Foreword
The CBI’s priority is securing economic growth. Sustainable growth requires a re-balancing of our economy. It requires growth from across the private sector. We need to maximise the economic potential in every UK region. And re-balancing also requires a slimmer, fitter public sector.
The forces of change facing our public services are intense. Social and demographic changes, coupled with a significant step up in public expectations, are driving a significant increase in demand for services. At the same time, unprecedented financial constraints are applying pressure to service provision.
So business as usual is not an option; to meet rising demand with the level and quality of public services which the public expect in a modern economy, we need to do things differently.
Shared services can play a big part in meeting that challenge and this report makes a number of recommendations about how progress can be accelerated.
We argue that within both central government departments and local authorities a number of similar functions are carried out. The majority of these could benefit from economies of scale if those
functions were pooled, which would result in considerable efficiency savings whilst maintaining service quality.
To drive change through government departments and ensure the potential of shared services is realised, we need to see a clear vision for implementation backed up by strong leadership from the centre.
And while many local authorities have made significant progress in sharing their back office functions, there is potential for many more to follow suit. Those leading the agenda have started examining new ways of sharing the delivery of frontline services and there is scope for widespread adoption of this approach.
To spur quality and innovation, as well as value for money, opportunities to provide shared services arrangements should be open to competition with provision coming from a diverse range of providers.
Matthew Fell Director,
Competitive Markets
Government departments and local authorities are currently facing a challenge…
Departments and local councils are currently facing a challenge. Both are being asked to make significant savings in their budgets while maintaining as far as possible the quality which citizens expect of the public services that they deliver. Simply
‘salami-slicing’ budgets does not protect the quality of services and is not a sustainable way of making savings. Instead, new and innovative approaches are needed to designing how services are delivered.
...and shared services can help address this
Shared services can help public bodies address this challenge.1 Many public bodies perform similar functions or provide similar services that make them easy to share.
These may be back office functions, such as human resources (HR), Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and finance, or customer-facing services, such as call centres. Sharing services involves
1. Shared services arrangements have a
critical role to play in delivering more for less – progress needs to be accelerated
the aggregation of such functions – bringing them together inside a single organisation, such as a large government department, or across a number of organisations, such as central government agencies or local authorities such as councils.
This has a number of benefits:
1. Implementation of shared services arrangements provides an opportunity to spend taxpayers’ money more efficiently by reducing unnecessary duplication of overheads in separate public bodies.
Resulting surplus funding can be reallocated to frontline services or realised as savings.
2. Shared services yield economies of scale.
A number of, for example, local authorities perform the same work in essential back office services, such as the provision of ICT systems. There are substantial savings to be realised when these are provided under one umbrella.
3. Shared services help improve the focus on customers and outcomes. The delivery of, for example, back office functions through specialised shared services arrangements can improve professionalism in those areas. In addition to the enhanced quality of service for customers that this can produce, this also means that a single point of contact can be created and that the service provided is much more consistent.
4. Sharing services can allow innovative approaches to providing specialist skills.
Where such skills, such as air support for regional police forces, are in short supply or too expensive, shared services arrangements allow their provision at a cost that is affordable.
As technology has advanced, it has facilitated greater opportunities for expansion of shared services arrangements. Integrating technology into back office processing, for example, means that the marginal cost of each transaction is reduced. Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is one of the largest growth areas in shared services. Craven and Selby District Councils are one such example where ICT has been used to successfully share services. Their recent ICT shared services arrangement has saved just over £200,000 and they have managed to improve the performance of ICT functions in both councils.
Some progress has been made and there is a variety of examples where local and central government have addressed this
challenge – leadership is needed to accelerate progress
The need for shared services in central government was first identified in the Gershon Review in 2004, though that need has become more acute in recent years because of budgetary circumstances.2 Some progress has been made in delivering shared services arrangements among government departments and national public bodies, and there is evidence of considerable savings.
However, the evidence is mixed. There are obstacles to realising the full benefits of shared services in central government which will need leadership to overcome them. A central driver of change is required and a clear vision for implementation of shared services at central government level is necessary.
There has also been some progress in delivering shared services arrangements within local government. But more local authorities need to follow suit – 134 local councils in England have yet to enter into any type of shared services arrangement.3 Those local authorities that have successfully implemented shared services arrangements demonstrate that sharing back office functions yields relatively fast savings.
