Back office benchmarking

Dear Greater London Authority,

Under the Freedom of Information Act, I would like to request back
office statistics and information covering the following indicators
below. Definitions for each of the indicators are according to
those listed by the Cabinet Office in the following report:
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sites/de...

ORGANISATION
What is your current headcount as of 1st April 2011?
What was your headcount as of the day before the General Election?
How much grant funding do you receive?
What was your income for the last financial year?
What was your expenditure on salaries for the last financial year?
What was your 3rd party expenditure for the last financial year?

FINANCE INFORMATION
Organisational Running Costs
Cost of the Finance Function
% Cost of Finance Function
Cost of Finance per Head
Report cycle time
No. Finance Staff
No. Professionally Qualified Finance Staff
% Finance qualified
Cost of the HR Function %

HR INFORMATION
Cost of HR Function
Cost of HR per Head
No. Organisation Employees
No. HR Staff
Ratio of employees (FTE) to HR staff
Average Working Days Lost to sickness (AWDL)
Employee experience of Performance Management
Employee experience of Learning & Career Development
Employee experience of Positive Working Environment

IT INFORMATION
"Run and Maintain" Resource (RDEL) IT Expenditure
"Run and Maintain" Resource (RDEL) IT Expenditure … of which
Depreciation
"Run and Maintain" Capital (CDEL) IT Expenditure
Total 'run & maintain'  IT Spend
Total Project Costs
% Cost of IT
Overall stakeholder perspective

PROCUREMENT INFORMATION
Cost of the Procurement Function
% Cost of Procurement Function
Total third party spend
Third party spend on SMEs (direct)
Third party spend on SMEs (indirect)
Procurement function costs as a percentage of total Procured Spend
% third party spend channelled to SMEs
No. Procurement Staff
No. Professionally Qualified Procurement Staff
% Procurement qualified

ESTATES & PROPERTY INFORMATION
Cost per FTE
Area per office based FTE
Cost per square metre
Property: Corporate Governance
Property: Capacity & Capability
Property: Policies & Standards
Property: Data & Management Information Systems
Property: Performance Management Review & Audit

COMMUNICATIONS INFORMATION
Total Cost of Communications
% Cost of communications
Number of communications staff
Proportion of all staff working on communications
Number of Professional communicators
Proportion of Professional communicators
Comms alignment to business objectives

LEGAL INFORMATION
Total cost of legal services
Legal costs: of which for 'technical' legal work
Legal costs: of which for legal admin and support work
% Cost of Legal Services
Legal % spend on technical work (not admin)

KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT (KIM)
Total cost of KIM
% Cost of KIM
Quality: % FOI/EIR requests addressed "in time"
Quality: No. of datasets made available on data.gov.uk
KIM Survey: % measure of how well staff can access information to
allow them to function effectively

Yours faithfully,

Brian Farnet

Thank you for your email requesting clarification.

Finance Information: Organisational running costs (Please confirm
whether this is gross expenditure for the whole of the GLA (not
just cost of our Finance department)) >> Yes, that is correct.

IT Information: Overall stakeholder experience (Please clarify –
provide further detail / what information you require. Please note
that we have recently completed a customer satisfaction survey - is
this what you require?) >> Yes, this will be sufficient thank you.

Procurement Information - Please note that Procurement for the GLA
is managed by Transport for London. For information on this part of
your request you should contact [email address] >> Thank you, I
will contact them but would you be able to confirm whether you
allocate cost to TFL for this service?

Legal information - Please note that our Legal services team is
managed by Transport for London as part of the GLA shared services
agenda. We can provide you with the cost we allocate to Transport
for London for this service however the further detailed breakdown
of information you requested will need to be requested from
Transport for London as the responsible Authority at [email
address] >> That would be helpful, thank you.

Estates & Property Information - We do not have an Estates &
Property team - Please confirm whether you would like information
on our Facilities Management team. >> Yes, if that is what your
organisation calls the team.

Communications Team - We do not have a general Communications team
- Please confirm whether you would like information on our Press
Team. >> Yes, if that is what your organisation calls the team.

Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) - We do not have a
general Knowledge and Information Management team. We do have
separate Information Services (Library services etc..) and an
Information Governance team (Freedom of Information, Environmental
information etc..). Please confirm which you would like further
detailed breakdown on in relation to the KIM part of your request.
>> I believe that both departments encompass KIM activity and would
be grateful for an aggregate please.

In addition to my request for clarification sent on 6 April 2011,
Could I also ask which financial year you would like the requested
data for? We can provide information for 2009/10 at present,
however if it is 2010/11 you are seeking I can inform you that we
do not yet hold the complete financial information for this period
as we are currently in the process of closing down the accounts for
that financial year. >> 2009/10 will be sufficient, thank you.