CONTENTS

Page

Defining the Blueprint 1

Strategic Context and Timeframe 1

Desired Outcomes 2

Drivers for Change 3

Future Role - What SPVA will deliver 3

Future Operating Model 3

Organisational Construct 4

Resource View 5

Information Requirements 7

Strategic Themes 7

Transformation Roadmap 8

Roles and Responsibilities 8

Annexes:

A. Key Drivers for Change

B. Stakeholders/Key Partners

C. Organisational Construct

D. Strategic Themes - Objectives and Action Streams

SPVA/DS&P/Strategy/Blueprint

SERVICE PERSONNEL AND VETERANS AGENCY

STRATEGY BLUEPRINT

The SPVA Future Vision is the “Dynamic delivery of high quality, comprehensive and responsive through-life personnel services to the serving and veterans' communities”.

Defining the Blueprint

1. What is it for? The Service Personnel and Veterans Agency (SPVA) Strategy Blueprint is the guiding framework for the SPVA, enabling the Agency Management Group (AMG) to set clear strategic direction using a robust and coherent structure and common context, ensuring that the Agency is properly aligned to deliver its outputs. The Blueprint is targeted specifically at management across the Agency and articulates the requirement for:

a. A future operating model - including functions, processes, activities, key internal/external interfaces, boundaries and balance of in-sourcing/outsourcing of service delivery;

b. An organisational construct - organisational roles & responsibilities, skills required, structure and staffing levels;

c. A resource view - physical locations, technology - infrastructure and applications, business management support tools;

d. An information requirement - MIS, information management, data flows;

e. Strategic Themes for implementation, together with a transformation route map - with the timeframe for managing the delivery of the capability described in the vision statement.

2. The Strategy Blueprint is consistent with the Corporate Strategy set out in the Agency Corporate Plan 2007-2012.

Strategic Context & Timeframe

3. The prime focus of SPVA is to provide effective personnel services to the serving and veterans' communities. In delivering its outputs, the Agency will continue to act as the MOD Centre's sponsor for the further harmonisation of personnel processes delivered by Joint Personnel Administration (JPA). Following the merger - in April 2007 - of the former Armed Forces Personnel Administration Agency (AFPAA) and the Veterans Agency (VA), there is still considerable work required to derive the full benefits of the merger over coming years, balancing efficiency with effectiveness. Successful implementation of the SPVA Blueprint should enable qualitative improvements in the delivery of the current services offered by the Agency, with improved value for money and improved external customer satisfaction.

4. The Blueprint timeframe covers a 5 year timeframe, from 2008 to 2013, which should encompass:

a. The Interim Contract (IC) for service delivery, with a contract length of 3 years from Nov 2009 to Nov 2012, and the commencement of the Follow-On Contract (FC), with an expected contract length circa 10 years.

b. Enlarging the Agency's boundaries in 2008/09/10, following the Streamlining Review of the DCDS(Pers) organisation with `non-decider' functions rusticated out of Head Office, some of which could be integrated into SPVA.

c. Taking forward opportunities for convergence with the PPPA under the MOD-sponsored Shared Services Options Delivery Study, consistent with the Government's Shared Service Agenda.

d. Delivery of key personnel projects from the Service Personnel Plan (SPP) including the Review of Terms and Conditions of Service (TACOS) and the Strategic Review of Remuneration (SRR).

e. Replacement of Agencynet with IT infrastructure hosting on DII(F), provisionally planned for 2012.

f. Building on the applications and processes that are within the JPA environment, including ORACLE JPA, the Compensation and Pension System (CAPS), a diminishing series of Complimentary Applications and Stand-Alone Systems (CASS).

g. Developments in the e-government agenda and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) - with mechanisms to access business information from Other Government Departments, including `reach-back' into the DWP information systems.