There is no reason why local authorities who have yet to start sharing services could not prioritise such back office functions for sharing as a first step.
In addition to sharing back office functions, there are also new and innovative ways of delivering shared frontline services being explored by some local authorities.
Those authorities already sharing back office functions should be encouraged and supported to implement new shared frontline arrangements.
While shared services should deliver value for money, they should also lead to enhanced outcomes. To achieve this, shared services arrangements should be open to competition to ensure best value for the taxpayer and to encourage innovation.
2. Obstacles to implementing shared
services arrangements in central government departments must be overcome
Government departments are large organisations and can benefit from the economies of scale of pooling similar functions, such as payroll, human resources, finance and procurement, both internally and across departments. Such functions support the provision of frontline services. Large private sector organisations have increasingly shared these functions internally. They offer a model for the public sector to reap the benefits of economies of scale.
Progress has been made across central government towards delivering savings through shared services – but implementation must be improved
The potential for savings through shared services arrangements in central government was first identified in the 2004 Gershon Review.4 Individual departments and public bodies were encouraged, through the Cabinet Office, to establish their own shared services centres. However, in light of the budgetary pressures that exist today, the need to make progress has become much more acute.
To date, eight such major centres have been established. Five of these were set up to provide back office functions to their sponsoring government departments as well as those of some of their associated agencies: the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Defence, the Department for Transport, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Work and Pensions.
These centres have expanded to facilitate shared services arrangements for other departments such as the Home Office, Cabinet Office and the Department for Education. The other three major shared services centres are sponsored by the Department of Health for National Health Service (NHS) trusts (known as NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) – a joint venture with a private provider), Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and Research Councils UK (RCUK).
Real savings have been made. The Home Office and the Ministry of Justice report annual savings of £13 million and £20 million respectively as a result of entering into shared services arrangements.
The Department for Work and Pensions reported savings of £35 million in 2009/10.5 NHS SBS is now a market leader in business support services for the NHS and is on target to deliver £224 million savings over a 10-year period – see case study 4.
Taking HR costs as an example, government departments operating shared services centres generally show a lower cost per full- time employee (FTE) as shown in Figure 1 (opposite). The Defence, Work and Pensions, Justice and Transport departments and HMRC have lower HR costs for each employee compared to other departments.
However, there is still variation between individual departments’ shared services centres. DEFRA has higher HR costs for each employee despite the existence of a departmental shared services centre.
This variation can be explained by a number of reasons. Sometimes functions have simply been centrally located across a department, rather than standardised and thus genuinely shared. Failing to simplify and streamline functions prevents the real benefits of sharing services being realised. Unnecessary duplication occurs when departments retain in-house staff to oversee the functions which are transferred to a shared services centre.
In some cases, shared services centres are either too small (being based on a single small department) or are operating below capacity because of the voluntary nature of participation. Not all departments have signed up for shared services centres.
This means that some existing centres are operating below capacity and that
economies of scale are not being fully exploited – two centres have a potential spare capacity of 50 per cent.
In others, bad business planning and the lack of a clear vision from the start meant that there was significant overspend in the implementation of the shared services arrangements.6 There is thus an opportunity for much greater savings if lagging
departments are brought up to the standard of the best.
The Cabinet Office’s July 2011 Government Shared Services: A Strategic Vision again
highlighted the need for standardised shared services: £2.5 billion was spent on HR, finance and procurement functions across central government in 2009/10 but there was a considerable variation in departmental unit costs and the levels of service delivered.7 The vision proposed moving to two civil service wide centres, independent of departments. In order to realise the progress towards shared services as set out in the Strategic Vision, obstacles to rolling out shared services must be overcome.
