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Photo:Shira Golding, Flickr

The Coalition Government has been increasing the pressure on all public service to save money and shared services are seen by many as an ideal solution to the challenge of efficiency in the back office.

For many years, there have predictions the UK’s public services would move swiftly towards shared services as a solution for quality and efficiency challenges.

Have we reached a point where the majority of public sector organisations will invest money and effort in adopting shared services?

It seems, as a result of the environment of austerity, public sector managers are finally contemplating moves they have resisted for a long time. The number of actively engaged providers has been increasing and shared service landscape is changing.

From the latter part of 2011, it has become evident the shared services market is both maturing and becoming increasingly competitive – even though the Coalition Government has taken care not to endorse shared services as an appropriate solution for all organisations.

Looking at the government’s rhetoric, people could be forgiven for thinking government would be pushing extremely strongly on a programme of diversification and de-centralisation rather than centralising and sharing.

The government appears caught between it’s pressing need for increasing efficiency (and a belief operating at scale delivers this) and the instinct to devolve power and allow decision-making at lower levels. In a report covered in Outsource magazine in September 2011, Colin Grace, a director of Praktis Solutions advocated a more concerted effort towards delivering a small number of sector-wide shared service operations suggesting the Cabinet Office could provide stronger financial incentives. However the time for “mandated solutions” may have passed and, in the context of many high-profile projects demonstrating mied results, it’s more likely the government will “light the path” and allow local decision-makers to draw their conclusions – leading to a more “market-based approach”. Read the rest of this entry →

Photo: rracy o; Flickr

The high level of earnings by senior people in private sector companies has hit the headlines once more with a series of outcries in response to news revealed in the Income Data Services report that FTSE 100 Directors experienced an increase of 49% in earnings over the last year.

While the increase in basic pay averaged only 3.2%, this figure was dwarfed by an average bonus payments increase of 23%, from £737,624 in 2010 to £906,044 in 2011 plus  the “crystallised? value of long term incentive plans (LTIP) and share options cashed-in during the year.

Overall IDS have revealed that -

• CEOs received an average increase of 43.5% (average earnings £3,855,172)
• Finance directors received an average increase of 34.1% (average earnings £2,001,515)
• All other directors received an average increase of 66.5% (average earnings £2,260,033)

In the press release from IDS themselves, the report’s editor, Steve Tatton reflected on the sensitivity of his findings, saying

Overall comment has been pretty negative however with very predictable condemnation from unions. Polly Toynbee has drawn attention to the diverging experience of those at the top and bottom of the earnings range, with the government considering reductions in employment rights and broader protections. Comment on these proposals has been quite dismissive. Attractor has asked the question if employees are Too Hard to Sack and would generally suggest that problems with terminating under-performing people are related to management culture and policy rather than employment law.

So what has happened in 2011? Read the rest of this entry →