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Shared Services In The Research Councils
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Book Synopsis Shared services in the research councils by : Great Britain: National Audit Office
Download or read book Shared services in the research councils written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-10-21 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The implementation of a project to create a centre to streamline back-office functions - such as finance, HR and procurement - for the seven research councils has so far not been good value for money. When finally operational 15 months late, the Centre was delivering services across the five functions planned but some services, particularly finance, are not yet where they need to be. By the end of March 2011 the project was £51 million over budget. Available evidence indicates that to date the project has underachieved against total expected savings by at least £73 million. The original business case, which led to the decision to opt for the shared service centre, was flawed. The projected savings to be made from better procurement were uncertain and a proper financial analysis should have prompted a re-evaluation of the available options. The reasons for the overrun and delay included complex governance arrangements, slow decision making and the lack of a clear vision for the project from the outset. The contract with Fujitsu, the supplier of the Centre's ICT systems, was terminated wasting £13 million because some elements of the system then had to be rebuilt in-house. When the project did start to go off-course, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, as sponsor Department, did not intervene. A single shared service platform has the potential, if managed effectively, to offer broader benefits through streamlined processes. The report concludes that there is significant scope for further savings.
Book Synopsis Efficiency and reform in government corporate functions through shared service centres by : Great Britain: National Audit Office
Download or read book Efficiency and reform in government corporate functions through shared service centres written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-03-07 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2004, the Gershon Review recommended that the Government pursue the sharing of services, including human resources, finance, procurement and payroll, to achieve cost savings. It has been up to individual departments to establish their own arrangements and, between 2004 and 2011, eight major shared service centres emerged. The five centres examined by the NAO were expected to cost £0.9 billion to build and operate but, to date, they have cost £1.4 billion. They were also expected to have saved £159 million by the end of 2010-11. While, in one instance Government has achieved break-even in a time consistent with the private sector, its overall performance has been varied and the two centres that are still tracking benefits report a measured net cost of £255 million. Most departmental customers have not acted as 'intelligent customers' and they will need to build in-house capability with enough business and technical understanding to manage the services and work with the centres to achieve efficiencies. Among other findings are that the software systems used in the centres have added complexity and cost; and that, as the use of the centres has been voluntary, departments have struggled to roll-out shared services fully across all their business units and arm's length bodies. The Cabinet Office has recently gained approval for a new strategy and business case. The NAO considers the approach is ambitious and has challenging timescales. The Cabinet Office is actively working with departments on its implementation.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215046710 Total Pages :40 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (467 download)
Book Synopsis Efficiency and reform in government corporate functions through shared service centres by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book Efficiency and reform in government corporate functions through shared service centres written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-07-09 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 2004, central government has sought to reduce the cost of administering finance, human resources and procurement services through sharing back-office functions. In previous examinations the Committee found that the Government had not yet realised the potential to save taxpayers' money. The renewed focus on improving shared services is welcomed. The Committee expects the Cabinet Office to engage constructively with their recommendations. This report considers five of the eight shared service centres. Whilst performing adequately, they had cost £1.4 billion to build and operate compared to an expected cost of £0.9 billion. These five centres were also expected to have saved £159 million by the end of 2010-11. In the event, the Ministry of Justice centre broke-even, the Department of Work and Pensions and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs centres did not track their total savings, and the Department for Transport and Research Councils UK, have reported a net cost to date of £255 million. The current strategy will only be effective if the Cabinet Office demonstrates strong leadership. So far it has been left up to individual departments and their arm's length bodies to decide whether they use shared service centres leading to low take-up. Those bodies which have become customers of shared service centres have retained their own processes resulting in over-complicated systems which also undermine the scope for efficiency. The Cabinet Office should also develop comparable data on the cost and quality of services provided by the shared services centres and should consider whether it can extend its shared services strategy to include other common functions needed by central government departments
Book Synopsis Improving the delivery of animal health and welfare services through the Business Reform Programme by : Great Britain: National Audit Office