Desired Outcomes

5. The SPVA Blueprint strategy:

a. Provides a clear statement of intent of how SPVA will operate in the future.

b. Provides comprehensive and comprehendible direction and an understanding of the services that the Agency is required to deliver to underpin Defence needs, taking proper account of customer expectations, filling gaps in understanding where necessary and clarifying boundaries and interfaces.

c. Defines the optimum structure to deliver its services effectively and provides pan-Agency cohesion.

d. Must be deliverable, leveraging existing skills, resources and infrastructure and be within the control of the Agency.

e. Must be agile and responsive to controlled and substantive changes in demand for SPVA services; translating external events into effects for the Agency.

f. Sets the agenda for the future transformation; with progress measured against a Transformation Route Map, informing decisions on priorities for action.

g. Ensures there is consistency with DCDS(Pers) Strategy and Service Personnel Policies, the Service Personnel Plan and its capability goals; seeking to improve the effectiveness of the delivery of end-to-end (E2E) personnel processes.

h. Fits with the wider and developing MOD Streamlining and Corporate Shared Services strategic agenda.

i. Provides a basis for establishing compliance/consistency; used for programme management purposes by project teams to ensure that what they deliver is consistent with Agency strategy.

Drivers for Change

6. Drivers for change are grouped under:

7. The key drivers for change and their respective effects on the Agency are listed at Annex A.

Future Role - what SPVA will deliver

8. The SPVA will support Defence operational effectiveness and business efficiency through the dynamic delivery of high quality, comprehensive and responsive through-life personnel services. These services must be recognisable to our customers as outputs that meet their operational and business needs. Each service must represent a value proposition to customers and be delivered, where possible, as an E2E service, that meets an agreed set of expectations.

9. The key underpinning principle for the Agency going forward will be to seek to provide more for its existing Services customer base i.e. become truly E2E in military personnel lifecycle management capability terms, in preference to extending the extant service delivery offer to additional non-Services customers.

Future Operating Model

Functions, Processes, Activities, Key Internal/External Interfaces

10. SPVA seeks to be a customer-focused, IS-enabled, process-led delivery organisation, supporting serving regular and reservist military personnel and the veterans' community. It seeks to be the supplier of choice, offering value for money and with a proven ability to integrate business elements successfully, being reliable, adaptable and unobtrusive. It will continue to build on its current personnel administration outputs through a combination of in-house and outsourced delivery mechanisms for:

11. The Agency's key interfaces are with a wider range of internal and external stakeholders, some of whom are key partners and some of whom are senior influencers (see Stakeholder diagram at Annex B). They include all those agencies, organisations and individuals engaged in operating and managing elements of the E2E personnel processes. In managing its stakeholders, the Agency needs strong stable relationships and a good reputation, attracting attention only for positive reasons.

Organisational Construct

Organisational roles & responsibilities and structure

12. The organisational construct of SPVA will need to continually adapt to meet evolving business requirements:

a. The current organisation of SPVA reflects the first stages of the post-merger integration phase (2007 to 2009), whereby delivery of services to military and veterans' communities are undergoing significant rationalisation. These services are essentially managed by two directors - Director Military Services (DVS) and Director Veterans Services (DVS).

b. In the short term, the in-year and following year's change programme is managed by Director Change, with medium to longer term activities led by Director Strategy and Programmes. When steady state is reached, options for merging these two roles will be considered.

c. The Agency will continue to be supported by Director Corporate Services (Secretariat, HR Business Partner, Communications, Finance, Commercial and miscellaneous corporate services including Agency Briefing Team and Performance Management Team).

d. Our industry partner will continue to provide integral support to Business Units with the delivery of business outputs including: BPO - Front Office and Back Office support; Technical Applications Support (Apps) and Infrastructure (ITO); plus facilities management.

13. It is critically important that the Agency is structured to operate in a management matrix rather than in `stovepipes', to avoid duplication, inefficiency and errors, able to react swiftly to the unexpected and to drive forward Agency transformation in an efficient and timely manner. Consideration will need to be given to appointing an AMG-level Director responsible for Customer focus.

14. In the IC timeframe - 2009 to 2012 - the organisational construct will need to be agile and flexible, able to adapt to suit emerging business requirements and to integrate business elements successfully, operating under increasingly taut resource constraints. The organisation will also most likely be subject to “leaning” in the Streamlining era.

