Case Study:

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• Case Study
• Family Advocate
• Case Flow Tool and Service Excellence Project
• Project won CPSI competition of 2007 as Public
  Sector Innovator of the Year

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Port Elizabeth
Port Elizabeth Family Advocate Office
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Background

• The Family Advocate Office is a component of the
  Department of Justice and Constitutional
  Development
• This presentation will tell you about the Port
  Elizabeth branch, which has a staff component of
  20 people.
• What do we do at the Family Advocate?
• The Office of the Family Advocate works daily
  with families involved in court
• cases.
• These cases are about family law issues like
  custody and visitation disputes and mainly
• about parents who cannot agree with which parent
  their children should live after a
• divorce.
• How do we help the families?
• A team meets with the parents and children and
  helps them to reach an agreement on custody and
  visitation and other arrangements concerning the
  children
• If the parents are unable to come to an
  agreement, the Family Advocate team (advocate and
  social worker) investigate the circumstances of
  the family.
• Once all the information is available, the team
  compiles a report for the court , to recommend
  what arrangements would be in the best interests
  of the children during and after the divorce

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• These cases have the potential to drag on for
  months
• It is a very traumatic time for the parents and
  children as there is a lot of acrimony and
  tension within the family. The parents are
  fighting over the house, possessions, money and
  the children, who are often caught in the middle
  of the fights.
• The longer the case drags on, the longer the
  fight is drawn out.
• Therefore it is in the best interests of the
  children that the matter be settled as soon as
  possible - the turn around time of these cases
  must be short.
• The Port Elizabeth Family Advocate experienced
  problems managing our cases effectively as well
  as with the turn around times of these cases.
• We believed that if we were able to shorten our
  turn around times and simultaneously improve our
  customer service, it would minimize the conflict
  in the family and reduce the trauma to the
  children

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Custody recommendations for 2007/08 Financial Year
1556 cases finalized
5,936 children involved (Average 4 children per
case)
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CHALLENGES TO THE FAMILY ADVOCATE IN THE EASTERN
CAPE

• The Eastern Cape extends over 169 580 square
  kilometres which constitutes 13.9 of the total
  surface of the country. It is a vast area with
  poor infrastructure insofar as roads are
  concerned. This has an impact on the Family
  Advocate when travelling to take services to the
  people.
• The province has a population of 6.43 million,
  representing 14.4 of the countrys total
  population. We are the 3rd biggest province in
  the country
• We only have 3 Family Advocate Offices for a
  population of 6.43 million a total of 11
  advocates, thus 1 advocate for every 580,000
  people
• Workload of the Family Advocate
• Highest number of cases in Port Elizabeth
  office, followed by Buffalo City (East London)
  and then Mthatha
• In summary
• We have a high case load, with limited resources
  at our disposal and had to find ways to work
  smarter

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White blocks Current permanent Family Advocate
offices in Eastern Cape viz large area to service
Mthatha
Buffalo City
Port Elizabeth
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Problem

• Part 1 System problem
• None of the Family Advocate Offices in the
  country had a case flow tool and all of them
  experienced problems in tracking the movement of
  the cases in the office and monitoring the turn
  around times effectively
• All the offices used a manual system to
• Record the details of the cases
• Keep track of the movement of the files in the
  office
• Monitor the cycle times
• The system was ineffective and valuable time was
  wasted searching for
• files
• Record keeping was flawed and there was no
  scientific way to measure
• and monitor the turn around times

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• Part 2 Human factor
• We wanted to develop and strengthen our peoples
  service delivery to the public to achieve a real
  Batho Pele and Ubuntu spirit within our office
• We were however unsure which behaviours to change
  and which to strengthen, as we had no independent
  true feedback on our services
• We realized that without true, objective feedback
  we would be unable to access the voice of our
  customers the families visiting our offices
• Summary of our problems
• Turnaround times of cases (how to monitor and
  shorten it)
• No electronic case flow management tool to keep
  track of the cases
• No proper feedback to address service delivery
  and customer satisfaction issues in other words
  to fix the RIGHT things

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• Project Team

Project Leader Adv René Claassen
(middle) Assisted by Telana Koen (left) Felicia
Arosi (right)
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Method / Intervention / Solution

• The team got together and devised the following
  plan
• The team decided on a two prong approach to
  solve the problem,
• namely
• Develop an electronic case flow management tool
  to fix the system problem
• Sensitize and capacitate all staff on the need
  for service excellence and monitor our service
  through independent feedback, to ensure we listen
  to the voice of our customers human factor

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Method / Intervention / Solution

