F2 CASE | DANISH STATE ADMINISTRATION
cBrain worked with the agency of Family Law to transform the way citizens are supported through life-changing events
THE CHALLENGE
The Agency of Family Law has over 200,000 cases a year, dealing with family law (adoptions, divorces, child custody) and many other complex matters. At any one time there are more than 30,000 open cases. Like many public sector organisations, the Agency of Family Law faced the challenge of reducing business costs. In their case, the aim was to cut costs by 30% and save 90 million Danish kroner. Services such as divorce are chargeable to citizens, so there is a constant pressure to provide value for money.
But they were also concerned about transforming the journey for service users. When going through divorce for example, citizens face complex and changing personal circumstances. Citizens also have to deal with a number of public sector bodies and offices, trying to keep control over what needs doing and who needs informing.
THE SOLUTION
CUSTOMER PROFILE
Customer Name
The Agency of Family Law
Sector
Central Government
Volume of cases
200,000
Services Provided
F2 Digital Public Administration Platform
Project length
6 months
Cost Savings achieved
12-14 million Danish kroner per year
The project vision was to rethink the customer journey from first contact until all practical details have been settled. The State Administration wanted to provide a simpler, more joined-up citizen service, faster case handling times, and administrative savings. The project started by discovering user needs. Citizens explained how they experienced the process and contact with the public sector. The response was to create a new digital service. The service provides citizens with personal case folders, redesigned forms, automation of administrative processes, a re-design of outbound communications, and personal checklists of tasks to complete.
cBrain software consultants worked with the State Administration to set up the checklists for each process in F2. They automated tasks where possible, and developed integrations with citizen registers and payment systems. cBrain created operational dashboards to give real-time views of case progress. This allowed the State Administration to optimize workload across their regional administration centres. Using an iterative process, the checklists were constantly tuned and improved to provide a better citizen and administration service. The leadership of State Administration were keen to operate at pace, so the first service went live 6 months after project start.
WAS REDUCED FROM 900
DANISH KRONER TO
420 KRONER
PROCESS WAS SHORTENED
FROM 5 DAYS TO
5 MINUTES
COSTS FOR THE DIVORCE
PROCESS REDUCED BY
50%
THE BENEFITS
The State Administration was able to reduce internal administration costs for the divorce process by approximately 50%, using the checklist approach for case management and introducing self-service.
The fee for citizens was reduced from 900 Danish kroner to 420 Danish kroner. The Agency of Family Law (formerly State Administration) won a national Digitization Award in 2017. Annual savings had reached 12-14 million Danish kroner, and user satisfaction had increased. If both parties in a divorce agree, then divorces can happen quickly and effectively. If there are disagreements, the checklist allows for variances and complex cases. For example, cases can involve child custody or financial disagreements, and can require face to face discussion or legal representation.
This means that complex processes that require administrator involvement can be supported alongside simple processes that can largely be automated. In one instance, a process was shortened from 5 days to 5 minutes with no back-office involvement.
“The ‘Family Life Events’ project is not just about providing citizens with new, improved self-service. It’s about an approach to public service where we as an authority put the citizen needs first every time we develop new services, improve existing ones, or change things. We’ve still got a long way to go, but we have taken some significant steps and we are working every day to improve the overall user journey” says Rasmus Kruse, Administration Director in the former State Administration (now called Agency of Family Law).