Shared services can offer significant benefits – including improved savings, continuity and quality of service, systems and scalability – but only if you can overcome the challenges that will naturally appear when you ask service user parties with different goals,…

The South East Lincolnshire Councils Shared Services Partnership is stated to be a “ground breaking”, “bold and ambitious” new alliance between the Boston, East Lindsey and South Holland councils – the largest collaborative local authority relationship of its kind in…

The Conservative government has, for the best part of a decade, been fixated on the debt the country has got itself into. In his Spring Budget, Chancellor Philip Hammond announced that national debt stood at a figure of nearly £1.7…

In their ongoing drive to reduce costs while attempting to improve services, the government has long believed shared services to be the answer. Annual savings in the region of 20% are commonly cited by those using shared services centres to…

If you were offered an opportunity to save your council tens of millions of pounds you might be tempted. The question is, what time and resources would you invest into scrutinising the shared services deal? How much due diligence would…

October 2016 is set to be the start of a new shared-services agreement between the local authorities of Haringey, Islington and Camden, a partnership that has broadly promised to save them a total of £6m a year. And while the…

Whatever your personal political leaning may be towards the subject of austerity, in post-election Britain, if you work for a public sector body, significant adaptations still need to be made. Belts that may have seemed already uncomfortably tight after years…

In today’s cost-conscious world, everyone says they are looking out for ways to save time, money and resources. However, the reality is still that far too few connect the dots to make the true savings that are possible, to cut…