SSON Roundtable Discussion - Uk Community Sector Shared Services - Where Now and Wherever Next?

Sharing companies has risen up the agendas with the UK's nationwide ?visit us and native governments in recent times, propelled by political and financial tendencies also as by more concrete things these types of as Sir Peter Gershon's 2004-5 Efficiency Overview and Sir David Varney's report on transformational government. Within an try to throw some light-weight on current developments and also to study where shared services may very well be headed in foreseeable future, SSON convened a roundtable discussion involving a group of practitioners and advisors at local and countrywide stage, chaired by SSON's on-line editor Jamie Liddell. The outcomes ended up, in truth, illuminating...

Attending were:

Tony Isaacs Programme Supervisor Warwickshire Direct Partnership The Warwickshire Direct Partnership is a shared services programme comprising all 6 regional authorities while in the county of Warwickshire: North Warwickshire Borough Council; Nuneaton & Bedworth Borough Council; Rugby Borough Council; Stratford District Council; Warwick District Council; Warwickshire County Council; and three private-sector partners in Steria, MacFarlane Telesystems and Northgate Information Systems.

Dominic Swift Head of Shared Providers Browne Jacobson Browne Jacobson is one with the largest law firms during the Midlands with offices in Nottingham, Birmingham and London. The firm acts for over 100 area authorities, either directly or through their insurers. It recently published its Shared Companies Survey '08, one from the most comprehensive surveys ever carried out into shared services from the United kingdom.

Peter Telford Chief Executive Officer Research Councils Uk Shared Services Centre Research Councils British isles (RCUK) is actually a strategic partnership between the seven British isles Research Councils. RCUK was established in 2002 to enable the Councils to work together extra effectively to enhance the overall impact and effectiveness of their research, training and innovation activities, contributing to the delivery of the Government's objectives for science and innovation.

Ray Tomkinson Community Govt Improvement Specialist and Shared Companies Author Ray Tomkinson is the author of Shared Providers in Neighborhood Govt: Improving Service Delivery (Gower, 2007). Ray managed the Welland Partnership shared providers project and currently operates as a consultant.

SSON: Peter, you're at the head of one in the additional prominent countrywide shared expert services centres [SSCs]. Can you explain a little about the drivers behind the move in your organisation?

Peter Telford: Behind the Research Council's business case are benefits focusing on what are seen as financial gains which will be passed back to research and the research community, but probably more importantly from the early stages is the feeling that we can secure better effectiveness in business support to that research community by aggregating the seven Research Councils' solutions onto one common platform, and transforming them. The business case started with an outline about two several years ago. There was a lot of work done on certain parts in the shared service model even before that, but the activity's really come together inside the last two yrs. The full business case was accepted by the Research Councils in line with CSR07 [Comprehensive Spending Review 2007] in August last year, and the intention at the moment is that we will go live on the platform at the beginning of following year. We already have some expert services live from the IT and strategic sourcing areas.