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Back office benchmarking

Brian Farnet made this Freedom of Information request to Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

The request was partially successful.

From: Brian Farnet

2 April 2011

Dear Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea,

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

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Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

4 April 2011

Dear Mr. Farnet

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REF: 2011-294

I am writing to confirm that we received your information request on 2
April 2011. For your information and future communications your request
has been allocated the reference number FOI2011-294. Please quote this
reference in any future correspondence.

We will consider your request and respond in accordance with the
requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Our duty is to
respond promptly or at least within 20 working days.

Yours sincerely

Robin Yu

Information Protection Assistant

FOIA Team, Business Protection Unit

Information Systems Division (ISD)

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

The Town Hall, Hornton Street, London W8 7NX

Tel: 020 7938 8226

Web: [1]http://www.rbkc.gov.uk

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Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

13 April 2011

Dear Mr. Farnet,

Thank you for your request. Could you assist us by clarifying a couple of
points please?

In regards to ‘COMMUNICATIONS INFORMATION’, we have a Media and
Communications Team. Would it be sufficient to provide information
relating to this team?

Also in relation to ‘KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT’, we have an
Information Governance Team which deal with FOI/DPA requests. Is it
sufficient to provide information in relation to this team?

Yours sincerely

Robin Yu

Information Protection Assistant

Informaton Governance Team

Information Systems Division (ISD)

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

The Town Hall, Hornton Street, London W8 7NX

Tel: 020 7938 8226

Web: [1]http://www.rbkc.gov.uk

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Link to this

From: Brian Farnet

14 April 2011

That will be fine for both.

Link to this

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

16 May 2011


Attachment Your Voice results.pdf
635K Download View as HTML


Dear Mr. Farnet

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REF: 2011-294

I am responding to your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000,
which we received on 2 April 2011, for information held by the Council.

I apologise for the delay in responding, your request spans across several
departments and it is not always clear what information exactly is
required. We have tried to supply you with as much information as we are
able to.

ORGANISATION

What is your current headcount as of 1st April 2011? - 4151

What was your headcount as of the day before the General Election? - 4354
on 30 June 2010 (the closest date we have to the election)

How much grant funding do you receive? - 2010/11 budget is £106 million
in Formula Grant and £250 million in specific grants (which includes
£127 million of housing and council tax benefit).

What was your income for the last financial year? 2010/11 budget for
income is exactly the same as total for spending (local authorities are
legally required balance their budgets).

What was your expenditure on salaries for the last financial year? 2010/11
budget is £114 million (this includes all employee related costs).

What was your 3rd party expenditure for the last financial year? 2010/11
gross budgeted spend is £542 million so third party payments are
£428 million (making an assumption that third party payments are all
other payments other than employee related).

    

FINANCE INFORMATION

Organisational Running Costs - 2010/11 gross budgeted spend is £542
million.

Cost of the Finance Function - A rough estimate of core finance function
2010/11 budget is around £5 million (which excludes internal audit,
fraud investigation and revenues and benefits).

% Cost of Finance Function - Less than 1 per cent

Cost of Finance per Head - The government resident population estimate for
2010/11 grant allocation was 205,800 so the cost of the finance function
per head of resident population is £46.

Report cycle time - Monthly internally and quarterly whole authority

No. Finance Staff - The total number of core finance staff is 80 full time
equivalents.

No. Professionally Qualified Finance Staff - Roughly half depending on the
definition of qualified

% Finance qualified

Cost of the HR Function %

    

HR INFORMATION

Cost of HR Function - £2,220,000 (this excludes the Learning and
Development function, which is organised differently)

Cost of HR per Head - £608 (This is per FTE not headcount)

No. Organisation Employees - 3,648 (FTE)

No. HR Staff - 42.9 (FTE)

Ratio of employees (FTE) to HR staff - 85:1

Average Working Days Lost to sickness (AWDL) - 7.3

Employee experience of Performance Management - we have attached the
results of the last staff survey

Employee experience of Learning & Career Development - see above

Employee experience of Positive Working Environment - see above

    

IT INFORMATION

"Run and Maintain" Resource (RDEL) IT Expenditure - £11.6M (revenue
spend)

"Run and Maintain" Resource (RDEL) IT Expenditure ... of which
Depreciation - not held

"Run and Maintain" Capital (CDEL) IT Expenditure - £1.5M (capital
spend)

Total 'run & maintain'  IT Spend - £13.1M (revenue + capital spend)

Total Project Costs - Included in revenue and capital figures above

% Cost of IT - 4% - IT spend as a percentage of total revenue spend
(2009/2010 financial year)

Overall stakeholder perspective - not held

    

PROCUREMENT INFORMATION

Cost of the Procurement Function - Procurement is mainly devolved in this
Council and Heads of Service are responsible for procuring the goods and
services they require as part of their overall duties. It is therefore not
possible to calculate what proportion of an officers time is spent on
procurement.

% Cost of Procurement Function - see above

Total third party spend - The Council's controllable third party
expenditure in 2009/10 was £192,913,764. We do not currently have the
2010/11 figure.

Third party spend on SMEs (direct) - The Council is not currently able to
separate the amount spent with SME's from other suppliers.

Third party spend on SMEs (indirect) - See above

Procurement function costs as a percentage of total Procured Spend - See
answer to first question

% third party spend channelled to SMEs - See responses to questions 4 and
5.

No. Procurement Staff - There are 2 members of staff in the Strategic
Procurement Unit. There are others across the Council and I will provide a
full number when confirmed.

No. Professionally Qualified Procurement Staff - in the Strategic
Procurement Unit, one member of staff is MCIPS qualified and the other is
working towards qualification.

% Procurement qualified

    

ESTATES & PROPERTY INFORMATION - We do not hold this 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 - £541,290.00 (Media and Communications
Team)

% Cost of communications - not held

Number of communications staff - 8

Proportion of all staff working on communications - 100% of Media and
Communications Team

Number of Professional communicators - 8

Proportion of Professional communicators - 100% of Media and
Communications Team

Comms alignment to business objectives - We strive to align all our
communications with business objectives

    

LEGAL INFORMATION - Still waiting for these figures which will be
forwarded when received.

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 - £383,512 (for the Information Governance and
Information Security Teams)

% Cost of KIM - not held

Quality: % FOI/EIR requests addressed "in time" - 88%

Quality: No. of datasets made available on data.gov.uk - One

KIM Survey: % measure of how well staff can access information to allow
them to function effectively - not held

    

Copyright

Please note, all material provided by the Royal Borough of Kensington and
Chelsea in response to your request for information is for your personal,
non-commercial use. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea reserves
all rights in the copyright of the information provided. Any unauthorised
copying or adaptation of the information without express written
confirmation from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea will
constitute an infringement of copyright. Any intention to re-use this
information commercially will require consent. Please forward any requests
for re-use of information to the FOI officer ([1][RBKC request email]).

Complaints

I trust this has satisfied your request. Should you be unhappy with the
handling of your request, the Council has an internal complaints process
for handling FOIA complaints. Complaints are reviewed by the Town Clerk
and Chief Executive or his nominee. A form is available from our website
to lodge your complaint
[2]http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/councilanddemocra...
Please contact us if you do not have website access and we can provide you
with a copy of the form. Following this review, should you still be
unhappy with how your information request has been handled, you have a
further right to appeal to the Information Commissioner who is responsible
for ensuring compliance with FOIA.

Yours sincerely

Robin Yu

Information Protection Assistant

Information Governance Team

Information Systems Division (ISD)

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

The Town Hall, Hornton Street, London W8 7NX

Tel: 020 7938 8226

Web: [3]http://www.rbkc.gov.uk

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