Camden Council’s Creative Services team operate as a design consultancy for the council, producing a high volume and wide range of design and print work. This includes annual reports, posters, leaflets, adverts, promotional products, events/exhibitions and design consultancy.

Following a four-year organisational efficiency programme that reduced spend by 79% (£1.79m), the Creative Services team were facing more financial pressures that required further savings.

The requirement was to reduce the councils spend on design and print, increase income generation as a traded unit and improve operating margins, despite ongoing budget cuts. This had to be achieved while operating with a reduced team, managing external supplier costs, competing with outsourced creative agencies, and maintaining a high-quality of existing services.

They had three key priorities, to:

• improve productivity
• reduce external supplier expenditure and
• generate new income.

We were approached for a solution, something that would automate and streamline the creative services workflow, enabling the team to work more efficiently with fewer resources.

Panacea Software’s Project Management and Communications Modules would automate client order processes, administration and reporting to significantly reduce manual tasks. This allowed skilled designers to focus on delivery and revenue-generating activities.

We introduced a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) to support the management of a new print framework contract. This created a competitive supplier base while maintaining compliance with procurement law.

The system provided real-time management information, cost control, competitive estimating and supplier oversight — empowering the team to make data-driven decisions that improved margins and service performance.

By using our solutions, the Creative Services team realised all their priorities:

• Improved productivity: they saw a 44% increase in productivity with 1,184 projects delivered over the year by the reduced team of five people.
• Cost reduction: there was a reduction in expenditure with external suppliers of £230k or 38%. £195k was saved through the print framework management and 90% of external agency work was brought in-house saving £34k.
• By changing volume and type of in-house production they saved £18k. The total annual saving achieved was £248k.
• Revenue growth: external client revenue increased 16-fold from £8K (2010–11) to £138K (2012–13). And new sole-supplier contracts were secured with Islington Council and the North London Waste Authority
• Client satisfaction: client feedback rated Creative Services as Good/Excellent with scores of 98% for account management, 97% for print quality and 96% for creativity.

The team successfully met increasing demand with reduced budgets, strengthened procurement compliance, and a sustainable income-generating model was developed.