“The department was facing an unprecedented demand in claims,” explains Mark Pattrick, Synergy Group Partner. “This, combined with a claims backlog, meant they needed additional funding and an accurate way to forecast expenditure.”
Holistic viewpoint
Building on the DVA’s existing demand-based model, which covered less than a third of departmental spend, Synergy worked in partnership to create a longer-term, whole of agency solution.
Modelling analytics and deliverables
- Service catalogue reconciled to the department budget.
- Clear links between client volume and service levels.
- Fixed versus variable spend based on client demand.
- Existing client segmentation data to estimate future demand.
- Activity based costing model, including workload, to accurately cost the unit price of activities.
- Stock and flow measures to illustrate the impact on process performance and client service.
- Client flow data to develop and negotiate department budgets with the Department of Finance.
- Business case for New Policy Proposals (NPPs) for Cabinet review and approval.
“This type of financial modelling and consultancy can only be offered by experts in costing analysis within a government context,” says Mark. “We looked at the different funding scenarios, customer consumption patterns, and unit pricing.”
Clear insights
Based on Synergy’s fiscal modelling, DVA can now apply a common language across the department and proactively see service volumes linked to client segmentation.
“The agency can now understand what services are linked to client population, and those that are driven by other factors,” says Mark.
Key performance measures such as ‘time taken to process’ can be easily used to model different funding scenarios.
“It’s important for agencies to link departmental forecasting with administrative forecasts, and these are dependent on well-defined client volumes.”
