UK Local Government Believe Shared Services Will Help Them
A recent survey in the UK by Civica found that 40% of local authorities believe that shared services initiatives can help cut costs, despite recent high-profile problems with some such schemes.
30% of the 100 respondents surveyed thought that the government will further cut funding and support in 2009. Some 33% of the authorities said that they were using, or planned to use, shared services over the next three years.
And more than half believed that introducing standardised systems and processes across the organisation was important. Last year the Public Accounts Committee slammed the Department for Transport for "stupendous incompetence" in the implementation of a shared services scheme that could cost the taxpayer £81m.
But an efficiency drive across the public sector has forced councils to look at their spending more carefully.
