DLO Review

Organisations that have retained their direct labour organisation (DLO) are under constant scrutiny to ensure they are achieving value for money in an ever changing market.  echelon have undertaken several reviews of both Local Authority and Housing Association DLO’s and have developed a thorough and robust toolkit for the review process. 

The process would commence with a detailed scoping exercise to ascertain the current levels of service provision.   This will include detailed analysis of the Key Performance Indicators being used for the service and a thorough review of both direct and indirect costs.    

We will then engage in a series of stakeholder reviews that could include the following:- 

• Stakeholder Review Workshop – a workshop with the internal stakeholders responsible for managing the DLO. 
• Customer Workshops – workshops with customers that can be service specific or across the whole service. 
• Stakeholder 1:1’s – invididual review meetings to capture detailed feedback (including operatives). 
• Customer Feedback – direct feedback from customers on how well the service is being delivered. 

On completion of the reviews, we will prepare a detailed report highlighting how well the DLO is currently performing against it’s own objectives and targets as well as providing a detailed benchmarking exercise against a peer group drawn from our AMIP club.  

The report will also capture a review of current management practices adopted by the DLO with a series of process mapping exercises and systems thinking principles adopted.   

Examples of previous outputs from DLO reviews has included the following:- 

• Externalisation of stores.
• Development of multi-skilled workforce. 
• Simplifying the repairs ordering process. 
• Developing a flexible appointments based service.  

Every DLO we have worked with has significantly improved its performance following our intervention.