CHAMPS2: Birmingham City Council’s approach for innovative change management
CHAMPS2 is the business change method that has supported the delivery of the most comprehensive IT-enabled transformational change programme in the UK public sector.
Birmingham City Council’s business transformation programme, with £670m of investment, is on track to deliver over 95% of the intended benefits, with substantial service improvements being achieved in both the back and the front office.
Within the last year, this ten year programme, which started in 2006, has made good on its promise to greatly improve services and to realise very significant efficiency gains. Recurring annual savings have reached £100m and the total saved to date is £250m.
As at 2011/12, the programme is making a net contribution of £44m to the council’s revenue budget, which will rise to £96m by 2014/15. To put this into context, to gain this £44m through local taxation would have required Council Tax to increase by over 14%.
Central to this success story has been the creation and application of the CHAMPS2 method. The method has provided the golden thread that has linked the definition of outcomes at the start of each transformation project to their final realisation.
The key strengths of CHAMPS2
Essentially, CHAMPS2 is about enabling innovation, which means not only having great ideas and a strong vision, but also providing the tools and techniques to turn them into reality. It takes the rhetoric of “better for less” and puts it into practice.
The key strengths of CHAMPS2 are that it focuses on defining and then realising outcomes. It is therefore an important tool in helping us redesign our approach to service delivery whilst continuing to focus on what is important from our customers’ perspective.
The 8 phase CHAMPS2 method provides a consistent change management approach, combining best practice, tools and templates, complemented by a quality management framework. It is a structured approach to delivering change, designed to review all aspects of service delivery within a business area. It is also flexible and can be adapted for use in a range of scenarios and for change initiatives of any scale.
Access to the CHAMPS2 method
Building on Birmingham City Council ‘s transformation experience and the proven success of CHAMPS2 , the entire method has been placed in the public domain and is available free of charge to registered website members www.champs2.info
There is a growing worldwide interest in CHAMPS2, with over 1,400 registered website users of the method, from over 40 countries.
CHAMPS2 accredited training for a formal change management qualification
The CHAMPS2 methodology is also now recognised as a best practice leader in change management, with the development and introduction of a rigorous framework of formal Foundation and Practitioner level examinations, accredited by the APM Group (APMG).
Accredited CHAMPS2 training courses are now available via APMG, enabling those engaged in business change activities to gain the advantage of a formal qualification. www.apmg-international.com/home/Qualifications/CHAMPS2Quals.asp
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