Download or read book Improving the delivery of animal health and welfare services through the Business Reform Programme written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-07-18 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 2005-06 and 2011-12, the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency spent £103 million (from the agreed budget of £123 million) on reforming the way it delivers animal health and welfare service. The Business Reform Programme was designed to improve the quality of the Agency's data, upgrade its ICT, standardize and automate its processes, and enable private vets to submit bovine tuberculosis tests online. It is now forecast that the Programme will be completed by 2013-14. The Programme has been strongly managed over the last few years and the Agency has made tangible progress in addressing some key challenges at the same time as achieving cost reductions, £4 million to date. In addition to reducing headcount by 119 full time members of staff, over halfway towards its final forecast of 214, new ICT is enabling staff to share data across offices, helping the Agency to generate better information on costs and performance and helping the Agency work more efficiently. Despite reducing the number of staff tracking the movement of cattle testing positive for bovine TB from 43 to 28, the number of tracings carried out in a year rose by 24 per cent. However, there have been issues with the implementation of the new ICT, and only 11 of the 497 private veterinary practices signed up to submit bovine TB test results online are currently doing so. The final stages of the reform programme are critical for securing the full benefits of the new ICT
Book Synopsis Medical Research Council annual report and accounts 2010/11 by : Medical Research Council
Download or read book Medical Research Council annual report and accounts 2010/11 written by Medical Research Council and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-04-16 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Medical Research Council is a publicly-funded organisation dedicated to improving human health. It supports research across the entire spectrum of medical sciences, in universities and hospitals, in its own units and institutes in the UK and in Africa. The MRC works closely with key stakeholders and research funders - UK health departments, other departments and agencies, the six sister research councils, industry, and the academic and charity sectors - giving a high priority to research that is likely to make a real difference to clinical practice and the health of the population. This annual report describes progress in 2008-09, highlights key awards and partnerships, and outlines plans for the future.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Science and Technology Committee Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215545190 Total Pages :48 pages Book Rating :4.5/5 (451 download)
Book Synopsis The impact of spending cuts on science and scientific research by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Science and Technology Committee
Download or read book The impact of spending cuts on science and scientific research written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Science and Technology Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-03-23 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The pressure to be seen to be making cuts across the public sector is threatening to undermine both the Government's good record on investment in science and the economic recovery. Whilst the contribution of a strong domestic science base is widely acknowledged, methodological problems with quantifying its precise value to the economy mean that it is in danger of losing out in Whitehall negotiations. Scientists are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the impact of their work and there is concern that areas without immediate technology applications are being undervalued. The Committee believes the Government faced a strategic choice: invest in areas with the greatest potential to influence and improve other areas of spending, or make cuts of little significance now, but that will have a devastating effect upon British science and the economy in the years to come.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215048387 Total Pages :442 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (483 download)
Book Synopsis Sessional Returns by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons
Download or read book Sessional Returns written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-09-14 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On cover and title page: House, committees of the whole House, general committees and select committees
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Science and Technology Committee Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215033253 Total Pages :210 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (332 download)
Book Synopsis Research council institutes by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Science and Technology Committee
Download or read book Research council institutes written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Science and Technology Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-03-22 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Incorporating HC 1307-i & ii, session 2005-06
Book Synopsis Digital Britain One by : Great Britain: National Audit Office
Download or read book Digital Britain One written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-12-09 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Government has not in general measured the benefits delivered by its two central internet services Directgov and Business.gov, and the infrastructure service Government Gateway, which together cost some £90 million a year, according to a report today by the National Audit Office. Government departments and other public bodies use Directgov, Business.gov and Gateway to provide information to the public and to support a range of government online services. It is crucial that the Government Digital Service (GDS), established in March 2011 to implement a new strategy to deliver all government information services digitally, builds in the right mechanisms to achieve value for money as it plans the future of digital shared infrastructure and services. Today's report does conclude, however, that it is likely that Directgov, Business.gov and Gateway have delivered some cost savings to the public bodies which use them, through the reuse of common infrastructure. The public and businesses using the services have also benefited. Directgov (providing government information for the public) and Business.gov (a family of four services, one for each of the four nations of the UK, providing information for businesses) have enabled citizens and businesses to access information in a more organised way. Even though financial benefits are not clear, performance has been managed and most targets have been met. Since 2006, 1,526 government websites have been closed. Determining how successful the Government has been in closing websites has proved difficult, however, because the baseline numbers were based on an estimate and targets have changed over time. At the start, the Government was unsure how many sites it had and not all bodies have complied with the policy to close sites.
