Interest in ‘shared
services’ as a means to deliver customer service improvements and efficiency
gains has grown significantly in recent years as a direct consequence of the government’s
austerity measures.
At its simplest shared services can be defined as a
‘service or function that is shared between different organisations or
departments’.
In truth there are many definitions of a shared service,
depending on whether you are looking at:
- Private sector collaborations
- Public sector and private sector
collaborations
- Public sector collaborations
Our focus is on public sector shared service solutions
be they between two or more councils, police forces, fire and rescue bodies, FE
colleges, universities or housing associations who have a common desire to work
collaboratively for efficiency or improvement gains.
One thing is certain, sharing services is difficult. No matter how many formal definitions are created, the real problems are only ever about three things in the public sector. People, power and politics!
If you give 80% of your time to resolving those issues and 20% of your time to processing solutions then you will be more successful than many who have gone before you.
To
respond to the "people, power and politics" challenge a new role has emerged, that of a shared service
practitioner, someone trained to work in the development of public sector
shared services.
This website is dedicated to helping you develop the
practitioner skills and knowledge required to successfully initiate and
implement shared service solutions across the public sector.
A shared service architect is a practitioner who has passed the Postgraduate Certificate in Shared Services and has the experience,
skills and knowledge to lead a shared service project or programme.
A good place to start to learn about shared services is to browse our online library of hundreds of shared service documents, links and reports.