Figure 1: HR spend per full-time employee by department size Source: ‘Common areas of spend’ from departmental business cases
HR spend per full-time employee
DEFRA
DFT
DWP MoD
HMRC MoJ HO
BIS DECCDFE CO
FCO
£6,000
£5,000
£4,000
£3,000
£2,000
£1,000
£0
0 20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000 100,000 120,000 140,000
Number of full time employees (FTE) DCLG
HMT DCMS
DFLD
A central driver of change is required to make further progress
A central driver is needed to make further progress by harmonising and co-ordinating departmental programmes. As a first step to ensuring that existing shared services centres are operating efficiently, the variation in performance in those centres must be addressed. All existing centres need to have their performance reviewed against benchmarks of best practice – for example, the Department for Work and Pensions Shared Services Centre. The Cabinet Office should lead this review and direct that centres found to be under-performing set out how they intend to improve their performance.
Secondly, rather than leaving individual departments to make their own
arrangements, the Cabinet Office should lead the shared services agenda across government and direct government departments not already sharing back office services to sign up to existing shared services centres, and to ultimately sign up to the new independent centres in the medium term. This will ensure that shared services centres operate at optimal capacity and fully exploit the economies of scale available to them.
To assist this, internal barriers to departments expanding shared services centres need to be addressed. For example, procurement rules might prevent expansion
of existing shared services centres to cater to other government departments.
The existing culture of departmental
‘individualism’ needs to be challenged.
Organisational change usually meets with resistance. The challenge of achieving effective shared services lies in minimising that resistance. Government departments need to see back office services as a professional function that is best conducted outside of the government department or agency. Not only is this more efficient financially but the government department will ultimately benefit as a customer if there is specialist expertise delivering back office services.
To overcome cultural resistance in the medium term, shared services centres should ultimately be seen as separate facilities distinct from departments. By establishing shared services centres that are independent of individual departments, they will be regarded as centres of excellence for the delivery of back office services rather than being ‘owned’ by government departments.
To achieve this, the Cabinet Office should pursue its plans for two independent shared services centres. All newly established statutory agencies should seek back office services from these centres, instead of duplicating HR, ICT and finance functions.
Unsuccessful attempts at implementing shared services arrangements have damaged their image and called their effectiveness at saving money into question.
Previous reports on the shortcomings of those attempts have argued that successful implementation of shared services
arrangements depends on a clear vision of what such an arrangement will look like.8 Implementation of shared services needs to be planned in detail to ensure successful outcomes. A clear business plan should specify how to achieve that:
how governance arrangements will work, how the services will be standardised and shared, how performance will be measured and how staff will be involved in the change process. Accepting the need for shared services is a significant first step; making
sure that shared services are implemented correctly and effectively is just as important.
Governance arrangements must be straightforward and there must be clear lines of accountability for budgetary arrangements and for driving the change process forward. A clear vision of how to travel the journey to shared services and what that arrangement will look like when arrived at is important in ensuring that all expected benefits are delivered.
Implementation plans must specify how services to be transferred will be standardised, simplified and then shared, as well as clarifying the size and elements of those functions that will be retained by each department. For a shared services centre to yield benefits, this needs to be clearly
A clear vision for implementation is also essential
defined to avoid unnecessary duplication between the shared services centre and the customer department or agency.
There must be a focus on performance. The outcomes to be delivered must be agreed at the outset. Performance against these outcomes must be measurable and reported at regular intervals, so that comparisons can be made. One of the biggest arguments for shared services arrangements is the real benefit they deliver in terms of quality and savings. Being able to present hard evidence of the value of shared services will add to the impetus for more sharing of services across all departments.
It is also important to ensure that staff are involved in the change process insofar as is possible. To succeed, there should be plans put in place to ensure that communication is always clear and that opportunities for staff involvement in developing the new service model are built in.
The Cabinet Office has yet to set out its detailed implementation plan of how it intends to achieve its strategic vision for independent shared services centres. This plan needs to be published before expanding shared services across central government.
It should explain how central government intends to take this agenda forward and how the expected benefits will be delivered.
Recommendation 1:
All existing shared services centres should be compared with the best performing shared services centres and required to set out how they intend to improve.
Recommendation 2:
The Cabinet Office should direct all government departments and agencies not already doing so to sign up to existing shared services arrangements in the short term, and to the new independent shared services centres in the medium term.
Recommendation 3:
All new statutory agencies established should be required to have their HR, ICT, procurement and finance functions delivered through shared services arrangements.
Recommendation 4:
The implementation plan for the Cabinet Office’s strategic vision for shared services should be published outlining how the new independent shared services centres will be established.
