“Ongoing failures of leadership and governance must be urgently addressed if shared service centres are to deliver expected savings, the Public Accounts Committee said today.
The PAC assessed the progress of a government scheme to cut costs through sharing departmental back office functions that has been running for four years, publishing its findings in a report out today.
It found the two schemes evaluated have delivered savings of £90m but at cost of £94m, incurring a net cost to the taxpayer of £4m.
Moreover, the committee concluded that government was “failing for much the same reasons” as identified by a 2012 PAC probe, principally weak governance and leadership, and poor departmental collaboration.
Today’s report found that, at the outset, the Cabinet Office did not have leaders in place with appropriate shared services experience. Also, while the Cabinet Office managed the framework agreements between government and suppliers, departments had individual contracts with suppliers. Consequently, when problems arose the Cabinet Office did not always have a clear mandate to intervene. This exacerbated the issue of departments acting independently rather than collaboratively.
Critically, the committee found there was no overall business case for the two shared service centres. While business cases were prepared, these were found to be partial, incomplete and out of date.
It was also too easy for departments to pull out of the programme, which some have done to “protect their own interests.” …”
East Devon Watch 
No business case … hmmm … sounds like EDDC’s move from the Knowle to Honiton.
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