Share your services, public bodies told

3 Nov 05
The government is launching a major push to make public bodies share services such as finance and human resources amid concerns that they are less efficient than their private sector counterparts.

04 November 2005

The government is launching a major push to make public bodies share services such as finance and human resources amid concerns that they are less efficient than their private sector counterparts.

In future, when awarding funding for projects, all government departments will make a presumption that they represent value-for-money only if they have joined-up back-office functions. This is intended to make it much harder for public bodies to engage in 'wasteful duplication'.

The drive, which is part of a wider government programme to use technology to improve services and cut costs, is being led by the Cabinet Office.

John Hutton launched the Transformational Government strategy on November 2, the same day that he became the new work and pensions secretary.

The document said back-office functions, which cost £7bn annually, were often 'Cinderella' services: 'The result is that the corporate services such as HR and finance are significantly behind the private sector in both effectiveness and efficiency.'

Hutton said sharing services would mean 'big changes' in the way public bodies function, but the benefits could be 'huge'.

He added: 'Different institutions should team up and share back-office functions that can be delivered more efficiently on a larger scale. If institutions can share front- and back-office functions like call centres and HR, it will make big savings for tax payers that can be reinvested into the front line.'

A shared services director is being appointed within the department, answering to e-government head Ian Watmore, and will be responsible for driving forward progress across the whole of the public sector.

At the same time a service transformation board, comprising officials from across the public services, will be set up to implement the wider strategy. It will develop new channels for the public to access services, for example through digital television and call centres.

Watmore said the 'pivotal component' of the new strategy was ensuring the public sector had sufficient IT expertise. This would be addressed in the IT strand of the civil service's professional skills for government programme.

E-government minister Jim Murphy said: 'We need to continually search for better ways to deliver public services and this strategy sets out a path to do that.'

PFnov2005

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