Shared services can be defined as the single provision of a service that had previously been found in multiple parts of an organisation or in several separate organisations. The funding and resourcing of the service is therefore shared, reducing costs for each participant. Sometimes these shared services can be offered through external organisations who are able to increase the economies of scale and further reduce costs. Examples of shared services in UK Local Government can be found here.

As with any form of transformation, there are many questions that need to be addressed before services can be successfully shared. For example: is there a broad coalition of support? How formal does the arrangement need to be to provide the benefits yet retain flexibility? Is the business case robust and realistic? Are you confident that your preferred partner(s) is a good match?

Our experts can help you answer these and all the other questions you need to address through tailoring our methodology to your needs.

In addition, we offer a training course specifically to explore the issues involved – “Are you really ready to share?” and have developed six simple rules to success which can be downloaded here.