At the end of November 2010, lawyers from Sharpe Pritchard successfully assisted Hertfordshire County Council to close its Shared Management Services project with Serco Ltd. The new contract, due to commence in April 2011 is valued at up to £200m over an eight-year period, with savings to the Council increasing in line with the total value of the contract.

Serco will provide a range of front and back office operations to the County Council including information, communications and technology services, wider business processes such as finance, payroll and HR as well as support services such as facilities management, customer contact centres and occupational health. Over 400 employees are expected to TUPE transfer to Serco as part of the new service arrangements. Through its business transformation programme, the County Council anticipates achieving efficiency savings of at least £25m.

At the same time, the County Council also awarded a framework contact to enable the shared services and enhanced capabilities to be offered to other public sector bodies in the area, including Hertfordshire's ten district councils and Hertfordshire Policy Authority.

Both contracts were procured using the Competitive Dialogue process with the OJEU notice being place on 26 November 2009 and the contracts being signed on 24 November 2010 – just 12 months later.

With the Government's December 2010 announcement of the biggest cuts to council budgets in recent times, sharing services between local authorities and the private sector offers a logical and effective way to preserve key service provision whilst reducing an authority’s cost base.

If you would like to discuss any aspect of shared services with us, please contact Timothy Farr or Julia Rudin on 020 7405 4600.