We are experts in shared services and partnerships and support our clients through the collaboration process. We have worked on the national agenda for shared services and on the ground with numerous partnerships.
Collaboration can bring great benefits but is not easy. We help our clients make it work.
Public sector bodies are coming under increasing pressure to work in partnership or share services to deliver efficiencies and improvements. However, realising these benefits has not been straightforward.
Over the last five years we have worked with more than 25 local public service partnerships, helping them plan, design and implement shared services and collaborative projects.
From the initial planning of a partnership to the evaluation of its performance, we know the challenges and the success factors.
Shared service policy
Our research into public and private sector partnerships and shared services has fed into key central government policy documents, including CLG’s shared services sector plan, I&DeA’s Front Office Shared Services case studies and the Audit Commission’s For Better, For Worse (2008).
Shared service strategy
We support the entire process of developing a shared service or partnership, from determining the strategy to going live.
We can help:
- prioritise areas where collaboration is likely to bring benefits
- work with stakeholders to generate and evaluate ideas for collaborative projects
- facilitate discussions and negotiations between senior stakeholders to establish common ground and determine whether partnership working is feasible
- develop business cases to allow comparison between different options for collaboration
- conduct market analyses to assess different options for strategic partnering
- develop specification documents when tendering for a partner
- bring together front-line staff and managers to design new services
- design partnership governance arrangements.
Shared service delivery
Once a partnership or shared service has been established, we work with our clients to ensure the collaboration delivers the benefits expected.
We provide project and programme management services, develop performance management systems and use Business Process Improvement to ease the integration of different teams.
Local strategic partnership support
We have specific experience working with local strategic partnerships to help them cope with the changing performance management regime.
We are realistic and objective about the possibilities of partnership. We understand the potential benefits, but we also know that shared services are not for everyone.
Our extensive experience means we are ideally placed to support local public sector bodies to plan, design and implement successful partnerships and shared services, or identify alternatives.