Government Business Services (GBS) is planning to run a pilot project on process mining to support the automation of back office services in central government.
The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has awarded a contract on its behalf with PricewaterhouseCoopers to run the pilot, which is scheduled to continue until late May at a value of just under £100,000.
Process mining is a technique that analyses and test business processes through the data they generate. Traditionally it has been done manually but it is now possible to subject automated event logs to algorithms to understand the flow of cases, identifying the time taken for different activities, how resources are used and where bottlenecks occur.
According to the CCS contract notice, GBS – which works within the Cabinet Office and owns the Government strategy for converging the processes in back office systems – is aiming to support efforts to increase automation within the Civil Service.
Identify use cases
“With the continuing drive across government for automation, it is important that we identify and introduce the right use cases and opportunities for automation initiatives and thus the requirement of a process mining pilot to enable transformation in government back office processes/systems,” the notice says.
“In order to understand which areas to prioritise we need to understand and evidence the current issues, giving greater insights to help us develop a pipeline of opportunities.
“Process mining could also play a part in business as usual operations and support the government in its longer term approach to continuous improvement and performance monitoring.”
The National Audit Office has previously highlighted how it used process mining in investigating the Home Office’s handling of the Windrush compensation scheme.
