Welcome to the New Alsbridge Public Sector Newsletter!

The Public Sector has a number of challenges to address in the next year in achieving the transformation suggested by Varney and t-gov initiatives, in making the Local Government White Paper happen, and in undertaking strategic procurement effectively, as articulated in recent CLG and HM Treasury papers. It has to do all this in an environment of budgetary constraint and where public scrutiny of its external spend is ever greater.

This newsletter highlights some of the tools and approaches Alsbridge and its clients have been using recently to address these issues and brings news of recent and forthcoming events to help you network with others in the process of outsourcing, partnering or establishing shared service delivery. Use the navigation bar on the right to find out more.

Recent news from Alsbridge Public Sector Team

Alsbridge Launch UK Health Division

Alsbridge has launched a new UK Health Division – “Alsbridge Health” – dedicated to assisting NHS and Healthcare clients in the UK.

Alsbridge Health offers independent advice on Shared Services, based on best practise private sector methodologies, combined with hands-on NHS experience and expertise. 

The company has established Alsbridge Health through the addition of consultants who have operated at executive Board level in the NHS as both commissioners and providers of shared services.  Alsbridge consultants have hands-on experience of working with Trusts, PCTs and SHAs to transform back-office services.

Alsbridge Health will be hosting its first NHS Shared Services Forum on October 16th 2007, at the Royal College of Surgeons, London.  The theme of this free meeting is “Externalising safely and with confidence”. To find out more, please email health@alsbridge.eu or call Helen Ricardo on 020 7242 0666.

Shared Services SIG 2007

The June 07 event focused on corporate governance and provided example case studies. The next event, taking place on 4th September 07 focuses on Service Management. For further details, visit the Shared Services SIG page.

New Local Government Network

Recently the leading public sector think tank, the New Local Government Network http://www.nlgn.org.uk,held a roundtable discussion on ‘Insourcing versus Outsourcing: Which route should council leaders pursue?’.  Alsbridge Senior Manager Paul Morrison, speaking as a Board Director for the National Outsourcing Association, was given the challenge of making the case for outsourcing.

As can be expected, a lively debate ensued amongst the audience of county, district and unitary council participants. With some high profile outsourcing failures in the headlines, many cited the difficulty of aligning supplier and client objectives. On the other hand as any council outsources at least a part of its back office and support activities, many felt that the debate has moved on from whether outsourcing can be right for local authorities – to how to make it work.   

NLGN have also recently published “The Politics of Shared Services” (http://www.nlgn.org.uk/public/publications/the-politics-of-shared-services/) which outlines some of the issues faced by local authorities in agreeing joint service delivery models.

Shared Services Development Network

Chris Price, Alsbridge’s Public Sector director, spoke at two events recently.  At a meeting of the Shared Service Development Network (SSDN) - part of the NHS National Performance Advisory Group – Chris outlined “A Framework for Initiating, Expanding or Optimising Shared Services”, in which he introduced some of the shared services projects currently underway in the public sector. The session then went on to discuss some of the key topics that need to be addressed in a typical shared services project, including change management, project management and organisational design.  This framework can be seen in more detail in Alsbridge’s Practitioners Guides to Shared Services and BPO.