SWIFT Social Care Information System

Scrutiny Committee on 31 October 2005-10-20

By: Ken Howard, County Manager - Information Services, Adult & Children's Services

Headlines

· The SWIFT implementation was largely successful and on time.

· Project management arrangements have been audited and commended

· It is used extensively in Adult and Children's Services

· The system is still bedding down and is being adjusted to ensure best fit to operational practice.

· Major outstanding issues relate to raising orders and the interface between SWIFT and SAP

· It is a major change programme incurring expected short term disturbance to operational performance

· Staff are adjusting to the change at varying rates; the majority are confident in using the system

Background

Phase 2.2 of SWIFT (the final phase for Children and Families sector) was implemented in July 2004 followed by Phase 3.0 for Adults and Older Persons Sectors in January 2005. SWIFT replaced the legacy mainframe Adult Care Management System, (ACMS)and Social Services System (SSS) for all functions and introduced a commitments interface between SWIFT and SAP for care orders raised in SWIFT.

ACMS was implemented in adult services in 1997 and was the first successful implementation of a care management system directly used by social workers/care managers for all processes. With its implementation savings were obtained by reducing duplication of effort and reducing administrative support.

With the implementation of SWIFT in January 2005 the deadline for replacing all mainframe legacy systems was met and the migration from ACMS to SWIFT was achieved with a very high accuracy rate (19,248,374 records migrated with a 99.6% success rate). However, there have been post-implementation issues.

Facts & Figures

Use of SWIFT:

· Client records held 500,000

· Users 2,000

Monthly transactions:

· Referrals 2,500

· Assessments 7,000

· Reviews 2,600

· Notes of Contacts 80,000

· Orders 3,400

Post Implementation Issues

The failure of the migration of the financial data, (the 0.4% of records that did not migrate successfully) added to the difficulty of Care Managers in adapting to the more complex Provisions module. Outstanding issues with the commitments interface between SWIFT and SAP caused additional problems and have impacted the budget monitoring process and reporting.

With the upgrade to Version 18 of SWIFT shortly after implementation, users began to experience poor response times. This has largely been resolved.

The User Survey of July indicated the level of staff's confidence in using the system. Of the group who responded, the major levels of confidence range from 55% to 70% of respondees, depending on the module used. Confidence in raising `Provisions' (raising orders) is lower with less than 35% of staff who responded saying that they are confident. While some regular users are getting to grips with the system less frequent users are not.

Action in Progress

An ongoing action plan for resolution has been developed, encompassing technical, process and training and support solutions for both Financial and Non-financial aspects of the stabilisation project.

A considerable amount has already been achieved to improve the usability of the system.

Issues around `Provisions' (raising orders) continue to be a priority. These issues centre in two areas and undermine the effectiveness of the system of reporting and budget monitoring and could effect the ability to pay providers promptly. The two key areas are:

Usability and Data quality of Provisions raised

Being addressed through data checking programmes within each locality, training, support, improvement of the reference data, review of process and systems usability issues. Also working with Anite to identify system improvements and costs.

The SWIFT/SAP interface

A re-design of the current interface has been completed. In October the re-built interface was delivered for testing, with implementation planned for November.

As a major improvement to the usability of the more complex parts of the system might not be achieved in the short run, attention has shifted to removing the responsibility for recording `Provisions' from Care Managers . Roles and responsibilities have therefore been reviewed and four alternative models of operation will be piloted in November/December.