Case study

Northern Ireland Social Security Agency 

Restructuring business processes through a private sector partnership

The NI Social Security Agency administers some £3 billion of benefits expenditure per year, has a staff of almost 6,000 and also carries out some back-office processing work for the UK Benefits Agency. In the mid-1990s the agency came under severe pressure to upgrade its business processes and use of information technology. In addition, the launch of the Welfare Reform and Modernisation Programme in 1997 added to the impetus for change. The agency’s management board recognised that obtaining the requisite funding and having the necessary expertise to deliver change quickly would be a major challenge. To address this, a public-private partnership project got underway to identify an IT services provider and a partner able to support the strategic development of the agency.

In April 1999, PA was appointed as commercial and financial adviser to work alongside the in-house team and legal experts. Using skills in preparing key commercial elements of a public-private partnership contract, coupled with a knowledge of process re-engineering, benefits delivery and IT architecture, the PA team was able to develop a strong contractual framework within which both the agency and the supplier could work.