Book Synopsis Digital Britain 2 by : Great Britain: National Audit Office
Download or read book Digital Britain 2 written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-03-28 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the government strives to get everyone using online services, it must make sure it doesn't ignore people without internet access. This group of approximately 4 million people is skewed towards those aged over 65, in lower socio-economic grops or iwth disability. The Cabinet Office needs to make sure it understands these people's needs better and move forward with its plans to support them. They must not be put at a disadvantage because they either can't or don't want to go online. In some cases, fewer than 50% of transactions are completed online. To achieve its expectation that 82% of transactions are completed online, the Cabinet Office needs to understand better and break down the barriers that stop people with internet access from using online government services.
Book Synopsis Serials Collection Management in Recessionary Times by : Karen Lawson
Download or read book Serials Collection Management in Recessionary Times written by Karen Lawson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-04-08 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Strategic planning, collaboration, continual stewardship, best practices, and re-engineering can provide librarians with a toolkit of innovative strategies that meets the worst of economic times with bold, persistent experimentation. This book covers the implications for libraries of a broad range of technological and economic challenges. These challenges include the fallout from the global economic crisis, the positioning of usage statistics, the advent of open access scholarship, database management, responding to budgetary constrictions and general access to serials. Taken as a whole, this collection provides practitioners in the library sector and in higher education with a wide variety of insights on the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities involved with serials collection management in recessionary times, written by academic librarians, vendors, publishers, fundraisers, and higher education professionals. This book was published as a special issue of The Serials Librarian.
Book Synopsis Public Services Inspection in the UK by : Steve Martin
Download or read book Public Services Inspection in the UK written by Steve Martin and published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. This book was released on 2008-08-15 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public Services Inspection in the UK provides a detailed account of the changing role of inspection in public services management. It analyses the key debates about the role that inspection plays in increasing public accountability and encouraging service improvement. Contributors describe current inspection methods across the key public sectors of education, social care, the criminal justice system, local government services and healthcare, and examine the underlying issues and tensions associated with public services inspection. They compare approaches adopted in different parts of the UK and present evidence that can be drawn on to develop more effective practice, as well as offering recommendations for future policy and research. Public Services Inspection in the UK is essential reading for public service managers, social workers, policy makers, researchers, academics, students and professionals working in public services who have an involvement in the inspection process.
Book Synopsis The Impact of Government's ICT Savings Initiatives by : Great Britain: National Audit Office
Download or read book The Impact of Government's ICT Savings Initiatives written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-01-23 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to the National Audit Office, in 2011-12, government spent an estimated £316 million less on ICT than it would otherwise have done. The main challenge, however, will be to move to the delivery of ICT solutions that reform public services and the way that government works. The government announced in October 2012 that, subject to audit, it had already saved £410 million from its savings initiatives in 2012-13 and expected to save a further £200 million by the end of March 2013. The appointment of commercial experts has helped departments to claw money back, renegotiate contracts before they expire and, overall, spend less on ICT than they otherwise would have done. However, weaknesses in data held by the Cabinet Office have meant that the £348 million of savings reported by the Cabinet Office for 2011-12, resulting from its initiative to manage ICT suppliers as a single customer, could not be validated. To date, moreover, the Cabinet Office has measured only cost savings and has not published measures of the wider impacts of its initiatives. The department is starting to take steps to consider risk and performance on a more holistic basis, which should provide it with more information on wider impact. Views are mixed on the effect of reform on government's relationship with ICT suppliers. Suppliers consulted by the NAO were frustrated at the slow pace of change and the focus on cost-cutting, rather than exploring innovative opportunities to redesign public service and put services online. There have also been comments from government on resistance by suppliers to change
Book Synopsis Shared Services and Outsourcing: A Contemporary Outlook by : Julia Kotlarsky
Download or read book Shared Services and Outsourcing: A Contemporary Outlook written by Julia Kotlarsky and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book constitutes the revised selected papers from the 10th Global Sourcing Workshop held in Val d’Isère, France, in February 2016. The 11 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 47 submissions. The book offers a review of the key topics in outsourcing and offshoring of information technology and business services offering practical frameworks that serve as a tool kit to students and managers. The range of topics covered is wide and diverse, but predominately focused on how to achieve success in shared services and outsourcing. More specifically, the book examines outsourcing decisions and management practices, giving specific attention to shared services that have become one of the dominant sourcing models. The topics discussed combine theoretical and practical insights regarding challenges that industry leaders, policy makers, and professionals face or should be concerned with. Case studies from various organizations, industries and countries such as UK, Italy, The Netherlands, Canada, Australia and Denmark complete the book.
