Self-service
- Hampshire County Council established a business centre for back-office services based on a self-service model
- Oxfordshire decided Hampshire should deliver the back-office services we need and adopted a self-service approach for HR, finance and buying goods and services
- We joined the partnership following a decision by OCC Cabinet to:
- take costs out of the back office services to protect front line jobs
- OCC had already made significant efficiencies in back-office services, but the council had taken it as far as we could on our own
- The Shared Services Partnership has delivered our operational HR, finance, and purchasing services since July 2015
- A public-to-public partnership was chosen so the transition was more accessible than with a private-sector provider
- We joined an existing partnership and adopted the standard service on offer based on a self-service model
- Transactional work is carried out by the Integrated Business Centre (IBC) in Hampshire
- The Shared Services Partnership manages governance of the shared systems - OCC is a member.
Partnership and improvements
We work in partnership, using the IBC self-service system. Our schools and council directorates use self-service.
There are other partners, too and together, we all make up the Shared Services Partnership:
- Oxfordshire County Council
- Hampshire County Council
- Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary
- Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire and Isle of Wight
- Hampshire & Isle of Wight Fire & Rescue Service
- London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
- The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
- Westminster City Council
Partnership
Internal governance meetings are held in the council, and partnership meetings are held with the Shared Services Partnership to improve and resolve issues.
We get regular performance data that gives us insights into how the system is performing and how we can improve our processes in Oxfordshire.
Improvement projects
The Shared Services Partnership works together to continue to improve the system and has an annual programme of improvements.