UK ParliamentThe Next Generation Shared Services Strategic Plan outlines how government departments and arms-length bodies will work together to share functions such as HR, procurement, finance and payroll to deliver potential savings of between £400 and £600 million a year in administration costs.
Read more: UK Government announces Next Generation Shared Services plan
The Next Generation Shared Services Strategic Plan, launched in late December, should lead to fundamental changes in the way government shares corporate services including HR, procurement, finance and payroll.
Read more: GB: Plan to save £500m through shared services is launched
23 major services will become digital by default by March 2015 - more details on these can be found in departmental digital strategies - and all services with over 100,000 transactions each year will be redesigned (Action 5 of the Government Digital Strategy).
Professor Mark Nixon has “had a few fights” with civil liberties groups in his time. As a world-leading expert in developing biometric techniques to identify people using CCTV – every anti-surveillance campaigner’s Big Bother bête noir – he knows all too well what they think of his work.
“They say we’re ruining their privacy,” he says. “I don’t think their personal liberty is in danger.” The techniques he has pioneered “have been used to put murderers away – and I agree with that”.
Read more: GB: From grainy CCTV to a positive ID: Recognising the benefits of surveillance
In a statement just before the beginning of the recess, Chloe Smith, parliamentary secretary at the Cabinet Office, said that in future there will be far fewer large ICT frameworks. "Only those that explicitly deliver against key strategic needs, and are shaped to offer a reasonable chance of business for suppliers of all sizes, will be agreed," she said.
Read more: GB: Cabinet Office tightens its grip on frameworks