Cornwall County Council to set up shared services partnership

Cornwall County Council is looking for partners to help it set up and fund a shared services venture for the region.

The council said last month that it is looking to set up a "trading joint venture" in a bid to save about £2.5m by 2018 and create 375 full-time jobs.

A new public tender issued this week outlines the council's plans in more detail. It says that the council is looking for a company that will be able to put capital at risk and provide commercial, consulting and implementation expertise. It also says that Cornwall County Council will, in return, offer "expertise, transformation experience, a strong workforce and a number of investments".

"This is a genuinely ground-breaking proposal which would see the council working with partners to improve services and deliver greater value for money for people in Cornwall," said council leader Alec Robertson.

"Any suggestion that this is selling off council services is totally untrue. By creating a new shared services company in Cornwall, we would help protect both existing public sector employment and could create hundreds of permanent well-paid jobs".

Cornwall County Council says it hopes to work with a partner for a minimum of 10 years, with an option to extend up to a further five years. Over this period it hopes to "establish a competitive trading company that offers the market high quality shared services".

The shared services scheme will be split into two phases. The first will see the establishment of the trading joint venture company, which will focus on technology, procurement, document management and delivering shared services.

The company will be responsible for implementing new strategies covering networks, client devices, datacentres and telephony, and will also manage and develop the authority's web sites and contact centres.

Phase two of the project is conditional upon the performance of the newly formed company, and a business case approval process will be established.

If phase two is approved, the council said that its early priorities will include establishing a single debt system and a single helpdesk for staff to help with finance, ICT, HR and payroll enquiries.