“What we are interested in is saving public money. So, we will always analyse our clients’ bookings to see where their savings can be made.” Joanne Kennedy, Operations Director
Enable2’s client manager for the local authority noticed that costs were steadily rising, contrary to the actual interpreting services provided. Immediate investigation to examine that was going on was instigated, using the live service data.
“Our live system empowers us; we can drill down into service data to see the detail: who booked the service, the service type, who cancelled and why. It was easy for us to see that cancellations were at 16%. What we had to do next was to discover why.” Yasmin Khan, Operations Manager
Enable2 discovered:
· Local authority staff thought interpreting was free
· Where the local authority professional was off sick, the session was not cancelled and therefore chargeable
· Sessions that were home visits often failed due to the client not being home
· Sessions booked months in advance often failed due to the clients’ changing circumstances
Enable2’s client manager worked closely with the local authority to address the concerns and a series of implementations planned.
Cost-reducing measures:
· Awareness-raising with managers and staff of the costs of interpreting
· Identification and training of the service requesters responsible for most failed sessions
· Linking interpreting sessions to shared Outlook calendars
· Instigating calls to clients to confirm their availability for home visits
· Discouragement of long-term, in-advance bookings
“Video and telephone interpreting is always available at short notice so there is no need to book months in advance when the session is likely to fail. The cost of failed sessions here equates to a social worker’s salary, or training. When we save public money, what we are really talking about is the ability to increase services to those who need them.” Joanne Kennedy, Operations Director
“We've put a stop to steadily rising costs"
“Achieving £2.5k a month savings"
“The cost of wasted sessions is equivalent to a social worker's salary"