CQI East of Scotland
Visit to Scottish Parliament Building - Monday 19th March 2007
Hosts:
Colin Grierson, Facilities Management (FM) Performance
Manager for The Scottish Parliament.
David Fairhurst, Environmental Manager
Subject: Performance management in service delivery
Words - Brian Murray, Pictures - Neil Robinson.
Instructions - Click on the thumbnail picture to enlarge. Click Close on picture to close.
This visit had been in the programme for about two years but had to be postponed for various reasons until today. In his opening address, Colin indicated that two years ago there were approximately 30, 000 snags or defects. Today, there are officially only three!
The visit began with a tour of the behind-the-scenes areas which are normally not open to the public on the official tours. We started with the official model in the reception area where Colin pointed out the various features of interest. We then started our tour and noticed that various areas had lighting which was motion sensitive. This was part of the environmental plan to keep energy usage down which was also helped by both Colin and David switching off lights all the time.
The building was designed from the outset to be environmentally friendly. It was built on the site of an old brewery where there were three boreholes. Two of these are used by the complex to cool the building. This water is then recycled as "grey water" to flush the toilets and then, after treatment, is allowed to flow into the ornamental ponds outside. The building is naturally ventilated and, if it gets too warm, the roof windows automatically open. The complex has a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant and all lighting is to current low power requirements. They gained accreditation to ISO 14001 in January 2007.
We finished the tour in one of the meeting rooms where Colin gave a presentation on "Scottish Parliament - using performance measurement to drive Service Quality ". Colin began with a brief history of the building which has a maintenance budget of £10million. The main stake holders are the elected members and their staff, the Parliamentary organisation (admin) and the members of the public. By law, Parliament cannot sit unless members of the public are present.
All enquiries on maintenance are channelled through the FM help desk. The operators then refer the enquiry to the appropriate service manager. In running the facilities, Colin still uses the basic Deming cycle, Plan, Do, Check, Action which he has always employed. He also uses Lord Kelvin's words "When you measure what you are speaking about, and can express it in numbers, you know something about it." To this end, The Scottish Parliament facilities management function has implemented a scorecard performance monitoring methodology that tracks detailed performance measurements relating to finance, service delivery, contractor performance and monitoring/regulatory activities.
A visual Dashboard has been designed using the above four parameters. The dashboard equips FM managers with information on performance measurement relating to the overall measurement in the four perspectives at this level. MSP's get monthly performance reports on the information. The system was developed as soon as the building was occupied and the information provided played a major part in gaining the certification for ISO 14001.
The facilities department have reduced landfill uplift by 40% since occupation and recycling is currently at 60%. Colin concluded by indicating that the benefits from the measurements are:
- meaningful facts & figures
- informed decision making
- acts as a driver for continuous improvement
- a communication tool for customers & stakeholders
- a demonstration of control
The Q&A session which followed indicated that the audience had a healthy approval of the environmental measures taken by the facilities management especially as it was our "tax dollar" being spent.