SSON Roundtable Debate - Uk General public Sector Shared Services - Wherever Now and Where by Subsequent?

Sharing providers has risen up the agendas of your UK's national ?pos cash register and local governments in recent times, propelled by political and monetary trends in addition as by more concrete aspects this sort of as Sir Peter Gershon's 2004-5 Efficiency Evaluation and Sir David Varney's report on transformational government. In an try and throw some mild on latest developments and to look at where shared products and services might be headed in upcoming, SSON convened a roundtable discussion involving a group of practitioners and advisors at area and countrywide amount, chaired by SSON's on the net editor Jamie Liddell. The outcome were, without a doubt, illuminating...

Attending were being:

Tony Isaacs Programme Manager Warwickshire Direct Partnership The Warwickshire Direct Partnership is often a shared providers programme comprising all 6 regional authorities during the county of Warwickshire: North Warwickshire Borough Council; Nuneaton & Bedworth Borough Council; Rugby Borough Council; Stratford District Council; Warwick District Council; Warwickshire County Council; and three private-sector partners in Steria, MacFarlane Telesystems and Northgate Information Systems.

Dominic Swift Head of Shared Services Browne Jacobson Browne Jacobson is one with the largest law firms in the Midlands with offices in Nottingham, Birmingham and London. The firm acts for over 100 neighborhood authorities, either directly or through their insurers. It recently published its Shared Expert services Survey '08, one with the most comprehensive surveys ever carried out into shared companies in the Uk.

Peter Telford Chief Executive Officer Research Councils British isles Shared Solutions Centre Research Councils United kingdom (RCUK) is usually a strategic partnership between the seven Uk Research Councils. RCUK was established in 2002 to enable the Councils to work together more effectively to enhance the overall impact and effectiveness of their research, training and innovation activities, contributing to the delivery from the Government's objectives for science and innovation.

Ray Tomkinson Community Authorities Improvement Specialist and Shared Services Author Ray Tomkinson is the author of Shared Services in Nearby Govt: Improving Service Delivery (Gower, 2007). Ray managed the Welland Partnership shared products and services project and currently operates as a consultant.

SSON: Peter, you're at the head of one of your additional prominent national shared products and services centres [SSCs]. Can you explain a little about the drivers behind the move in your organisation?

Peter Telford: Behind the Research Council's business case are benefits focusing on what are seen as monetary gains which will be passed back to research and the research community, but probably far more importantly from the early stages is the feeling that we can secure better effectiveness in business support to that research community by aggregating the seven Research Councils' products and services onto one common platform, and transforming them. The business case started with an outline about two a long time ago. There was a lot of work done on certain parts on the shared service model even before that, but the activity's really come together in the last two yrs. The full business case was accepted by the Research Councils in line with CSR07 [Comprehensive Spending Overview 2007] in August last year, and the intention at the moment is that we will go live on the platform at the beginning of upcoming year. We already have some services live within the IT and strategic sourcing areas.