Case Study 1: Winning new customers and achieving a culture change – Fujitsu and the Home Office
The Home Office has participated in the Ministry of Justice Shared Services Centre since 2009. In 2010 Fujitsu Services worked closely with them to grow their shared service portfolio through offering services to agencies within the wider Home Office family. To date the Home Office’s shared services drive has yielded over
£41 million in total savings and involves the delivery of HR, finance and procurement to 80%
of potential users in the Home Office and their arms-length bodies.
Fujistu helped smooth the path for new potential customers to join the shared services arrangements. This included:
» Integrating a HR database of 4500 former Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) employees into the Home Office Shared Service HR Solution in April 2010;
» Integrating the HR services of the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) into the existing Home Office Shared HR Service solution (approximately 600 employees) in April 2010; and
» Joining the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) HR services with the Home Office Shared HR Service solution (approximately 4500 employees) in August 2010.
Fujitisu’s work followed two phases. Firstly, they set out how best to make the proposal for sharing services attractive and feasible for new customers. This involved workshops with senior stakeholders.
Secondly, when it came to transition, Fujitsu addressed a number of issues. These included putting new project governance arrangements in place, designing and building business processes to accommodate new customers, identifying the implications of changing management, dealing with legacy business rules and putting new guidelines in place for the operation of the shared services centres.
Home Office Shared Services was short-listed in the 2010 e-gov awards as an example of best practice in government. This reflected the success of bringing new customers like HMRC, the CRB and the IPS into shared services arrangements, which alone represented an increase of over 40% in user numbers.
Case Study 2: Shared services across many departments – Vertex and central government
At their Phoenix House operations centre in Kirby, Merseyside, Vertex deliver shared services for a number of central government clients including the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), the Department of Health (DoH) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). The centre provides frontline customer contact services, back office processing functions and support for shared services (resource planning, forecasting and management information).
On the frontline, for Jobcentre Plus, within the DWP account, Vertex employs a team of customer advisors who have been trained on multiple service lines and who take calls from 3 different services on behalf of Jobcentre Plus.
This allows for the handling of over 4 million calls a year across the multiple service lines,
makes for flexible resource levels and manages demand across the multiple lines to reduce overall staff numbers and costs.
Out of hours support is provided for the DEFRA, DoH and DWP National Benefit Fraud Hotline, using multi-skilled shared service teams to handle relatively small volumes of calls during the early hours of operation (7am-9am) and overnight from the “Duty Room” shared call centre service.
The Phoenix House operation utilises spare capacity during periods of low workloads to process back office tasks across multiple contracts. This back office processing typically involves responding to emails and postal queries, but also carrying out other back office processing tasks such as claims processing.
The multi-skilling of staff enables the smoothing of workloads across working hours, reducing the need to deploy additional staff when peaks in demand occur, which lowers costs. It also helps to maintain the interest and motivation of staff.
A number of the back office management support services that underpin delivery of Vertex’s services are provided on a shared basis. Tasks such as resource planning, forecasting and management information are provided by dedicated teams with specific skills and tools in these areas.
The primary benefits of the shared approach for these services are three-fold:
» Higher quality of support from expert, dedicated teams specialising in these operational tasks, with a knock-on effect of helping the frontline service teams to maximise the effectiveness and quality of their own services;
» Greatly reduced costs from use of a shared team, compared to having dedicated teams attached to each contract; and
» Continuous improvement of core planning functions which are shared across all operations.
Case Study 3: Bringing in a new department – Oracle, the Department for Education and the Department for Work and Pensions
In 2010, the Department for Education (DfE) outsourced its financial, human resources, and purchasing functions to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Shared Services Centre. This had a number of objectives:
» To reduce back office operating costs to contribute to the government’s target for savings, while releasing more funds for frontline services;
» To drive efficiency by centralising, automating, and streamlining service delivery for human resources, financial, and purchasing functions within the DfE; and
» To standardise and consolidate information across functions to improve reporting and decision-making.
Oracle software applications are used in the DWP Shared Services Centre and the DfE successfully worked with them to deliver on their objectives. The outsourcing of back office functions to the DWP Shared Services Centre saved £8.4 million a year. It resulted in the centralisation of all financial data and HR records, which eliminated the need for budget managers to locally store nearly 900 separate spread-sheets and databases. Information was directly downloadable from the central system.