15. In the post-Streamlining era/FC timeframe - 2012 to 2022 - the pressure on resources and manpower headcount will continue. The scope of the FC may lead to radical re-organisation and a shift in the balance between in-house and outsourced service delivery functions. This should become apparent once the FC development gets underway later in 2008/early 2009.

16. Details of the current organisational management matrix are at Annex C.

Resource View

Our People, Locations, Technology - Infrastructure and Applications,

Business Management Support Tools

17. Our People - Our people (civilian, military and contractors) are key to our success. In order to achieve the strategic vision, staff must be well trained, valued and fully engaged. The size and composition of the future workforce will be defined by the need for SPVA to adapt to changes within its operational, business, technological and customer environment. The future will require deep business knowledge and flexibility and a greater range of skill sets and core competencies within individual roles, ensuring that the Agency has a high performing in-house capability to: run outsourcing governance; elicit and deliver on business requirements; ensure technical capability; and manage and leverage external supply. Specific competency roles will include:

18. Locations - The Agency, largely for legacy reasons arising from its formation, operates from four core sites in Gosport, Innsworth, Norcross (Blackpool) and Glasgow.

a. In 2008, the Agency intends to implement a programme for the re-location of current Innsworth-based functions, the preferred option being re-location to Norcross and Gosport by December 2008, subject to Ministerial approval.

b. During the period of the IC, from 2009 to 2012, the Agency intends to operate from three core sites: Gosport, Norcross and Glasgow.

c. In the FC timeframe, from 2012 onwards, the Agency footprint may be subject to change, depending on the selected service provider's bid and the outcome of the Streamlining Review.

19. Infrastructure - The Agency's underpinning IT infrastructure is complicated by the antecedence of the component parts of the organisation and some incompatibility. Future plans for the IT infrastructure are as follows:

a. To reduce reliance on DWP services through implementation of a link between the RLI and DWP networks, to allow DII Users within SPVA - particularly the Veterans Services - to `Reach Back' and access applications hosted by DWP.

b. To migrate all desktop services to DII(F) across all sites, in accordance with MOD policy, subject to funding and contractual constraints, in order to provide all SPVA staff with a consistent and common desk top service (DII Increment 3 is currently forecast to be in IC timeframe, so would necessitate novation to DII ATLAS of contracts supporting existing desktop and infrastructure services, then migration to DII(F) technology). At this point, SPVA will change from being an IS infrastructure provider to a recipient of these services from DII.

20. IT Applications - Given the very considerable effort and resource put into the implementation of JPA through ORACLE HRMS, CAPS and CASS, the medium term plan for the Agency is to continue to build on these COTS applications. The following strategic principles are to be adopted:

a. New requirements should be delivered by using or extending the capabilities of current strategic applications, wherever practical and applicable. Where re-use or extension is not possible, then configurable COTS products must be considered in meeting new requirements.

b. IT solutions should align with a service-oriented architecture and be built and configured using a service based approach, exposing functionality as services that can be aggregated and re-used, wherever possible. They must be scaleable for expansion or contraction, provide redundancy and be sustainable to support SPVA's goals for high availability and security.

c. A robust mechanism will be required to support the on-going programme of change, delivered through a phased release programme.

d. To reduce reliance on DWP's hosting of veterans' services applications, different strategies will need to be adopted for each of the relevant DWP-hosted applications on a case by case basis.

21. Business Management Support Tools

a. Performance Management - The Agency will require a comprehensive and forward-looking performance management tool to pro-actively support senior management decision making, to anticipate and manage developing `hot issues' and monitor the achievement of Agency Key Targets. This is an area for improvement.

b. Programme/Project Management - All Agency change programmes/projects will be managed with PRINCE 2 methodology, using SOA to ensure proper alignment and efficient data capture.

c. Operating and Planning Model (OPM) - Management of the Agency will continue to be supported by an IS-enabled Operating and Planning Model, utilising business orchestration techniques that are MODAF compliant.

d. External Benchmarking - The Agency will continue to regularly assess the efficiency and cost of delivery of its services against external benchmarking criteria, comparing where possible with other Nations' military personnel systems, industry and comparable UK public sector HR delivery organisations. The Agency will seek to achieve and maintain upper quartile performance standards.

