Why is everyone talking about efficiency reviews and shared services as if they were new ideas? Before moving into a career in international financial consultancy, I worked for seven years in English local government in the 1970s.
At the London Borough of Wandsworth, we carried out value-for-money audits, identifying how to achieve more with a given set of resources. With the increased sophistication of such audits in the intervening 35 years, I would have thought that every last ounce of fat would have been long since removed from the carcass.
I then moved to Kingston upon Thames council where we shared IT facilities with Sutton. I have also worked in Hampshire where there was a purchasing consortium. These ideas have been used for decades. So I am unsure why anyone should now regard them as possible ‘silver bullets’ for the current financial problems.