One immediate benefit of this was a reduction
in the time it took to produce management and human resources reports from up to two weeks to within minutes, allowing staff to focus on other tasks.
Collaboration with DWP to ensure a smooth transition was important and ensured that 99.9% of staff were paid correctly in the first pay run. The efficient administration and payment of education grants worth £1.2 billion through 152 local authorities meant that teachers and ancillary school staff were paid on time. Additionally, the necessary cultural change for a shift to a shared services focus was embraced and 97% of staff on the systems were trained in the use of the Oracle software applications before the official changeover.
Employing over 1.3 million people to deliver healthcare to all residents in England, the National Health Service (NHS) is the world’s largest publicly funded healthcare provider.
Efficiency is an increasing priority for the NHS because of the current drive to find savings of £20 billion and deliver a 45% reduction in management costs by 2014.
In 2005, the NHS turned to Steria for help in achieving significant operational improvements.
This resulted in the creation of NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS), a unique 50:50 partnership between Steria and the NHS. Based on sharing services with NHS trusts, this joint venture has established an innovative model for the delivery of public sector business processes and has targeted areas such as finance and accounting, payroll, HR, family health services and NHS procurement.
NHS SBS is now the market leader in business support services for the NHS and offers a wide range of services that embrace the usual back office processes, as well as services that are specifically designed for the health sector, such as family health services and commercial procurement solutions. This combination has allowed it to deliver excellence despite on-going economic challenges. With the aim of achieving savings of between 20% and 40%
for NHS trusts, NHS SBS now employs over 1,400 people, processing more than £36 billion of payments per annum. Over 40% of NHS organisations are now NHS SBS clients, and that number is continuing to rise.
Economies of scale have been achieved through the introduction of eProcurement, new and innovative ways of working, sharing of best practice and access to improved management information and world-class technology.
NHS SBS is now on target to deliver around
£224 million of savings over a ten-year period. This is equivalent to 12,500 extra nurses, demonstrating the advantages of a collaborative approach to cost management.
NHS SBS has recovered more than £12 billion of NHS debt for its NHS clients, money that can be channelled back into providing vital frontline health services – real value for the NHS.
Case Study 4: Success in shared services – Steria and the National Health Service
3. More local authorities need to share back office and frontline services
Data from the Local Government
Association makes it clear that some local authorities have embraced this agenda more than others. It shows that there are 141 shared services arrangements in place or in development in England, involving 219
councils out of 353.9 The 134 councils who have yet to share any services at all need to follow the example of those pressing ahead.
Local authorities are well placed to exploit the gains from shared services. There are
80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
corporate services customer facing management
back office frontline
procurement environment, waste and transport culture, sport and tourism children’s and young people adults and health
Some local authorities have made progress in implementing the shared services agenda – the rest need to follow suit
number of shared services arrangements
Figure 2: Breakdown of shared services arrangements by type Source: Local Government Association – National Map of Shared Services
authorities sharing services on revenue and benefits alone.10 Other councils could share these services to make rapid efficiency gains.
The table below shows the regional breakdown of shared services arrangements, where this information was available. This evidence suggests that where one local authority in a region begins to share services, other local authorities follow suit as they draw on the experience of, and collaborate with, their neighbours.
Region Number of
shared services arrangements
Average number of public bodies per shared
services arrangement Savings to date
East Midlands 37 4 £49,294,250
East of England 30 5.1 £9,804,210
London 9 5.8 £12,330,000
North East 1 2 £1,000,000
North West 17 7 £50,520,861
South East 16 2.9 £11,890,000
South West 9 3.7 £11,774,000
West Midlands 16 2.9 £10,770,000
Yorkshire and the Humber 6 2.5 £1,200,000
TOTAL 141 4 £158,583,321
Table 1: Breakdown of shared services arrangements by region Source: Local Government Association – National Map of Shared Services
certain functions that they all have in common – back office corporate services such as HR, ICT and finance or customer- facing services such as call centres. As the graph on p16 shows, councils have made most progress sharing the delivery of these services. Sharing such relatively simple transactional functions is the ‘low- hanging fruit’ – the easiest to implement and thus the fastest way to reduce
pressure on budgets. Research by the Audit Commission showed that annual savings of
£140 million could be achieved from local
Being generally smaller organisations, local authorities are not as susceptible to the problem of cultural resistance as central government departments. This makes it easier to move to a shared services arrangement. Additionally, their size can make them very flexible in responding to customer needs.
