The Challenge

To bring together the Environmental Health Services departments of two local authorities, help reduce costs and support leaders in their objective of improving customer service.

Why change was needed

The two authorities faced significant pressures on budgets with the prospect of it increasing in the future.

What we did

Introducing ‘Systems Thinking’ into the way they ran their departments, we brought the two teams and different cultures together by supporting operational leaders to create their own design for how the services should be delivered across the two councils.

The operational leaders also designed their own measures to help them record and learn how well their system was delivering what matters most to their customers.

We helped our customer understand that change is about people, behaviour and attitude, not just about the process, and that it involves ownership at all levels, creating a system where people are encouraged to think for themselves to do what matters for their customers.

The Results

Habanero worked as a sub-contractor on the project.
We were tasked with introducing joint-working in just three months, while achieving savings of £96,000.
The allied team was ready on time and the saving was £115,000.
Following this success Systems Thinking was adopted as the method for all future transformation and was badged as ‘AIMS’ within the two councils to provide ownership.

The Client Says

“We set very ambitious objectives to bring together front line services from two councils, to save money and to improve service - all within three months. We were impressed with the value for money and quality of outcome achieved from our work with (Habanero). Particularly impressive was their ability to adapt to our situation without compromising the quality, clarity and constancy of their challenge and support.”

Alliance Programme Manager