Version 1 Drives Continuous Improvement of Case Management System in the Cloud

The Legal Ombudsman is a high-profile public body dealing with over 7,000 complex cases per annum. Through competitive tender processes using government procurement frameworks, Version 1 has been awarded contracts for multiple projects that have supported and continue to support the Legal Ombudsman in playing an important role for the UK public.

The Legal Ombudsman (LeO) for England and Wales is the independent and impartial body responsible for handling legal complaints received from the general public. The Legal Ombudsman was set up as a result of the Legal Services Act 2007 and took over from the Legal Complaints Services and other legal complaint-handling bodies.

Solution

Version 1 Drives Continuous Improvement of Case Management System in the Cloud

The Case Management System used by the Legal Ombudsman to manage its high volume of cases is the organisation’s core IT system used by all operational staff. It underpins the LeO operation and its availability and correct functioning are essential for the everyday running of the LeO statutory function to receive, manage and process complaints and investigations regarding legal service provision.

Through a managed service contract with the Legal Ombudsman, Version 1 worked to stabilise a pre-existing solution that had been experiencing outages, simplifying the approach to managing a solution that included a significant level of bespoke code specific to the Ombudsman processes, adding a high-volume of system complexity.

Continuous Improvement in Tandem with Long-Term Planning

Version 1 took steps to stabilise the existing environment to significantly reduce downtime for the Legal Ombudsman, but also continued to work alongside the organisation to develop a sustainable solution for the Case Management System for the medium to long-term future.

Additionally, senior Version 1 stakeholders worked with the LeO to gain the confidence of the Board and senior managers to plan the delivery of a more simplified solution for the Case Management System that would be Cloud-focused, stable, flexible and extensible.

Migration of Key Infrastructure to Azure

Version 1 was awarded a contract by the LeO for the migration of its infrastructure as part of a competitive procurement process. Version 1 was tasked with initially migrating the customers’ infrastructure from the existing supplier before the handover deadline in a ‘lift and shift’ manner. Version 1 received extremely positive feedback from the Legal Ombudsman for continuously supporting and advising the customer throughout the process. Version 1 worked closely with the LeO to work out what was required to mitigate business-disruption in the handover and worked to solve any potential problems ahead of the deadline.

Improvement and Rationalisation in Azure ARM

Following the successful completion of a ‘lift and shift’ migration of the LeO infrastructure to the Cloud, Version 1 worked to deliver several improvements to rationalise the Azure environment that had been in ASM as opposed to Azure ARM.

This delivered significant savings in terms of space and storage, resulting in cost reductions for LeO. Additional benefits of rationalisation for the customer were ease of management and greater control. There was a significant increase in flexibility of costs and granularity for the customer in the case of setting up temporary environments such as training environments or testing environments. LeO is now in a position to spin up an environment for a specific use where required, using and paying only for what they require, when they require it.

Outcomes

Delivery of New Case Management System Solution: Built on Dynamics and Running on Azure

Version 1 worked with the LeO to build and introduce a new, sustainable Case Management System solution, which is built on Dynamics, running on Azure. Due to the fact that Version 1 has been awarded separate contracts through competitive tender processes for other significant projects to support LeO – including a BI solution, transitioning the organisation’s infrastructure onto Azure, and rationalizing the Azure environment that had been in ASM as opposed to Azure ARM – the possibilities for the Case Management System continued to expand and develop.

One such opportunity was the incorporation of LeO’s new aand robust data dictionary to feed data from the Case Management System into the BI solution delivered by Version 1, integrating the flow of information between the two systems. This functionality enables the LeO to better understand and interpret its data, enabling improved levels of analysis and decision-making across the organisation.

In terms of Live Operation Management, the solution delivered vastly improved useful and reliable dashboards to the customer’s Case Management System, enabling LeO to access data in a more sophisticated manner. The customer provided strong positive feedback on this functionality and wishes to continue to progress these capabilities and explore the potential this would hold for the organisation.