However, while the savings identified in 'Services shared: Costs spared?' are impressive, they are "nothing like large enough to make up for the sizable cuts to local government funding which are being made".
Research by the LGA and Drummond MacFarlane is the first to provide a detailed insight into the scale of savings that have been achieved through sharing back office functions like IT and legal, and teaming up to deliver frontline services like waste disposal and road maintenance.
According to the LGA, the money councils receive from government has fallen by £3.5bn in real terms since 2010/11 - and whilst the majority of councils are sharing services, the potential savings are just a drop in the missing ocean.
Cllr Peter Fleming, chairman of the LGA's Improvement Board, said, "Councils are the most innovative and efficient part of the public sector and this report demonstrates the kind of steps they are taking to save money and improve services.
"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."
The report found that the set-up and integration costs for merging services are modest, with less than a two-year payback period for all the shared services analysed, and that all had succeeded in providing the same or better levels of performance at less cost. Despite the significant changes involved this performance was complemented by high staff morale, low staff sickness and low turnover rates.
Key to success was strong top-down leadership and rapid implementation, ie a critical mass for delivering change.
The five shared service projects examined in the report are: Hoople Ltd in Herefordshire, Local Government Shared Services (LGSS) in Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire, Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Authority, Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire, and Procurement Lincolnshire.
Alongside the report, the LGA has also launched a new tool which helps local authorities to understand and track the benefits of sharing front and back office services. Click here to view the evaluation tool and report: Services shared: Costs spared? An analysis of the financial and non-financial benefits of local authority shared services.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Helen Olsen
Quelle/Source: UKauthorITy, 15.08.2012
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