Information Requirements

Management Information, Information Management, Data Flows

22. SPVA's information management (IM) strategy is concerned with all aspects of personnel information; how it is stored, retrieved and transformed so that it can be best exploited to improve operational and business processes, in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the delivery of the Agency's outputs. SPVA must strive to become a learning and information-based organisation, and be more joined-up internally and externally than hitherto.

23. In order to improve the E2E management and exploitation of information, SPVA should seek to adopt Defence Information Exploitation (IX) Principles (as set out in Joint Doctrine Note 4/06). SPVA will require the following key IM components to be in place and effective, providing the ability to:

24. Data Design Principles have been adopted by the Agency. Data ownership must be clearly identified. Data should be captured, verified, stored and used many times, using EA principles. Solutions should minimise the requirements to replicate data owned by different systems and exploit data from the primary source wherever possible to ensure consistency and accuracy. Information security will continue to be of paramount importance.

Strategic Themes

25. The analysis presented in the Blueprint leads to a number of strategic themes, with objectives, outlined below, which need to be addressed through a series of action streams in order to take the Blueprint forward successfully:

26. Objectives and action streams for each theme are at Annex D.

Transformation Route Map

27. The SPVA Transformation Route Map takes the action streams for each strategic theme and sets the agenda for improvements in the future SPVA, with the timeframe for delivering the capability described in the vision statement. A T-Map will be developed in 2008 to manage the activities that must be carried out over the next 5 years (to 2013).

Roles and Responsibilities

28. DCDS(Pers) is responsible for SPVA as the Service personnel process owner. He delegates responsibility for the management and future development of the SPVA to CE SPVA, supported by the Agency's directors and business partners.

29. Implementation of the Strategy Blueprint will be driven by the Agency Management Group (AMG) and Agency Executive Board (AEB), with Director Strategy & Programmes as the programme lead director. Further details of the Terms of Reference for the AMG and AEB are contained within the Agency Governance Framework.

18 Feb 2008

Annexes:

A. Key Drivers for Change

B. Stakeholders/Key Partners

C. Organisational Construct

D. Strategic Themes - Objectives and Action Streams

ANNEX A

KEY DRIVERS FOR CHANGE

1. Customer Expectations: Our customers, ranging from individual service personnel and veterans to corporate MOD functions, expect continuing improvements in service delivery across the spectrum of the Agency's outputs and not to be unduly inconvenienced by any service failures or lack of responsiveness.

Effect: The Agency needs a strong customer-oriented service capability, continually seeking demonstrable improvements and able to respond to new requirements with a high degree of agility, flexibility and transparency.

2. Business Delivery Partners: Our industry partners are a key component of our future strategy as they play a major part in achieving our vision. The competing of the service delivery contract under IC and the start of the competitive process for the FC - with their differing contract scopes, timetables and procurement strategies - will have a very significant impact on the Agency and its ability to provide a seamless standard of service delivery.

Effect: Need for a close and effective working relationship with industry partners as we develop and implement our plan, sharing common objectives, risks and rewards whilst recognising that different drivers do apply. Whilst our Industry partners need to be `best of breed', the Agency needs to be an intelligent and well-informed customer, ensuring that it is able to buy outsourcing services competitively and pragmatically from the market, maintaining control over process architecture and the technical trajectory, building strong internal capability for post-contract management.

3. Transformational Government & Shared Services Delivery: Under the MOD Streamlining initiative, the Shared Services Options Delivery Study is examining the scope for converging the delivery of shared services and integration of existing systems, building on existing efforts; this study will consider whether to bring into a single overarching organisation the People, Pay and Pensions Agency (PPPA), SPVA, the Financial Management Shared Service Centre, DASA, and some DG Info delivered services. The timeframe for this convergence would have to be determined.

