The move comes in the wake of proposals for shared services centres made in the Gershon report on efficiency.
Without it, ministers fear duplication, excessive expenditure and the diversion of effort from more productive parts of the economy. John Oughton, head of the Office of Government Commerce, who is charged with delivering the government's planned £21bn in efficiency savings by 2008, said sharing the services that delivered finance, human resources and other back-office functions would play a key role in that.
"There has been a real and welcome movement since Sir Peter Gershon reported," he said. "Then, most public bodies were thinking about modernising these services within their own boundaries. Now there is a willingness to consider collaborative solutions.
"But we've reached the stage where there are over 70 initiatives under way that will produce shared services on at least 130 sites. If all those are delivered, a lot of people will have spent a lot of time duplicating effort.
"And the industry will keep on developing the same or similar solutions when, while that may be good business for them, it diverts them from more productive activity in the economy."
Mr Oughton, speaking at a Financial Times conference on e-efficiency in government, acknowledged there was a tension between the government's "new localism" and seeking the best value across the public sector. But enough was becoming known about the best solutions for it to be no longer acceptable for public bodies to choose poor ones.
Jim Murphy, the Cabinet Office minister for e-government, said that while "we cannot instruct local government", ministers could make recommendations to help in the choice.
John Hutton, the Cabinet Office minister for public service delivery, will today stress that, despite votes at the Labour party conference, there will be no turning back in the drive to use private providers to improve public services.
Autor: Nicholas Timmins
Quelle: Financial Times, 11.10.2005
