Shared services have been cited as a potential route to cost savings and performance improvements for councils, and as such are being explored by almost every council in the UK. This page provides information on some of the larger formal shared services arrangements across the UK but there are many, many more partnerships and informal collaborations on a regional and local level.
Anglia Revenues Partnership
This shared service between Breckland Council and Forest Heath District Council (East Cambridgeshire joined later) was the first shared revenues and benefits service in the UK.
In 2007, the partnership set up a private joint venture company to trade its surplus capacity. Anglia Revenues Partnership (ARP) Trading Ltd made £100,000 profit in first year, which was used to lower costs to Breckland and Forest Heath councils. The company now offers revenues and benefits, housing registers and choice-based lettings, resilience and off-site processing, housing and council tax benefit appeals management services to other local authorities. It also offers consultancy in revenues and benefits and shared services management.
The partnership has reduced the cost of service delivery for the founding councils by over £1m, and has produced a 15% increase in the caseload managed for no additional cost. The partnership also reports a 50% increase in staff productivity after the introduction of home working.
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Anglia Revenues Partnership
ARPT Ltd
Case Study: Anglia Revenues Partnership
Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA)
AGMA represents 10 local authorities throughout the Greater Manchester region. Its Collaborative Efficiency Programme was set up in 2009 to develop opportunities for “securing substantial savings across boundaries and across services” through collaborative working and shared services.
The Programme has identified 40 opportunities for joint working in the following areas:
- Adult Social Care
- Children’s Services
- Customer Contact
- Collaborative Insurance
- IT Platform and Infrastructure
- Social Transport
- Transactional HR
- Transactional Finance
- Workforce Development
- Vehicle Procurement Management and Maintenance (VPMM)
All are in early stages of development.
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AGMA Collaborative Efficiency Programme
Capital Ambition (London)
Capital Ambition (London’s Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership (RIEP)) is exploring shared services via its ‘Delivering Together’ theme, which is looking at collaborative procurement, property and asset management, business process improvement and change management. It includes a Supplier Development Programme, looking at better management of London’s £9bn supply chain, and the Social Services Joint Improvement Programme. Its ‘Connected London’ theme also contains plans for a shared ICT infrastructure. Other plans for the future include staff sharing arrangements.
Capital Ambition plans to invest £36m in over 80 projects over a four year programme. It is looking to achieve cashable savings of at least 3% a year in 2008-11.
Current shared services include:
- Joint out-of-ours call centre
- London smart card
- London public service network – This provides secure connection to the NHS and government, shared applications (e.g. libraries, financial, HR and social care) and improved supplier management. There are 23 boroughs currently connected with a further nine intending to.
- Adult Social Care/London Joint Improvement Partnership – pan-London approach to improvement and efficiency
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Improvement and Efficiency West Midlands
Improvement and Efficiency West Midlands is the Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership (RIEP) for the West Midlands, established to help the region's 33 authorities in their drive to increase efficiency and improve services. It currently operates the West Midlands recruitment portal, www.wmjobs.co.uk.
A pilot asset management programme carried out across six councils with 4ps in 2009 estimated that the West Midlands authorities as a whole could save £700m over the next 10 years.
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Improvement and Efficiency West Midlands
New property review highlights nationwide savings
South East Wales
Six authorities in south-east Wales (Caerphilly, Newport, Monmouth, Vale of Glamorgan, Merthyr, and Rhondda Cynon-Taff) operate a shared services partnership with Northgate.
The consortium was set up to explore joint procurement and sharing of cost-effective IT solutions for social services. There is a Unified Assessment Process for Adults and an Integrated Children’s System across the councils. The deal with Northgate was renewed for five years in January 2010.
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Welsh Councils share social services technology
Southwest One
Southwest One is a joint venture between Somerset County Council, Taunton Deane Borough Council, Avon and Somerset Police and IBM. It was formed in 2007 with the aim of transforming the overall workings of the organisations; modernising and reducing the cost of support services; and improving access to and delivery of customer facing services.
It currently handles the delivery of 10 services:
- customer services
- benefits services
- police enquiry offices
- design and print
- facilities management
- finance
- human resources
- ICT
- procurement
- property
- revenues
The joint venture has involved seconding 1400 staff from the three public sector organisations and joint procurement has been introduced. The three agencies expect to save £376m over 10 years, mainly through better use of assets and absorption of increased service volume costs. Other improvements reported include less bureaucracy, more electronic workflows (less paperwork), greater sharing of information between organisations, more first time fixes within the call centre, internal IT improvements and higher system availability.
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West London Alliance
The West London Alliance is made up of the London Boroughs of Brent, Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon and Hounslow. They already operate a shared choice-based letting scheme.
In November 2009, the Alliance announced plans for joint procurement and commissioning of £220m of adult care services. It estimates savings will be 5% or £11m per year. It is currently looking at a similar programme for children’s care services.
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