Area Summary: Efficiency of Shared Services Programs

Relevant Audits

Example of audit objectives

• To determine whether shared services have delivered value for money for central government (view report summary).

Example of audit criteria

• Not available

Example of evidence gathering and analysis techniques

• A focus group was used to inform the development of an analytical framework and to understand the critical success factors for shared services (view report summary).
• Application of an analytical framework (see Appendix Two of the full report for details) to Shared Service Centres. For each service, this was based on:
  • interviews with a range of senior and operational staff, including key contractors and other external stakeholders;
  • document review covering a range of policy, strategy and operational documents; and
  • financial and quantitative analysis (view report summary).
   
• Review of private sector literature and research (view report summary).

Example of findings

• Departments have invested significant cost and effort in implementing shared services, but have not realised the planned benefits (view report summary).
• Most customers of shared service centres have not driven benefits (view report summary).
• The services provided are overly customized (view report summary).
• The software systems used in the Centres have added complexity and cost (view report summary).
• The Cabinet Office and Civil Service Steering Board could have done more to ensure shared services were implemented appropriately (view report summary).
• Departments have struggled to fully roll-out shared services across all their business units and arm’s-length bodies (view report summary).

Example of recommendations

• Costs and benefits will need to be measured in both shared service centres and customers and the Cabinet Office should use these to establish a clear baseline and incentivise continuous improvement. Performance information should be used to inform current and future strategy (view report summary).
• The Cabinet Office should publish its measurement system and establish at an early stage benchmarks that can be used to assess the success of its strategy. These benchmarks should cover the performance of both customers and providers (view report summary).
• Customers should implement a professional management function to ensure shared services comply with service level agreements and reduce costs, by for example, standardising services, managing demand and improving service delivery (view report summary).
• Centres need to investigate ways of becoming more efficient in delivering their service to customers. They should explore all opportunities to reduce costs including accommodation, staffing, process and technology (view report summary).

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