The organisation of youth welfare services and special education has changed dramatically in the Netherlands since 2015. After the decentralisation, responsibility for this shifted from the national government to the municipalities. Budgets are under pressure, while an increasing number of young people having to rely on youth welfare services and special education.

Whereas a healthcare organisation used to have to deal with a single financier, it now suddenly has to make agreements and negotiate contracts with hundreds of clients: municipalities as well as health insurers. This obviously has a major impact on the organisation and also has repercussions on debtor and creditor management, ICT, HR and other support departments.

As if these developments did not already put enough pressure on the organisations involved, efforts were also made to provide more ambulatory care. This is in line with the aim of enabling people with a disability to participate in society as 'normally' as possible and offering the help they need at home. This can vary from a few home visits per week to more intensive daily home help, crisis care at home or intensive behavioural supervision. An enormous organisational task.

Boer & Croon supervised the transformation from an organisation with substantive professionals to a professional organisation

The merger was initiated by people with vision, passion, and intrinsic knowledge of healthcare and education. What was lacking was the knowledge and experience to steer such a merger organisationally, financially and administratively in the right direction. The same applies to issues in the field of management, finance and control, healthcare logistics, HR, ICT, digitalisation and contract management.

That was the reason why Boer & Croon was brought in to make iHUB a success. On the one hand, Boer & Croon helped to make the organisation as effective and efficient as possible. On the other hand, it helped to professionalise business operations. Boer & Croon also found the right people to fill positions on the new Board of Directors, management board, and in management positions.

Jasper ten Dam, Chair of the Board at iHUB: "Communication with the employees is very important. You have to be able to explain clearly why all these changes are taking place and what the involvement of all these consultants means for our organisation. You have to let them know that it is temporary, and that it is really necessary in order to improve our care for children and families."

Jort Binnerts: "The aim was to fill permanent positions temporarily, because things were really not going well. Swift action was called for. After that, we used iHUB's own people as much as possible and only provided support for more complex projects such as the EPD."

Organisational results:

Under the leadership of Boer & Croon, a Service Centre was set up to support the various operational organisations in the areas of financial and healthcare administration, ICT and HR. An optimisation process was then launched to make the organisation financially healthy.

The aim is to achieve a 1% return on the primary process.. A package of guidelines and tools was developed to relieve the pressure on ambulatory care. This has improved productivity levels from 65% up to 75%

For the primary process, a new management structure was created, made up of operational organisations that are subject to regional management, with a distinction being drawn between education and healthcare.

The legal bases for all iHUB-related entities were restructured to facilitate strategic goals more effectively, achieve fiscal optimisation and reduce administrative/organisational complexities.

Jasper ten Dam: "Boer & Croon took on the recruitment of permanent staff and also brought in interim managers to fill in the gaps and carry out projects. In particular, I found the combination of recruitment and selection and the use of consultants to be special. These consultants were focused on the handover to our permanent staff. This was a clear signal to me, as an administrator, that they were working on a structural solution. And as such, that at a certain point you are not left stuck with a team of professionals that you can no longer do without. Before you know it, you end up with all kinds of people walking around there for years. That's not the long-term solution for your organisation."

Jasper ten Dam: "We are now talking about the financial and process side, but the most important distinguishing factor is the ability of a social organisation to attract and retain good people.

In youth welfare services and special education, the work load is high. There is a lot of turnover and absenteeism. And we are dealing with a tight labour market. We try to offer our people more prospects for their careers.

If you add that all up, if we can do better than other organisations, we can really make a difference for the young people and families that we are ultimately doing it for."

Results: Systems and processes

• Integration of four financial administrations into one central administration and implementation in Exact
• Transition to the new HR administration and implementation in AFAS
• Integration and conversion of three into one Electronic Patient Dossier and supervision of the switch to a new supplier
• Optimisation of the administrative care process
• Implementing and improving CRM
• Development of management and operational steering information by means of, among other things, value care

"There were four different subsidiaries, each with their own HR department, ICT system and financial administration. Then an Board of Directors was put together with two members: Hans du Prie, and myself for the operational side.

This combo works very well because we are highly complementary to each other. Hans is very good at communicating to the staff the steps that need to be taken."

Hans du Prie will hand over the baton to Lieke van Domburgh, who will be joining the Board of Directors as of October the 1st.

Results: financial

• Reduce outstanding debt by € 10 million
• Improve liquid assets position by € 15 million.
• Structural cost reduction of € 2.5 million.
• Productivity improvement of 10%
• Savings on procurement of € 10 million
• Remedying fiscal risks

Jasper ten Dam: "When I started working at iHUB, the organisation was suffering from a major financial loss. The integration of the four operating companies in a legal sense also helps to guarantee the continuity of a number of unprofitable sections which, in terms of content, fit very nicely into our portfolio.

Ultimately, we are a foundation and a civic organisation, and it is important to keep these kinds of care available for all young people and families who need it. We are now back in the green.

Both solvency and liquidity are in order. We were on schedule to reach zero this year. Due to Corona, it is not yet entirely certain that we will succeed, but in any case we will succeed next year."

Jasper ten Dam: "A large-scale organisation capable of delivering small-scale tailor-made solutions." We are in a market with narrow margins, it is all public money, so you have to organise it as efficiently as possible. We are an organisation that is constantly learning. If you come up against something, the chances are that someone else has been through it before and found a solution to it, pretty big within an organisation with 3,000 employees in 35 schools and 20 care locations."