Effect: The Agency must be prepared to take a leading role in developing the convergence agenda, with the readiness to respond, commercially and in delivery terms, to converging delivery mechanisms. This would have significant challenges and risks for the Agency going forward. The Agency will also need to embrace the use of open architectures to support growth, more harmonisation and simplification.

4. Operational tempo: High levels of operational tempo for UK Armed Forces are set to continue, with large numbers of personnel deployed on war-fighting operations with lengthy separation from the home base/station and high levels of casualties.

Effect: The Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre (JCCC), MOD Medal Office and Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) will continue to be critically important high profile outputs, with no margin for error or failure in delivery. JPA Deployed needs to be readily accessible and fully effective.

5. Business Transformation: There will be a continuing need to transform the Agency's business processes to meet new and evolving requirements and policy developments.

Effect: We must have sufficient in-house expertise in business process development and project management techniques, able to perform pro-actively as an intelligent customer with our industry partner(s) in taking forward wide-ranging business transformation, improving efficiency through improved integration across the Agency and identifying and implementing lessons learned. The Agency will need to continue to act as the Change sponsor, driving further harmonisation of the people processes delivered through JPA.

6. Business Integration: There are significant opportunities to derive further benefits from the continuing process of harmonising and rationalising serving and veterans services following the 2007 merger.

Effect: We must continue to actively seek benefits through post-merger integration, seeking both efficiency and customer delivery effectiveness benefits.

7. Fiscal constraints: Downward pressure on the Defence budget will continue.

Effect: We must drive out VfM at all levels to optimise the delivery of services to our customers and bear our share of centrally-imposed efficiency savings.

8. Manpower constraints: Downward pressure on manning (both civil service and military) will continue, particularly under Head Office Streamlining.

Effect: We must be innovative to sustain our capability whilst minimising headcount.

9. Technology: ORACLE JPA, plus a range of complementary applications and interfaces, is at the core of the organisation. It will continue to be subject to regular technological refreshes/upgrades and evolution and act as the main source of personnel data for Service personnel in the short to medium term. ORACLE FUSION is forecast to replace both the ORACLE HRMS and Peoplesoft IT (latter used by PPPA) applications at a future date (tbc).

Effect: We must continue to build on the JPA Application, acting as the sponsors for further harmonisation and simplification of processes, minimising interfaces and the number of complementary applications. The strategic preference is to build on the applications already employed within SPVA, adopting others from the MoD or government portfolios in preference to purchasing additional COTS, and certainly in favour of bespoke developments, unless there is a clear through life value for money case.

ANNEX B

SPVA CUSTOMERS & STAKEHOLDERS

SENIOR INFLUENCERS AND KEY PARTNERS

ANNEX C

ANNEX D

STRATEGIC THEMES and ACTION STREAMS

Blueprint concept derived from the OGC Methodology for Managing Successful Programmes (MSP)

Individual Servicemen and women (Regulars and Reservists), unit HR administrators, the wider veterans' community, Principal Personnel Officers (PPOs), PJHQ and the Front-Line Commands, MOD and other corporate customers.

Desktop and infrastructure services are currently provided through: AFPAAnet (at Centurion, Innsworth and Glasgow); SAMA at RAF units; DPS(A) provision at Worthy Down; some DII desktops at Norcross recently migrated from CHOTS; and a large number of DWP desktops at Norcross, connected to the DWP WAN and providing access to DWP hosted applications.

SPVA Enterprise IS IT Principles dated 30 May 07.

Customer segments: serving personnel, reservists, retirees, vulnerable leavers, war pensioners; widows/widowers; ex-Service welfare organisations; MOD and other Government Departments.

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SPVA

Individuals

Service personnel Veterans

Dependants

Professional Users

Unit HR staff

Service Personnel Centres

Recruiting and Training

Senior Influencers

Government, MOD Personnel `Deciders', Veterans' Champions, Commercial, Media

Key Partners

MOD, Service Focal Points, Veterans' Organisations, Commercial partners

`Customers'

`Stakeholders'

`Partners'

STRATEGY

BLUEPRINT