News Summary of Collaboration and Shared Services from 5 March 2014

One of the harsh realities of shared services, is the elimination of duplication of effort  – a polite way of saying less people are likely to be in the new, better, lower-cost service. Colleague’s jobs will go in most cases.

Listening to a number of Cllrs in Wales with wards in high unemployment areas, they speak about the displacement of the shared service savings downstream by putting staff out of work on Friday through shared services, to have them walk into the Council offices on Monday to claim housing and other benefits.

They talk about the social and mental health costs of long-term unemployment, marital breakdown and other negative social outcomes. So when a key employment strategy of government has been to put public sector jobs in areas of high unemployment and then they implement projects that cut jobs, potentially the down-stream cost increase could begin if the Cllrs are right.

This seems to be where the unions are going in relation to the joint-venture (it is not a shared service as there was an ITT) between Steria and Cabinet Office called Shared Services Connected Ltd (SSCL). And the unions throw in the “off-shoring” debate too…

500 ex-civil service jobs 'to go', PCS union warns

Five hundred former civil servants across England and Wales are to be made redundant as their new employer shifts the work overseas, claims a union. Read more >>>

Talking of unions, this is the first time I have seen a public response from the Police Federation on shared service working. Usually it has been in-house…

 

Suffolk/Norfolk: Continued cutbacks could leave police at crisis point – warning

Suffolk’s Police Federation chairman Matt Gould made the comments in a statement with his Norfolk counterpart, Paul Ridgway, responding to shared services proposals designed to save the two counties’ forces a combined £4.3m. Read more >>>

Our  friends over at Collaborate have added to the wide number of reports on transforming services through collaborative working. You may want to use some of its materials to inform your arguments if you want to move beyond the alignment of the way things are done now and use your collaboration project as a way of transforming the service. (You would find our more practical Collaborative Leadership sessions helpful as well!)

 

Transform local services to tackle ‘huge pressure’ of rising demand

Councils must stem the mounting demand for services by finding a long-term answer to the challenges of austerity, a report claims. Read more >>>

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Highway Code Updates

Now I know why so many local government people look puzzled when we do the Highway Code quiz session on G-Cloud and Data Protection. It feels like the government built the G-Cloud Market Place on the basis that “if you build it they will come”, and “they” haven’t turned up yet…

90% of local authorities yet to hear about G-Cloud

Tony Singleton, Director of G-Cloud says that G-Cloud has the potential to reach an estimated 30,000 buyers across the public sector. Read more >>>

VAT Exempt Cost Sharing Groups

HEFCE are pushing VAT Exempt Cost Sharing Groups and have produced an excellent on-line guide (114 pages) to help get this right - and I found a link to a HEFCE video from Sept 2013 too.

 If you find yourself at the centre of a collaboration project between VATable and non-VATable organisations then this will prove very useful. The online book is being regularly updated so you may want to store the link in your PC’s Highway Code folder, rather than download what could be a quickly out of date book…

VAT Cost Sharing Exemption HEFCE Guidance

This guidance sets the context of the cost sharing exemption for higher education. It allows existing providers of services to understand the issues which must be addressed to take advantage of the exemption, as well as identifying areas of service…Read more >>>

VAT Cost Sharing Exemption Video Guidance

In this (13 min) video, Steve Butcher, Head of Procurement and Shared Services at HEFCE, gives an overview of shared services in higher education, explains about the issue of VAT and previews new guidance from HEFCE on cost sharing exemption. Read more >>>

Legal Vehicles for Shared Services

In a forum on Linked-In a discussion has started on successful Mutuals, which you may like to join if you are working in that area. Most of you know my views. Organisations are only successful because of excellent leadership, management and culture. They are not excellent because they are called a Mutual, Ltd Co, CIC, LLP, etc. But if you join the debate you can have your say and prove me wrong…

Mutuals - Can they deliver cashable savings?

A new discussion group has started on Linked-In to identify what makes Mutuals successful. If you are involved in that area of work you may like to join it by clicking here. You do have to be a Linked-In member to join the debate.