London shared services push costs jobs

Shared services are supposed to be about saving money - but it seems they can also be about cutting ICT jobs, too, we now learn.

This is the conclusion of the news that a casualty of the much-trumped London shared services "super council" between Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham - includes a "rationalisation" of tech posts that will save £400,000 a year by losing between 10 to 12 positions out of a combined team of 30.

The job shrinkage is part of a five year programme that includes other cost-cutting moves in the tech area such as adopting unified communications and closing up to four datacentres. All in all, the IT savings for all three councils are estimated to be £4m by 2014/15, or 15% of the estimated £33.8m savings across all shared services the trip are looking for.

"There is certainly scope for the consolidation of staff in IT, by merging similar functions and reducing duplication in some strategic roles. Not all of these are tied up in outsourced contracts either," says the report that includes the proposals.

The document claims it will be "possible to provide the same or even better service with a single smaller team and fewer management overheads".

The report also says the three councils in the partnership could cut a combined £700,000 to £1.1m from their respective £1.2m spend on networking each by adopting a common unified communications system off the Cloud, a Public Sector Network, Government Connect or the NHS Spine.

Rationalisation of datacentres could save a further £600,000 per year from 2013 on from things like lower property and energy savings, reduced duplication and better server and platform licencing contractual arrangements.

Finally, outlay on IT security will be cut by as much as £300,000 to £450,000 by merging the three networks into one.