 2023

Accelerator interviews
Wednesday 1 February 2023

Accelerator Stage
27 February to 9 June 2023

Maximum contract value
£350,000

What does this mean?

Q&A session

A live Q&A session was held with the Challenge Sponsor team on Tuesday 8th November 2022 at 15:00. A recording of the session can be viewed here:

Why does this Challenge need to be solved?

The Scottish Government’s Rural Payments and Inspections Division (RPID) is the accredited paying agency in Scotland for Rural Payments and Services.

600 staff in 17 area offices throughout Scotland and Head Office in Edinburgh provide a range of services — some in the office covering administration and payments and helping develop policy, others out conducting inspections.

Our key responsibilities are:

• payment of  scheme grants and subsidies, many ex Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This is around £650m per annum

• inspection of agricultural/crofting land, livestock and plant health to ensure compliance with regulations.

• Delivery of the Vision for Agriculture

Currently:

• We have multifunctional people across different environments and locations

• Some work is seasonal (timing is influenced by the growing season, weather and disease outbreaks) and driven by legislative requirements

• Demand must also be met from stakeholders and partners and this demand of our resource is hard to quantify and qualify under the current system, meaning we are reactive to communication from other services, for example customers or from partner agencies and other public sector services.

• The current system assumes a level of demand led, difficult to predict work

• The existing tool is a snapshot in time and uses a level of assumptions that remain static throughout the year

• Difficult to plan ahead for new work and align resources to meet the needs of new projects and programmes that are required since the European Union (EU) exit

We know that other public and third sector teams and organisations experience similar problems however we can be clear about the problems we wish to solve for:

Usability. The existing system is restrictive in respect of the types of data that we may wish to collect and manage.

Usability. Initial entry of data is time consuming and laborious. The task of resource re-allocation is not practical.

The platform of the existing system restricts data management capabilities including access and re-use of existing data that we control.

It is difficult to understand dependencies with other planning data for comparison of planned and actual throughput.

How will we know the Challenge has been solved?

If we can use a system that:

• Can report and update changes to our resource management systems in real time.

• Can update and change how specific tasks and resources are allocated and re-allocated across offices and working groups/teams due to changing priorities or staff movement.

• Allows dynamic reallocation of work where actual volume and time is different to the predicted time and so accounts for ‘outlier’ scenarios for both time and cost.

• Provides insight and  predicts the impact and levels of demand driven work.

• Links with SG corporate systems (for example Human Resources) to ensure up-to-date information on resources (staff) is reused and aligns with workforce planning framework.

• Uses data that is already available; accessing data sources that are currently difficult to utilise.

• Reports in real time. Management information that is timely and automated to enable specific planning activities for instance scenario modelling as well as showing the current baseline allocation of resources and costs of these resources.

• Quality Assured. Able to reconcile allocated resource to resources actually used or deployed, to further enhance the prediction capability of a solution. This includes increasing the speed to gather and access data.

• Is stable, doesn’t crash, freeze or take a long time to move between functions.

• Is more efficient than our current system. Reduced costs and time including removal or reduction of manual entry from staff and partner agencies by making use of data. For instance, HR or financial data that “talk with each other” to reduce manual entry.

• Our people "buy into" a solution because they experience the benefits at a local level.

• Provides local level benefits including reports on local resources and the ability to use them to discuss resourcing tasks correctly with other offices.

• At Scotland level - able to see what people do, when they do it and what level/skills needed to do it and how much it costs.

• Provides scenario modelling to understand impact of assumptions and constraints or asks changing.

• Provides evidence to support recruitment needs

• Is able to understand dependencies with other planning data for comparison of planned and actual throughput.

Who are the end users of the solution likely to be?

RPID area offices, land mapping team, Planning and Performance and teams within RPID as part of the Scottish Government

Has the Challenge Sponsor attempted to solve this problem before?

We have considered available products in the market, for example Harvest, Asana and Monday.com. We also sought input from across other parts of the Scottish Government and partners across Scotland.

Are there any interdependencies or blockers?

Systems, like HR and finance, are always evolving and we expect that a solution to this Challenge may need to integrate with these systems. We can provide further information during the time of the Challenge.

Is this part of an existing service?

There is no existing service.

Any technologies or features the Challenge Sponsor wishes to explore or avoid?

No.

What is the commercial opportunity beyond a CivTech contract?

There is immediate use case beyond RPID within the public sector that would drive greater efficiency of staff time; reduce manual data entry requirements;  delivery usability and scenario planning for multi-skilled staff; reduce costs of data management; and deliver insight and reporting for resource management at a country level as well as local office/team level.  This can be applied to any other organization with multi-skilled workforces doing parallel working on multiple tasks, some planned and others demand lead. 

Who are the stakeholders?

RPID team – as users and consumers of the resourcing data, planning and performance,  land mapping team and data insights and analytics.

In addition to RPID:

• Data and Information services Division, part of Agriculture Rural Economy (ARE) Directorate

• Scottish Government Corporate Directorate

• RPID Finance team

Who’s in the Challenge Sponsor team and what additional resources can we provide?

RPID core team – as Challenge Sponsors and users with business support, planning and performance and data insights analytics, as need including:

• Data and Information Services Division (part of ARE)

• SG corporate 

• RPID Finance

• Land mapping team

• Communications team

What is the policy background to the Challenge?

This challenge relates to the delivery of RPIDs interests within Directorate for Net Zero. This includes supports for the rural economy through a transition from CAP schemes to delivery of Our Vision for Scottish Agriculture. https://www.gov.scot/publications/next-step-delivering-vision-scotland-leader-sustainable-regenerative-farming/documents/ 

Other policy areas that this Challenge relates to include:

• Digital Standards Scotland