According to the 'Services Shared: Cost Spared?' report, local councils, fire brigades and the NHS could benefit from shared service arrangements to help reduce their overall procurement costs.
In once case Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire councils delivered savings of £1.8m by renegotiating a contract with their IT supplier, expecting to save a further £3m between 2012-2013.
The £30m of savings identified in the report came from five shared agreements, including Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire county councils, Devon and Somerset fire and rescue authority, Herefordshire council, Herefordshire primary care trust and Wye Valley NHS trust, Procurement Lincolnshire (all the councils in the county), and Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire district council.
Research also found that the set up and integration costs for each shared service arrangement was "modest" with all services succeeding in delivering a payback period of less than two years.
Councillor Peter Fleming, chair of the LGA's improvement board, said that councils were the "most innovative" and "efficient" part of the public sector and that the report demonstrated steps which were being taken to "save money" and "improve costs."
"Efficiency savings aren't enough to make up the 28 per cent cut in the money councils receive from central government, but measures like the shared service arrangements currently in operation at more than 200 local authorities do help to dampen the impact," he said.
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Quelle/Source: Public Service, 14.08.2012
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