IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The quality of technology is a key factor in the adoption of shared services among public sector organisations, according to research from workforce solutions provider MidlandHR.

Public sector bodies have been urged by the government and analysts to move towards shared services to save money in response to budget cutbacks.

Police staff working at both forces will work together in one department managed by Thames Valley police.

The forces said that the collaboration builds on other successful shared services projects in the south east region, and added that it will provide "real opportunities to enhance and improve the services delivered to the public".

For many of UK's CIOs, the burning question today is how to unlock the next level of competitive advantage for their organisation.

Having already maximised efficiency though the creation of shared service centres and cost-efficient outsourcing agreements, many IT leaders are starting to discover the next wave of competitive advantage: Centres of Excellence.

Given the high-profile disasters covered in the press, you could be forgiven for thinking all shared services were forced upon unsuspecting departments by ruthless politicians and capitalists in pursuit of power and a quick fix.

It is not surprising that the failures catch the headlines. But these catastrophes are largely from another time when projects were not constrained by business cases and limited budgets, and the only constraints were around trying to work with small and medium-sized suppliers. Under these conditions, with little accountability or flexibility, it is not surprising that there were failures.

A new tri-borough progress report was tabled on 7 March during a meeting between the three councils' leaders and Communities Secretary Eric Pickles.

The Higher Education Funding Council of England (HEFCE) has allocated £12.5 million to a new cloud computing shared services initiative for universities and colleges.

Last week, HEFCE announcemed the details of its cuts to university funding. In what HEFCE chief executive Sir Alan Langlands described as a “challenging financial settlement”, £940 million will cut from teaching, research and buildings budgets in the coming financial year.

The reaction to the Minister's challenge from the nation's 'commentariat' does, however, indicate a worrying strain in at least some parts of Welsh public opinion. A survey of the blogs and public comments provides the view that Welsh public services would be better if there were fewer local authorities, fewer local politicians and a transfer of functions from local to central government. The case for less local government is rarely argued or evidenced but it is usually associated with remarks such as 'Wales is no bigger than Kent and Essex combined' and therefore cannot justify 22 local authorities. In fact there are 30 separate local authorities in Kent and Essex.

The proposal would see the town’s former swimming baths become a multi-agency base for Powys County Council, the police, fire and ambulance services, GP’s surgery and more housing.

The wider site could also include a library, Powys teaching Local Health Board offices HM Customs and Revenue and a job centre.

The Shared Resource Centre (SRC) at Blaenavon will pool all IT-related activity involving Torfaen and Monmouthshire Councils, as well as Gwent Police.

It also represents an attempt to turn Blaenavon, a cradle of the industrial revolution, into a leader of the digital revolution that it is hoped will transform the Welsh economy.

Local Government Minister Carl Sargeant wants some services to be shared across local authority boundaries to improve the accountability, efficiency and delivery of services.

The regional groups – Cardiff and the Vale, Cwm Taf, Gwent, North Wales, Mid and West and Swansea Bay – have been drawn up to mirror local health board and police boundaries.

Hoople, a Joint Venture Company (JVC) that was set up between three partners across local government and the NHS in Herefordshire in 2011, has revealed savings of £619,000 in just 12 months by integrating back office functions, including IT.

Cutting costs through shared back offices was a key plank to the government's strategy of cutting IT and organisational costs when it took power over two years ago.

A Shropshire cabinet meeting held 25 July approved plans to embark on a ‘tri-council’ programme with Worcestershire and Staffordshire County Councils to collaborate on five areas: economic growth; ICT; fostering, adoption and residential care; education services to local schools and contract management and procurement.

Wolverhampton City Council has confirmed that it is in the late stages of negotiating a merger of its IT systems with Staffordshire County Council, in a bid to cut costs.

By sharing its IT and other back office functions, Wolverhampton said that it would be able to replace its "now dated" systems for finance, HR, procurement and IT with a new, fully-integrated set of applications.

The board, made up of members from both councils, considered the plans on Thursday, August 18, and agreed they should now be sent to both full council meetings where a final decision may be made. These meetings will be held in Redditch on September 5 and in Bromsgrove on September 14.

Under the proposals announced formally today, Councillors Robert Light and Stephen Baines, leaders of the Kirklees and Calderdale Conservative parties, revealed that Kirklees would be “wiped from the map” and replaced by Dewsbury and Spenborough council in the north, and Greater Huddersfield in the south.

Those two councils plus Calderdale would then come together to share some services, including Children’s Services, Adults, Health and Social Care, Transport Investment, Commissioning and Resources.

Westminster City Council, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith & Fulham Council have selected Agilisys and BT to deliver three framework contracts for an initial five years, with the possibility of a three-year extension thereafter.

Part of the problem lies with the use of large, inflexible enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, the report finds.

The shared services plan - the centrepiece of the last government's efficiency programme - got under way in 2006 when the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) S was the first to commence live service. Today, the NAO finds that over 80% of central government employees are supported by a shared service centre.

In a first for Whitehall shared services, some of the jobs are likely to be transferred offshore.

The new venture, SSC, will provide shared services procurement and finance to the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency in the second Independent Shared Services Centre (ISSC2) set up under the government's shared services strategy.

Having missed their deadline to publish the document in March, the Cabinet Office said they would now be aiming for the end of April.

"The Cabinet Office team is now actively and swiftly progressing work on a pan government strategy to deliver shared back office services across Whitehall," the latest structural reform plan update said.

Shared services are back. Almost every day, it seems, a new deal is being proposed, deliberated over, negotiated or signed.

On the face of it, this is a tremendous step in the right direction, bringing to fruition a crucial part of the government's austerity strategy. But to maximise savings potential, there is still a need to improve how shared services work in practice.