• Part 1 System Problem
• Develop a Case Flow Management Tool
• We set our own target to finalise 80 of all our
  cases within 12 weeks (3 months)
• The National target was Finalise 50 of all
  cases within 24 weeks or 6 months
• We then set about developing a case flow tool on
  a spreadsheet on the Excel programme.
• The Tool
• After numerous attempts, changes etc, we had a
  Tool which could do the following
• It captured all the relevant information of each
  case namely Case number, date on which file was
  opened, names of parties, date on which parties
  were interviewed, name of person where the file
  is currently at, results of case, names of team
  who interviewed the family, time period from date
  of interview with family until the date on which
  the report was finalised, cycle time for each
  case calculated in weeks AND very important
  Average cycle time for all the cases investigated
  within a given period

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Method / Intervention / Solution

• Innovativeness of The Tool
• The system had a built-in early warning alert
• All cases older than 10 weeks are highlighted and
  a message in red appears next to the case,
  reading CAUTION
• Managers can then easily identify which cases
  must be given special attention, in order to
  finalise them urgently.
• All staff members can view the spreadsheet on the
  network in the office and can then prioritize
  their own cases, even before management needs to
  intervene.
• The information on the tool is updated
  electronically continuously during the day for
  example the movement of the files.
• Files are easily accessed and one doesnt waste
  time looking for files
• Supervisors are more effective in case flow
  management and can prioritize old cases

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Method / Intervention / Solution

• Part 2 Improve Service Delivery
• Most Important Inform Port Elizabeth staff about
  the project plan and get buy in

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Method / Intervention / Solution

• Part 2 Human Element (continue) Improve
  Service Delivery
• Then we formed a partnership with PERCCI (PE
  Chambers of Commerce and Industry) and joined the
  Service Excellence programme in the Nelson
  Mandela Metro.
• The focus of this drive Improve levels of
  service in the Metro for 2010 World Cup
• All staff members were trained by the NMMU
  Business school on Service Excellence
• Thereafter our services were monitored by PERCCI
  intermittently.
• The monitoring included mystery shopping.
  People were sent incognito to our office or they
  phoned in, pretending to be a customer, while
  evaluating the service they received from our
  staff.
• Written feedback is provided quarterly, assisting
  us to improve on our weaknesses and build on our
  strengths
• In the office we continued to raise awareness
  about the importance of Batho Pele and service
  excellence

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Example of Mystery Shopping Report
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Results achieved

• The case flow tool helped us to resolve the
  system problems and for the first time we were
  able to have full control over our case flow and
  be warned timeously about cases which had the
  potential to exceed the agreed time frames for
  finalisation
• The improved monitoring and management led to
  Port Elizabeth Office achieving an average cycle
  time (time it takes for a case to be finalised )
  of 10.61 weeks! Thanks to the team work by
  the whole office of the Port Elizabeth Family
  Advocate
• This is opposed to the national target of 24
  weeks!
• In terms of addressing service delivery, we were
  the only section of Department of Justice in Port
  Elizabeth that formed part of the Service
  Excellence programme.
• At the end of April 08 we scored 92 for our
  service. We were then also rated, at the end of
  April, as one of the top 3 companies in Port
  Elizabeth
• Our service status has just been increased from a
  Gold status, to Platinum status

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Results achieved

• Comments from one of our stakeholders Legal Aid
  Board
• The success of this project has had a ripple
  effect in that it also
• assists the civil unit and childrens unit of the
  PE Justice Centre in
• improving the turnaround time for finalising
  pending cases where the
• Office of the Family Advocate is involved.
• Court cases are not unnecessarily delayed because
  of a delay with the
• Family Advocates investigations.
• The Office of the Family Advocate Eastern Cape
  has displayed
• tremendous initiative in piloting this project,
  commitment to public
• service as well as to service excellence and we
  trust that their
• efforts will receive the recognition that they so
  richly deserve.
• Extract from letter from Ms L Franklin, PE
  Justice Centre
• Executive

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• We also won the Centre of Public Sector
  Innovation competition of
• 2007, namely Public Sector Innovator of the Year
  2007

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Lessons learnt

• When you measure performance, you get improved
  results from the team
• Be careful what you measure and reward, because
  whatever is rewarded gets done.
• Praise One cannot praise too much and it assists
  in reinforcing positive behaviour
• Do not be afraid to experiment and try again and
  again. Until you get it right!
• Transparency The tool with the information is
  accessible to all staff members and there is
  transparency on performers and non-performers.
  This leads to self-management and improvement of
  service
• Replicability The project has been replicated in
  the Mthatha and East London offices and is also
  in the process of being rolled out nationally.

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Conclusion

• Batho Pele
• We have introduced a project that reduced turn
  around times of our cases AND managed to change
  peoples attitude and commitment to service
  delivery
• The technology helped us to improve the system,
  but the system alone did not bring about the
  results. We only achieved success because our
  whole team embraced the project and made it their
  own.
• Thank you to all the Port Elizabeth Family
  Advocate staff members!

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Celebrations and thanks to the Team!!!!
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Celebrations and thanks to the team!!
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• Thank you
• Enkosi