There are different routes that councils can take to achieve their objective of sharing services.11 The route chosen will depend on the particular circumstances and concerns for each council. For example, some may choose to commission a shared services arrangement through a joint purchasing
consortium with other councils, whereas others may opt to form a partnership with fellow authorities to deliver services.
However, the end goal should be the same:
making savings while also protecting the quality of services.
While local councils have the most experience of shared services arrangements, all local public bodies, regardless of their frontline roles, need to provide similar back office functions.
Cleveland and Lincolnshire Police have both shown how police forces can benefit by establishing shared services centres of excellence with private sector partners.
Some local authorities have gone further than just sharing back office functions and have looked at how they can share the delivery of frontline services. The Tri- borough area in London has set the pace by sharing services such as library services, adult social care and children’s services, while maintaining local political sovereignty.
As case study 6 shows, imagination and carefully-planned implementation mean that savings and better services can result from sharing frontline functions, although these are more attainable in geographically contiguous areas.
Some specialist services are expensive to provide for local authorities and in such cases, shared services can be applied imaginatively to the frontline. South East Air Support Unit is a joint venture between Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire Police Authorities launched in April 2011, and will save approximately £8 million for the three authorities over the next five years.
It shows how a high-cost service like air support can be shared between authorities, reducing the cost to each while maintaining service quality.
As authorities experiment with shared arrangements for frontline services, they will build an expertise in redesigning the way they deliver them. Local government can develop hubs for community activity – a single point of contact for citizens. The Whole-place Community Budget initiative represents the next step of evolution for shared services implementation. Ultimately, the driving force behind sharing services has to be achieving value for money for taxpayers and maintaining quality of services for citizens.
There are also new and innovative ways of delivering frontline services, and implementing these new arrangements should be encouraged
Recommendation 5:
All local authorities not already doing so should share common back office functions, such as HR, ICT and finance either by introducing new shared services arrangements or by participating in existing shared services centres.
Recommendation 6:
Local authorities leading the way in sharing frontline services should share best practice with neighbouring authorities.
Recommendation 7:
Local authorities and central government, when implementing shared services, should open competition to both private and public providers.
Shared services should deliver value for money for local authorities and taxpayers, but should also lead to enhanced service outcomes. Innovation is key to achieving enhanced outcomes at lower cost.
Open competition is a crucial component of delivering innovation and imaginative solutions. Opening up provision of shared services arrangements encourages the best ideas from both the private and the public sectors. It also brings in new expertise and perspectives on the design and delivery of shared services.
While best practice certainly exists among local authorities, the private sector has also made use of shared services arrangements to increase efficiency and quality.
Additionally, private sector companies have successfully partnered with local authorities in the past. These relationships have typically resulted in shared services arrangements that have made savings for local authorities and increased service quality for taxpayers. They have also shown the potential for further expansion in terms of services and authorities, as shown by the following case studies.
Shared services arrangements must be competed to ensure best value for the taxpayer
Case Study 5: Shared services underpinned by integrated software solutions – Capita and local government
When three councils in South Worcestershire took the decision to pursue a shared service partnership for managing revenues and benefits services at a single site, Capita was their chosen partner for providing the integrated software needed to underpin the success of the project.
Undertaken at a time when demand on these services was increasing, the 130 staff originally employed by the three separate authorities was reduced through natural turnover, rather than redundancies, to 95 permanent staff enabling the project to be self-funded. Despite a 50 per cent increase in demand at the peak of the recession, the success of the shared service partnership was demonstrated by the fact 27 per cent fewer staff maintained the same levels of service during this peak.
These levels of service are maintained by Capita’s fully integrated software system, which allows all staff in the new service location to access historical data from all of the shared service partnership’s local authority areas. This means that whichever area an enquiry comes from, the staff member who takes the call or receives the correspondence can quickly deal with it by automatically accessing the claimant’s details and can act upon these knowing they are accurate and
up-to-date. Being in one location with a pool of staff also means peaks and troughs across the three authority areas can be managed more effectively.