Book Synopsis Virtual Research Environments by : Robert N. Allan
Download or read book Virtual Research Environments written by Robert N. Allan and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2009-07-30 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virtual Research Environments examines making Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) usable by researchers working to solve “grand challenge problems in many disciplines from social science to particle physics. It is driven by research the authors have carried out to evaluate researchers’ requirements in using information services via web portals and in adapting collaborative learning tools to meet their more diverse needs, particularly in a multidisciplinary study. This is the motivation for what the authors have helped develop into the UK Virtual Research Environments (VRE) programme. They illustrate generics with specific instances of studies carried out comparing portal technologies and evaluating usability. This work, and further development of collaboration and Webbased research tools has been carried out with international collaborators, in particular using the Sakai framework and other recent Java-language based portal programming frameworks and associated standards. The book is divided into a number of chapters providing motivation, illustrations, comparisons of technology and tools, practical information about deployment and use and comments on issues and difficulties in ensuring uptake of e-Science and Grid technology by already practicing researchers. Definition of Virtual Research Environments and e-Research with analogies to Virtual Learning Environments Compilation about how e-Research is carried out with reference to work in UK and USA on portals and services for collaborative learning, shared information services and repositories and their application for multi-disciplinary research Description of Science Gateways to distributed research resources (Grid computing, data and Web 2.0 style collaboration tools) and their relevance to the grand challenges facing research requiring large teams
Book Synopsis Implementing the Government ICT strategy by : Great Britain: National Audit Office
Download or read book Implementing the Government ICT strategy written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-12-21 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Audit Office has commended the early progress being made by the Government in implementing its ICT Strategy but has identified areas where progress has not kept pace with the Government's ambitions. Launched in March 2011, the Strategy is intended to tackle systemic problems in government ICT projects which in the past have tended to be too big, lengthy, risky and complex. Departments have independently developed systems which have often not communicated easily with one another. The broad aim of the Strategy is to reduce waste and project failure, create a common ICT infrastructure for government and use ICT to change how public services are delivered. The Government has adopted a pragmatic and collaborative approach and has largely met the first round of deadlines for taking action. New arrangements are in place to implement the Strategy; and the leadership, governance and mechanisms for making sure departments comply with the Strategy are different from those in the past and have the potential to secure benefits. Thirty actions from the Strategy have been rationalized into 19 delivery areas with a more consistent plan about how the new approaches and standards and the common ICT infrastructure will be taken forward. However, there are also a number of areas where not enough progress has been made. The Cabinet Office has not yet developed a system for measuring the extent to which the Strategy is resulting in sustained change. Gaps in ICT skills in the public sector also remain a serious challenge.
Author :Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords. Science and Technology Committee Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780108459238 Total Pages :380 pages Book Rating :4.4/5 (592 download)
Book Synopsis Nanotechnologies and Food by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords. Science and Technology Committee
Download or read book Nanotechnologies and Food written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords. Science and Technology Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nanotechnologies and Food : 1st report of session 2009-10, Vol. 2: Evidence
