IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

HM Prison Service is nearing the end of a shared services programme that will help save more than £95m.

The £40m initiative to share IT systems between different locations will be fully rolled out by October this year.

The report, Back to Front, said that by improving their back-office functions, through improved use of ICT and redesigned business processes, councils made up to a quarter of the £4.3bn savings in the Gershon Spending Review 2004 (SR04).

The cost in jobs of the pioneering project, set up to help stave off the worst effects of Government budget cuts, has sparked the biggest crisis yet to engulf councils.

The jobs figure is the first real estimate of the human toll of the “shared services” agenda and comes on top of the thousands of staff local authorities are already shedding in the face of the spending squeeze.

The Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission (SCCRC) is joining an information systems shared services agreement with Skills Development Scotland and Scottish Enterprise, according to publicservice.co.uk.

It is the latest in a line of shared procurement deals by organisations in the public sector , as budget pressures are forcing cost-saving measures.

Local authorities will soon start to share frontline services such as education and recycling, according to David Myers, the Home Office director of shared services.

Pooling technology is becoming more acceptable as back-office sharing boosts public service delivery, said Myers.

The Greater London Authority (GLA) is planning to offer its newly-procured web site infrastructure to other London councils as a shared service.

The GLA has acquired a content management system (CMS) to serve as a common platform for its own web site and the London Development Agency’s (LDA) site, but also wants to promote convergence of all web-based activities across the city.

By 2012, the UK public sector will be spending £729m on shared services, analysts predicts, as shared service expenditure enjoys a compound annual rate of eight per cent.

Shared services, where government department share back-office facilities, such as HR, payroll or IT systems, is one of the lynchpins of money saving initiatives set out in the Gershon Report published in 2004.

The recent news that Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham are to merge services is the latest in a series of merger announcements.

Graham Stewart, business development director for Sophos, explained that these moves tend to see the management of information security put to one side: “It is not a process that promotes innovation or enables cost savings, rather it mitigates problems. But without it we will begin to see an increased number of data breaches.”

Cannock Chase District Council and Stafford Borough Council – who have already said staff are working together on some services – are to pool services on IT and building control from November.

Together this will save £190,000.

Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster hope that the move will save them between £50m - £100m a year. Each council would keep its own identity but would share services (such as ICT provision) under the scheme.

Working groups will look at merging three areas – environmental services, family services and corporate services. The groups will feedback next February with their feedback a more detailed plan will be put out for public consultation.

Charnwood Borough Council in Leicestershire and Rushcliffe Borough Council in Nottinghamshire will partner up on benefits and revenues, information technology, finance and human resources.

The cabinets of the four councils, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Walsall and Sandwell, are to meet for the first time ever to discuss the idea.

They are likely to follow the example of Cannock and Stafford councils, who have a formal agreement to share some of their services.

NHS and Herefordshire Council have both given the go-ahead to plans to share public services and save about £33 million over the next 10 years.

Both the primary care trust board and Herefordshire Council’s cabinet have approved the recommendations, and they will shortly go under Herefordshire Hospitals NHS Trust’s consideration.

Plans for government departments to cut costs by sharing systems took a major step forward last week, Computing can reveal.

A top-level civil service management board has confirmed two of the largest Whitehall departments will provide human resources (HR) and finance services to their peers, following a presentation from Ian Watmore, head of the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit.

Five hundred public sector organisations in north Yorkshire will be connected to a single high-speed network as part of a major shared services initiative.

North Yorkshire County Council has teamed up with BT to deliver NYnet, which will allow schools to share applications and online seminars, while child protection services will be able to collaborate better with police and share information.

Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark councils are looking at council service areas, among others, as areas that could be shared, in a bid to absorb the effect of funding cuts from central Government.

The merging of services is likely to mean thousands of job cuts across the three councils.

Zamora said, eUP’s goal is “an integrated, interconnected, harmonized, inter-operable ICT (Information and Communications Technology) system and infrastructure across all UP campuses to support its thrust for academic and operational excellence.”

MiHIN's shared security services include security/threat assessments, penetration testing, social engineering/testing, and security awareness training. "Our security tests go beyond a pass/fail checkbox like a typical SAS 70 or SAE-16 audit. Instead, our certified ethical hackers mimic the behavior and techniques of real-world bad guys and we unobtrusively try to find security holes or vulnerabilities in an organization, and then we immediately work constructively and confidentially with the organization to remediate any issues or weaknesses. MiHIN helps organizations identify holes before the real hackers find and exploit any weaknesses resulting in a costly breach" said MiHIN Associate Director, Jeff Livesay.

Facing growing pressures to deliver HR services more efficiently and effectively, an increasing number of global organizations expect to change the structure of their HR functions within the next couple of years, according to an annual survey conducted by global professional services company Towers Watson (NYSE, NASDAQ: TW). The 15th annual survey on HR service delivery trends and practices also found that “shared services” has emerged as the most valued and prevalent process for delivering HR services to organizations. The Towers Watson survey also revealed that investment in HR technology is expected to remain strong and steady this year.