Modern organisation-wide analysis, controlling and forecasting solution in public administration
With almost 250,000 inhabitants, the city of Kiel is not only the most densely populated city in Schleswig-Holstein, but it is also the state capital of Germany’s northernmost federal state. The city administration is correspondingly large, with over 5,400 active employees divided into 22 offices, five departments and 13 special departments. In total, the state capital (SC) of Kiel is responsible for an annual budget volume of more than 1.2 billion euros.
Although a large number of reports were produced in the various areas before the project began, these were neither centrally managed nor standardised in a uniform process. There was also a lack of a city-wide reporting strategy. Not only were different data sources and statuses used, but the lack of a sufficient degree of automation meant that a great deal of capacity was tied up in manual preparation processes. The reporting system was therefore heterogeneous, not standardised and only offered an ex-post view.
The aim of setting up a centralised reporting system in the SC Kiel focuses on two areas: Firstly, the project aims to provide a sustainable, operational and strategic reporting system to support all internal performance and decision-makers in a timely manner. To this end, the key figures and data relevant to management are to be identified and transferred to a central dashboard. Secondly, the reporting system is to be optimised at the level of the overall strategy to improve management capability and increase transparency of the self-administration.
To achieve these goals, the following primary measures were identified together with the linkFISH team as part of the implementation project:
As part of a tendering process, the SC Kiel chose linkFISH Consulting as an experienced local partner for the optimisation of control processes. The professional BI software Board was selected to optimise the implementation of the requirements. In addition to a wide range of analysis functions, it also enables the mapping of individual forecasting and planning processes.
Within just three months, a comprehensive budget reporting system with actual and planned values based on the municipal budget process “Infoma newsystem” was set up together with the SC Kiel project team in the first expansion stage. In addition, the team defined a new budget forecasting process for the operating and investment budget in several concept phases, which was then implemented technically. The budget data can now be flexibly evaluated along various dimensions such as the product framework (budgets, sub-plans, products, cost units) and the account and cost centre structure. In further expansion stages, case and cost information from social welfare (OPEN/PROSOZ specialised procedure) and youth welfare (KDO youth services specialised procedure) were integrated into the reporting system. The central data pool of the SC Kiel is also supplemented by relevant contextual information from the area of statistics (including population data and forecasts, Kiel school information).
In order to simplify communication about the project and increase employee identification with the new processes, the system was given the catchy and appropriate name “COAST” (Controlling, Analysis and Administration). This and the visible successes during the implementation phase noticeably increased the willingness of all those involved to work together for the joint success of the project. For example, the interest of politicians in information in terms of self-administration also grew. A dedicated politics portal was developed for them as an interactive dashboard in which politicians can now access the latest budget data at any time and from anywhere using the mobile devices provided.
The training of all users was completed within a few weeks. Since the project was completed, the PowerUser expertise (independent further development of the reports within the BI solution) has been continuously expanded through the subsequent sub-projects. COAST is currently used by over 130 users within the city - and the number is increasing. Support for existing users and the strategic planning of further expansion stages is carried out by two full-time positions established specifically for the project in the Office of Finance.
The introduction of COAST has improved many control processes in SC Kiel:
