Spending Cuts Reshape Market

Spending cuts will reshape the UK local authority shared services market
By Peter Clarke

A survey sponsored by public sector BPO specialist Liberata has found that spending cuts will drive the shared services market more powerfully but they will also reshape it. Ninety-seven percent of local authority chief officers are planning for cuts in government funding. Over half are preparing for cuts of between 10% and 20%. Thirty percent say that joint working will be a dominant outcome over the next five years, but most are planning to work more closely with other public bodies in their area.

Cuts put sharing services in the spotlight

Thirty percent of local government chief officers see the sharing of services between local public bodies as a possible way of making savings. Nine of the 70 authorities questioned (13%) think that sharing services will be the dominant theme next year, but when the timeframe is spread over the next five years the number rises to 21 authorities (30%). Only 1% of authorities expressed an interest in offshoring services next year. The findings are encouraging to public sector BPO specialist Liberata, sponsors of the survey, which advocates the creation of regional service centres within the UK.

Jason Fahy, Regional Director of Liberata, told Ovum that the survey demonstrates interest in the creation of regional service centres. “The issue is local jobs; some are willing to outsource but want to keep the jobs in their area, but most want to keep the jobs in the UK. The challenge for local authorities is how to balance achieving efficiencies with the impact their decisions have on the wider community. Losing local jobs has a big impact on local shops and the local economy. Councils also have to pay local unemployed people benefits, which increases public costs.”

Total Place refocuses attention on sharing within a geography

The Total Place initiative will map flows of public spending in local areas, and make links between services to identify where public money could be spent more effectively. Nearly a third of chief officers believe that Total Place will see the councils taking more control of locally delivered services in their areas.

The emphasis for sharing services, processes, senior officers and back-office costs is therefore shifting from sharing between local authorities to sharing between public bodies in the same geography. There are still many opportunities for local authorities to share across boundaries, but the Total Place concept has proved to be popular with local authorities. While sharing between local authorities leaves the issue of control to be determined by the governance arrangements put in place, Total Place automatically gives the lead to the local authority. However, some authorities are worried that sharing back-office staff will rob the authorities of their ability to think strategically.

Over half of the councils questioned are prepared to take direct control over other locally delivered services. The sort of services local authorities would like to take over range from the delivery of some aspects of local health services to benefits and jobs advice currently delivered by Jobcentre Plus. About half of councils would like to take control of house building and regeneration from the regional development agencies and the Homes and Communities Agency.
However, 74% of authorities are worried that financial pressures will thwart joint working. Structural change is costly to delivery and delays the search for positive outcomes until the change is in place. Not surprisingly therefore, 43% of authorities think that significant savings can be realised by restructuring services.

Different delivery models

Some local authorities, such as Barnet and Essex, are planning to transform themselves into commissioning councils. Others, such as the London Borough of Waltham Forest, are planning to merge with their local Primary Health Care Trust. Newham, meanwhile, says it has identified potential savings of £70 million of over a three-year period by improving processes.

Source: Ovum Newsletter

Consilium Technologies Secures Six Figure, Five Year Contract with Bolton At Home

Consilium Technologies has recently secured a five year contract with Bolton At Home, one of the leading ALMO's in the UK. The resulting project sees the installation of the market leading Contractor Management solution, TotalRepairs for the Technical Services team including TotalMobile for the field-based craft operatives. The project also incorporates TotalView, Consilium’s web-based management portal delivering critical real time information over the internet about the effectiveness of the service.

TotalMobile sees the replacement of a legacy database that had reached it technical capacity and urgently needed upgrading after issues with hardware. As a result the 3 Star ALMO decided to investigate the best way to maintain their high level of service to their tenants and entered into a procurement procedure to source a best value solution for Bolton At Home.

Alongside the Consilium software, Bolton At Home will be utilising the standard partner integration solution for Opti-Time to enable dynamic scheduling across the ALMO’s resources. The Xmbrace resource engine sits seamlessly alongside TotalRepairs in order to seek the quickest and most efficient way of handling the 95,000 jobs that are received annually from the tenants.

The craft operatives out in the community will be notified of their jobs through Windows Mobile devices harnessing the efficiencies generated through Consilium's TotalMobile solution. Information surrounding the job, timesheets and materials used is collected through the device giving accurate financial information to the head office instantly over the mobile phone network. The result is a quicker service to the tenants and a more efficient workforce responding effectively to the full range of responsive repairs jobs within the ALMO.

The 16,000 gas servicing jobs completed each year will be done so via the TotalMobile Gas Servicing application along with Vehicle Checks (amongst other Health and Safety regulations) to ensure the craft operatives’ protection whilst out on the road. Customer feedback can be collected on site through the device to ensure that the 3 Star service is maintained and improved on.

The 3rd party contractors used by the ALMO will have access to a web-based portal where all jobs can be received and completed. This reduces the load on paper, speeds up the invoice process and ensures quality performance checks on 3rd parties delivering specialist services on behalf of the Bolton At Home.

All in all, this all adds up to a more unified service for the tenant, lower running costs on behalf of the Council and positions Bolton At Home as an innovator in its field and an environmentally aware service provider in an increasingly demanding market.

Bolton At Home commented, "We expect that after go live, the solution will strengthen Bolton At Homes capacity to deliver quality cost effective services and place the organisation in a strong position to capitalize on future opportunities in the housing sector”.

Why Windows Mobile as a Business Platform

It’s not just about the device… it’s about the technologies in place to support your business on a device.

Have you ever been asked the question “why should we choose Window’s Mobile over another platform?” Well, why should you?

Steve Hegendefer (Mobile Evangelist) and Reed Robinson (Mobile Specialist) from Microsoft has tackled this very question head on in a brand new article which discusses the flexibility and scalability of the Windows Mobile platform. Within the article Steve and Reed talk about the no nonsense approach that Windows delivers for line of business applications. They also tackle the issues surrounding competitor applications and question the validity of some of the new applications loaded on to a working device.

Some of the main points that covered include:

· The wide range of devices supported on the platform
· Out of the box integration that will integrate with your current system
· A shopping list of deployment mechanisms for you to choose from
· Leverage your current .Net framework to develop for Windows Mobile

These gurus really have constructed a very thought provoking article around the status and future of the Windows Mobile platform as a Line of Business Application first choice but just don’t take our word for it.

Click here to access the story.