This highly practical study has been commissioned and steered by CIPFA’s practitioner oriented IT Panel. It starts from the premise that all local authorities should evaluate the potential for implementing a shared services approach for provision of their corporate services, particularly their systems for financial administration.

It assists local councils in two ways:

• by documenting the emerging trends and best practices in financial management and financial administration systems, thereby helping local councils to benchmark both their existing practices and expectations against these trends; and
• by providing pointers designed to help councils seek out, meet and undertake discussions with potential shared service partners.

It supports local authorities going through these processes by:

• providing descriptions of emerging best practice in a style that is designed to explain the benefits provided by modern systems rather than merely the functions that might be described by a system supplier. These sections cover procurement, payments, income collection and accounting;
• illustrating actual achievements using case studies;
• considering the case for shared services and the options for taking forward shared services for financial administration systems;
• identifying and offering advice on key issues; and
• providing an outline road map and checklist for making progress.

View the contents: Word (7KB) | PDF (11KB)

View the foreword: Word (1273KB) | PDF (82KB)