Kablenet.com - 25 June 2007

Green light for Wales ICT network

The European Commission has given the go-ahead to the Welsh Assembly Government's project, which will be one of the first of its kind in the UK, designed to provide a unified, high bandwidth, ICT network for public sector organisations in Wales.

The network is designed to improve data sharing and has huge potential for shared services. The project could grow to incorporate 5,500 individual sites across Wales. A team of public sector stakeholders will help develop plans for new initiatives for shared services.

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IT Week - 25 Jun 2007

Shared network connects NHS trusts

NHS trusts in Camden and Islington have installed a shared network to connect 14 sites across north London so employees can access NHS applications remotely.

The network provides connectivity to sites including GP practices, healthcare clinics and community hospitals.

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IT Week - 21 Jun 2007

Whitehall shares desktop IT

One medium-sized Whitehall department is expected to sign up to the contract in the coming weeks, launching central governments first standalone shared services program.

The deal is named Flex and is part of the Transformational Government strategy and fits into the CIO Councils aim to cut overall IT costs by 20 per cent and desktop costs by 40 per cent.

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Silicon.com - 20 June 2007

Shared services positioned as the answer

Since the launch of Sir David Varney's report on transformational government, shared services are being lauded as the latest panacea to the government's services ills.

Whereas the Gershon report was about cost reduction, the Varney update focuses on the improvement of public services, in addition to reducing cost. Shared services have been positioned as the answer.

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Public Technology.net - 11 June 2007

BT DEVELOPS SHARED SERVICE CONTACT CENTRE FOR PUBLIC SECTOR

BT has announced plans to launch a new contact centre solution that will enable the public sector to take advantage of the latest customer service technology, without significant capital investment. The new shared service will assist organisation and local authorities to respond to the Varney report, which calls for more efficient, higher quality public sector contact centres.

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Times Online.co.uk - May 29, 2007

Outsourcing needs a new attitude

Although outsourcing may be associated with redundancies, this wont stop the push for greater efficiencies across Whitehall, says David Boulter, the chief executive officer of Capgemini Aspire, a partnership between Capgemini, the consultancy, and HM Revenue & Customs.

Governments will continue to squeeze the amount of money available for civil servants and, therefore, government departments will be looking at different ways of doing things, he says. What is acceptable and what is not acceptable will continue to be challenged. I think we can expect more outsourcing. I think we can expect more business-process outsourcing and another word often used for that is shared services.

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IT Week - 22 May 2007

EzGov pushes shared services to local government

Local authorities need to embrace shared services as an opportunity to make substantial savings, rather than focus on ownership of technology, according to the head of public sector applications provider EzGov Europe.

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IT Week - 11 May 2007

Socitm advises measured approach on shared services

The governments push towards shared services could make it more difficult for local councils to provide personalised, community-based services to residents, the newly-appointed president of public sector IT body Socitm has advised.

As efficiency increases, ther need to use resources more efficiently will increase.

To read the full article, click here.