Shared services may be all the rage, but there are several challenges involved. Debra Maxwell explains how Surrey CC met them and developed an award winning operation The sea change to shared services first became apparent in Surrey CC in 2001, when the council adopted a set of core values aimed at boosting service delivery, democratic leadership, and employment in which staff actively wanted to ply their trade. To achieve this, we needed to transform ourselves into a service-centric organisation, where support services were organised and delivered around professional, centralised groups to allow staff to get on with what they did best – delivering. Making this happen required a radical rethink of our business processes. Ultimately, there needed to be a first-class engagement with customers and stakeholders – a change in behaviours across the organisation, focused on customer service delivery. As part of this vision the council paid particular attention to the role of support services – we began visualising a council where corporate control reaped real benefits to staff, not the opposite. There were a several challenges, including: l high levels of duplication between services l little co-operation or information-sharing l lack of integrated information l high costs – £43m a year – particularly in staffing l engaging in activities due to become part of shared services l few performance indicators l the perception among staff that shared services were about centralisation and loss of frontline focus. In February 2005, we opened the doors of our shared services organisation – a one-stop shop handling all business support functions for every department and every employee across the county. We immediately began moving support services to the new centre and, in April this year, it became fully operational. With 230 staff based in Kingston-upon-Thames, it delivers transactional services in accounts payable, accounts receivable, procurement, financial reporting and accounting, recruitment, payroll, employee services and data management. One of the most complex and challenging aspects of the project has been in procurement – where we’ve already saved more than £8m. Bringing together service transactions for every public service in the organisation is no small feat – but if achieved, can generate major efficiency and financial benefits. We focused primarily on the commodities and services bought by the council. The focus was about buying through contracts – by setting up central contracts for major supplies like office stationary, we reduced the number of suppliers and drastically improved the deal the council obtained from the contractor, who in turn, benefited from an increased demand as we use only one firm for all purchasing. We have reduced the number of suppliers to the council by some 15,000, and this has allows us to achieve higher discount levels. Invoice processing was a highly-devolved activity at Surrey CC. The system used to record invoice data and make payments to suppliers and had at least 1,200 registered users across the council. By cutting this through a system of registered requisitioners and approvers, we can control central and service spending more easily. Since the implementation of the shared services centre we have significantly increased the number of supplier invoices that can be dealt with. We have also worked with strategic suppliers to change the way in which they bill us for their goods and services, including consolidated billing, and we are driving towards self-billing. Successful shared services are about the whole of the organisation, and in order to achieve and drive efficiency there needs to be: l a clear mandate l top management sponsorship and leadership l a strong business case with a clear vision and business strategy l a transformation of the organisational culture l standardised processes and policies l a strong performance measurement culture l customer service ethos w Debra Maxwell is head of shared services at Surrey CC