Despite the increased demand on the service, the goal of delivering savings and greater efficiencies has driven a programme which has seen year-on-year annual savings of £1.7 million. The collection of council and business tax has also increased. In light of the overall success of the project, new ways are being devised in which ICT can deliver savings and better services. With online benefit applications and the use of e-billing, the South Worcestershire Shared Services Partnership will also see decreased administrative burdens and the reduction of postage and stationary costs.
Case Study 6: Shared services on the frontline – Enterprise with Northampton and Daventry Councils
In June 2011, Enterprise began working with Northampton Borough Council and Daventry District Council to deliver a seven year environmental services contract across the two council areas.
The two authorities required a partner to deliver frontline services including:
» Residual waste and recycling collections
» Street cleansing
» Parks, open spaces, allotments, cemeteries, public convenience and grounds
maintenance
A key priority for both authorities was the harmonisation of refuse and recycling services
and the generation of savings through sharing services. As a first step, efficiency gains were delivered through the sharing of back office and management functions between the two authorities.
The ‘one pass’ approach adopted by Enterprise ensures services provided are carried out in line with the completion of others, ensuring an overall environmental improvement, whilst minimising disruption to the local community. For example, residual waste is collected every other week, with all household recycling collected on a weekly basis. Street cleansing service frequencies are tailored to the requirements of the particular road and are carried out following the completion of
collection rounds. This means any rubbish spilled in the residential waste collection is promptly swept up, thus supporting cleaner, safer areas with minimised environmental impact. Grounds maintenance services including parks and open spaces, cemeteries, sports pitches and allotments are carried out on individually specified frequencies, in line with an outcome specification by specialist teams with local knowledge and expertise.
Since commencing the contract in June 2011, Enterprise has worked closely with the two councils to develop jointly specified performance and satisfaction requirements.
Thus far, the 14 key performance indicators set by the councils are being met and a number of changes have been implemented including:
» Cross-border working, introduced from day one of the contract, with a new, efficient fleet of waste collection vehicles across both councils;
» A reactive deep cleaning regime in both Northampton and Daventry, with one operational area targeted on a fortnightly basis;
» Assisted collections for residents who cannot get their bins to the kerbside;
» A ‘grot spot’ helpline to allow any problems reported by residents to be dealt with swiftly; and
» Neighbourhood meetings at which residents can voice their opinions and concerns directly to Enterprise.
In January 2012, Enterprise introduced a weekly food waste recycling service across the two council areas. This service was introduced over an eight week period, using a phased approach. The introduction of this additional recycling stream supports the two councils in the objective of increasing levels of recycling, whilst supporting residents through the availability of additional recycling services.
Throughout the contract, Enterprise has engaged the local community to ensure awareness of contract changes through neighbourhood meetings and working with community groups.
1 CBI, 2006. Transformation through shared services (London: CBI); CBI, 2010. Shared services in local government (London: CBI).
2 HM Treasury, 2004. Releasing resources for the frontline: Independent Review of Public Sector Efficiency (Gershon Review) (London: Stationery Office)
3 Local Government Association, 2012. Shared services map [online] Available at:
< www.local.gov.uk/better-for-less-po-map> [Accessed 9 May 2012 ].
4 HM Treasury, 2004. Releasing resources for the frontline: Independent Review of Public Sector Efficiency (Gershon Review) (London: Stationery Office)
5 Cabinet Office, 2011. Government Shared Services: A Strategic Vision (London: Cabinet Office)
6 National Audit Office, 2012. Efficiency and reform in government corporate functions through shared service centres (London: Stationery Office); National Audit Office, 2011.
Shared Services in the Research Councils (London: Stationery Office) 7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Local Government Association, 2012. Shared services map [online] Available at:
< www.local.gov.uk/better-for-less-po-map> [Accessed 9 May 2012 ].
10 Audit Commission, 2005. The efficiency challenge: the administration costs of revenue and benefits.
11 Department of Communities and Local Government, 2006. Structures for Collaboration and Shared Services (London: DCLG Publications)
References
Public Services Group T: +44 (0)20 7395 8113 E: [email protected]
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