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£1.57m project to look at reversing a £7m decision to outsource services
19/04/2023
£7m was spent in 2015 to realise annual savings of £700k
Oxfordshire County Council is set to spend £1.57m on a project to look at bringing a number of outsourced services back in house. £7m was spent on outsourcing the same services in 2015.
If services are brought back in-house the suggested capital costs would be around £15m, alongside an annual increase in revenue costs of around £2.1m.
A report to Councillors suggested that leaving the current arrangement would give them greater control to improve accessibility of data and information, to support accurate decision making, alongside improving workflow, controls and risk management.
When Oxfordshire County Council outsourced its human resources, finance and procurement support to Hampshire County Council’s Integrated Business Centre (IBC) in 2015 the project cost £7m. The move reduced annual revenue costs by approximately £700k as part of plans for Council-wide savings at the time.
Additional partners have joined the IBC since 2015 and Oxfordshire County Council now feels the shared services operating principles have resulted in a lack of agility and ability to respond to the council’s changing needs.
Additionally the IBC’s current technology platform will need upgrading by 2030 and the County Council is anticipating this will lead to additional costs for them.
Cllr Glynis Phillips, Oxfordshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Corporate Services said: “We are planning for the future and want to explore the options for improving the efficiency of key functions such as finance, HR and procurement. We are investigating how we can improve efficiencies and decision making, which will transform services for future years.
“The cabinet has approved a new phase of work that will capture detailed requirements, review full in-sourcing and mixed delivery options and develop a business case to support any change.
“A lot of work has already been undertaken by officers to get us to this stage. The report to cabinet on 18 April outlined reasons for change including improving access to data and information, workflow controls and risk management as well as improving processes end to end and realising significant benefits.”
Following the full review being completed, a final decision is currently expected in November.
Published: by Banbury FM Newsteam