Paul Millard
Efficiencies and cost savings are terms that were covered extensively in relation to local government during the past 12 months. And while the media is full of reports discussing the merits (and disadvantages) of approaches such as shared services, Total Place and unitary authorities, the main driver for all these is to deliver the best possible public services and reduce costs.
In 2007, Capita published a white paper discussing how no one solution will fit all and suggested that each local authority needed to develop an approach that met its own requirements, not least due to the local political and citizen context.
From what we see of the political landscape in local government today, things have indeed changed since then. An increasing number of authorities are boldly structuring their services to suit their citizens' needs rather than following a one-size-fits- all approach. Most local authorities are not only more in tune with their citizens' requirements but are also more sophisticated in the way they provide services while reducing costs.
In 2009, Cheshire West and Cheshire council became a unitary authority, bringing together three district councils and half of Cheshire county council. In order to run efficient services for such a wide area, they simplified the complex requirements of revenues collection and benefits administration within this new structure.
Quick and easy access to all revenues and benefits services
Jerry Faulkner, senior manager, revenues and benefits at the council, explains that "being a new unitary authority our overall aim from the outset was to provide residents with quick and easy access to all revenues and benefits services available from the authority through a single application and ensure we remain an approachable and responsive organisation. Providing a top quality service for our many customers and communities is one of our main priorities, along with reducing costs where we can".
South Worcestershire, on the other hand, operates through a shared services set-up, bringing together the revenues and benefits of teams from three district councils to save money and improve efficiency and customer service.
"Developing a shared service, a single site and a common IT platform has been the key to realising our objectives. We have saved £1m in this year alone and will make genuine year-on-year savings of this level on our baseline budget," says Nick Jefferies, head of South Worcestershire Shared Services.
Unitary authorities and shared services operations undoubtedly differ in their concept and operational structure but, from what has been experienced in Cheshire and South Worcestershire, it is plain to see that the reasons behind delivering the services in the way they do are the same.
However, this doesn't hinder authorities wanting to share services with different public sector organisations from working together, which is where Total Place comes in, providing another means of delivering better services at less cost.
What we can conclude from this is that, regardless of the set-up, all local authorities strive to achieve the same outcomes.
Today the necessity to do so is fundamentally tied to achieving a sustainable future model for local government service delivery. We can't deny that many councils are still learning how best to achieve this but there is no doubt that some giant steps have been made in the last few years.
Paul Millard is operations director at Capita Software Services
From Bubb's Blog
From Whitehall Watch
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