Optimising the Department for Work and Pensions' estate
Iain Wright Department for Work and Pensions

Jenny Ball, Dave Pankhurst and Iain Wright from the winning DWP team

The Department of Work and Pension's estate is large and complex, with over 1,000 buildings costing over £600m per year. Central management could see the case for efficiencies, but local decision-makers did not have the incentives to make the necessary changes.

The OR team was instrumental in securing substantial cost reductions whilst meeting needs for the 3-year period to 2011. Key features of the project were:

1. Collecting accurate information on the costs and usage of all buildings
2. Developing an integer linear-programming model in SAS, which illustrated the scale of the savings possible and won the backing of senior managers for the project. The model set out to minimise the cost of the estate over a 3-year period, subject to operational constraints based mainly on localised staffing projections.
3. Developing spreadsheets for each of the 50 districts, so as to focus the attention of key local decision-makers on the inefficiencies in their area
4. Engaging with the multitude of stakeholders, to understand the operational context in which estate is used and the decisions that needed to be made.

The project resulted in 120 buildings being designated for closure, with savings estimated to be £50m over the three years. At the time of the presentation around 100 buildings had already been closed. The approach is being repeated in 2008, and is being developed for application to other resources within the DWP.

The judges were impressed with the clear exposition of this problem and its context and the use of both hard and soft approaches to achieve an implemented solution. The presentation stressed the importance of collecting relevant and accurate information and bringing together the various stakeholders within a potentially intractable organizational environment. Implementation was facilitated by providing planning tools which enabled each district manager to adjust their LP solutions so as to take advantage of detailed local knowledge and also to see the financial consequences of these changes. This resulted in shared ownership of the eventual solution.

• 2007 - T Lewins, M Sykes (citation available)
• 2006 - A Swain, A Ross (citation available)
• 2005 - P Loucopoulos, K G Zagrafos, Y Pyrgiotis, D Beis (citation available)
• 2004 - Peter Loader, Mark Bryant, Paul Bates, Chris McGuckin, Deborah Kelly
• 2003 - M Acutt (citation available)
• 2002 - M Neighbour
• 2001 - J J Race, D Burnell (citation available)
• 2000 - F Vasko, H Gilles, D Bright, V Kocatulum, E Wolf, J Moffat
• 1999 - G Laporte, F Semet, V V Dadeshidze
• 1998 - J H Powell
• 1997 - H Tsoukas, D B Papoulias
• 1996 - J J Glen
• 1994 - A Khakee, K Stromberg
• 1993 - C P Thunhurst, C J Ritchie
• 1992 - M B Wright
• 1991 - B C Dangerfield, C A Roberts
• 1990 - A H Christer, K A H Kobbacy

1 Introduction

The President’s Medal is awarded for the best account of successful OR practice entered for the competition and presented at the Society’s Annual Conference.

2 Eligibility

Anyone who has experience of OR practice, and is able to provide verification of the work that they are presenting as a piece of real practice which they have undertaken, may enter. If an author has been awarded a President’s Medal on a previous occasion, this does not debar the contribution from consideration.

3 Award

The award shall consist of a medal, cast in bronze and suitably inscribed, together with an appropriate citation. If the contribution selected for the award is the product of more than one author, then all authors will receive the appropriate award, but the citation will make clear that this is a shared award.

4 Entry

Candidates must, in the first instance, make a submission not exceeding two sides of A4, describing the piece of successful real OR practice which forms the subject of the entry. This is to be accompanied by names and contact details of two referees, one a member of the Operational Research Society, the other a client, who are in a position to testify as to the accuracy of the submission and the fact that the work described was done by the candidate(s).
Members of the Awards Panel may be required to stimulate the submission of papers from time to time. This could be through the Heads of OR Forum, or via the conference Stream Organisers for example. Flyers inviting entries will generally be placed in Inside OR in the months of January through to May (if necessary) prior to each conference.
One member of the Panel may be required to act as a point of contact to answer any queries arising.

5 Selection

Finalists will be selected by the Awards Panel from among those entering, on the basis of the outline submissions and references. The criteria for assessment shall include:

• The level of demonstrable benefit
• The impact and innovation
• The likely longevity of the solution
• The excellence of the OR process
• The intellectual and novel content of the solution

Priority will be given to recent, successfully implemented work.

The award of the President’s Medal will be determined at the annual conference by a judging panel which shall review the submitted material and listen to the presentations of their work that the finalists are required to make at the conference. The medal will be awarded for the entry which in the judgement of the panel makes the best contribution to the practice of Operational Research, taking into account the submitted material, the quality of the work, the quality of the presentation and the opinion of the audience, which shall be sought.

6 Conditions

Conditions of the award are that:

• finalists will present their work at the Operational Research Society’s annual conference.
• unless inappropriate the author(s) of the winning paper will facilitate the writing up of their work, if necessary with the help of a journalist, with a view to publication in OR Insight or Inside OR and as part of a booklet promoting the award.

7 Procedures

The award will be advertised each year in Inside OR. The closing date for the receipt of outline submissions will be 30th June. The Awards Panel will select the finalists by 31st July and will convey their decisions the Secretary & General Manager, who shall notify the candidates and the annual conference committee of the decisions. Finalists will be reminded of the requirement to present their work at the annual conference.

A special judging panel will decide on the award of the medal. This panel shall consist of the (1) President or the President Elect / Immediate Past President; (2) a disinterested senior practitioner; (3) a further disinterested practitioner. The winner will be announced at the annual conference and the award will normally be presented at the Blackett Lecture.

At the September meeting the publicity programme is determined. Publicity is generally published in January to May issues of Inside OR.

The deadline for entries is 30th June.

After 30th June the Secretary & General Manager acknowledges receipt of entries. Members of Awards Panel review entries via email in July to select finalists to go forward for presentation at the annual conference. Secretary & General Manager informs all candidates of decisions. Members of the panel of judges are selected by the President.

At the annual conference, the selected entries are presented. The judging panel decides the winner and announces its decision at the conference dinner.

No later than 10th October a citation is sent to Secretary & General Manager together with the name(s) of the winner(s). Medals are ordered for presentation at the Blackett Lecture.

It is current practice that announcements relating to the President’s Medal shall be published on the Society’s website as well as in Inside OR.