By Vivienne Russell
21 January 2010
Collaboration between councils and other public bodies will help protect frontline services from the worst effects of the recession, according to a CIPFA report.
Sharing the gain: collaborating for cost-effectiveness, produced jointly with the Society of District Council Treasurers, offers a practical guide to setting up a shared services initiative or partnership project and cites examples of success.
These include the strategic alliance between High Peak Borough Council and Staffordshire Moorlands District Council, formed in 2008. The introduction of a shared management team has already saved £600,000 annually and the two councils hope to save £1.9m a year from 2011/12.
Other examples include South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils, which now share a chief executive and reduced the size of their senior management teams, saving £750,000.
CIPFA emphasised that the report’s lessons were not confined to district councils.
Launching the paper at the Commons on January 20, CIPFA chief executive Steve Freer said: ‘There are real grounds for optimism that [shared services] is an idea whose time has come.
‘The big challenge for us is to make collaboration and sharing more the rule than the exception… We need every public body to recognise that this is a key weapon in the armoury and to make use of it to deliver savings whilst maintaining services.’
21 January 2010
Collaboration between councils and other public bodies will help protect frontline services from the worst effects of the recession, according to a CIPFA report.
Sharing the gain: collaborating for cost-effectiveness, produced jointly with the Society of District Council Treasurers, offers a practical guide to setting up a shared services initiative or partnership project and cites examples of success.
These include the strategic alliance between High Peak Borough Council and Staffordshire Moorlands District Council, formed in 2008. The introduction of a shared management team has already saved £600,000 annually and the two councils hope to save £1.9m a year from 2011/12.
Other examples include South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils, which now share a chief executive and reduced the size of their senior management teams, saving £750,000.
CIPFA emphasised that the report’s lessons were not confined to district councils.
Launching the paper at the Commons on January 20, CIPFA chief executive Steve Freer said: ‘There are real grounds for optimism that [shared services] is an idea whose time has come.
‘The big challenge for us is to make collaboration and sharing more the rule than the exception… We need every public body to recognise that this is a key weapon in the armoury and to make use of it to deliver savings whilst maintaining services.’
