Case Studies Phase 2

Shared services –
Case studies 2012

4548_AoC_Case studies_Phase2_AW.indd 1 2/16/12 5:17 PM

Contents
03 West Yorkshire Consortium of Colleges
Led by Calderdale College

09 Developing Soft Federation Services
Led by Epping Forest College

15 College Qualiﬁcation Project
Led by North Herts College

21 Efﬁciency in Recruitment in Colleges (ERIC) National
Led by Plumpton College

27 BUSYNESS – Building a South Yorkshire Network to Enable Shared Services
Led by Rotherham College

33 Federation of Essex Colleges (FEDEC) Shared Services
Led by South Essex College

39 Shire Shared Services
Led by Worcester College of Technology

45 Wessex Colleges Federation
Led by Yeovil College


West Yorkshire
Consortium of
Colleges

The Partners


Areas of Focus
There is a strong The project took as its starting point a review of the
activities of West Yorkshire Consortium of Colleges
(belief) that this will (WYCC), with a view to identifying collaborative ways
forward. This led to the development of two focus areas,
create… efﬁciency in arising from an initial scoping exercise undertaken by
the Leeds region external consultants. These are:
• Joint exam procurement; and
• The development of a strategic working relationship with
Leeds City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

Rationale
WYCC was established 10 years ago as a sub-regional
network of Colleges.
This partnership has been retained, and its focus has
developed to working collectively with partners to
improve the skills and training offer in the Leeds City
Region in order to drive up the economy of the region.
The project has been used to develop models and
agreements which build upon the good practice and
shared working developed through WYCC in order to
respond efficiently and effectively to the needs of the
City Region.

Need to bring employers and
providers together

Vision
Specifically, the project aimed to identify:
• Quick wins – through which the advantages of shared
service activities could be demonstrated; and
• Strategic interventions – through which WYCC can work
with regional partners in delivering effective services to
learners and employers within its locality.

These collaborations aim to support WYCC members in
meeting current and future demands in terms of skill need
across the Leeds City Region and offer opportunities for
more cost-effective working.

4 | Shared services – Case studies 2012


Objective • Develop a business case that outlines the
commercial rationale, collaborative model
This project assists the Colleges in West
merits and high level plan to implement
Yorkshire to further develop their existing
the next stages of the preferred
partnership and explore models of
collaborative option(s).
formalisation of good practice to secure
efficiencies and service improvements for This process led to the identification of
the Colleges and the Leeds City Region LEP. two activity areas which were carried
From the point of view of LEP forward to Phase 2:
collaboration, it aims to develop practical
1. A strategic, medium/long term approach,
and relevant solutions to improve the offer
looking at the framework to intervene
and delivery of skills through framework
in a number of areas, developing the
development. These options will then be
existing WYCC structure to engage with
developed into delivery models which
the emerging LEP network, with the aim
will scope the structure of the organisation
needed for delivery, examine the financial of developing larger scale interventions.
implications and determine the legal and 2. Focusing on short term benefits on areas
governance issues. of commonality, starting with exam
The exam procurement strand builds procurement.
on work that has been undertaken by
Phase 2
the AoC Finance Directors’ network,
which includes participation by WYCC LEP engagement: This has now become
member Colleges. the primary focus for the project. All
WYCC member Colleges have signed a
Activities Partnership Agreement with the LEP’s
Employment and Skills Board (ESB),
The project included two phases: as part of the Leeds City Region Skills
Phase 1 Network, with WYCC’s chair sitting
on the ESB.
Phase 1 was contracted to external
consultants, who were asked to: The objectives of the agreement are to:
• Confirm the scope and outline of the • drive up skills and employment levels
WYCC ambition for future potential in Leeds City Region particularly in
collaborations; those sectors critical to the growth of
the economy;
• Test the feasibility of potential
collaborations against a number of factors • increase employer and individuals’
including: governance, finance, corporate engagement and investment in skills;
structure, competitive advantage and • support individuals to gain sustainable
market penetration/growth, legal employment by improving employability,
implications, costs and benefits; basic skills (especially maths, English and
• Confirm the range and nature of possible ESOL) and enterprising attitudes; and
options for WYCC collaborations, both • strengthen joint working between
now and for the future; employers, the LEP/ESB, skills
• Test the possible options and engage networks, Colleges and other skills
WYCC and Colleges to confirm the providers to improve the effectiveness
preferred option(s); and of skills investment.

Shared services – Case studies 2012 | 5


A project officer has been recruited to
the project to assist in the developing
great example of joint
sustainable working relationships working that I hope
between the partner Colleges as well as
supporting emerging developments with other LEPS will follow
the LEP. Activities have included building
relationships with employers, running
events to promote opportunities in Geoff Russell, Chief Executive of the
growth areas, such as a “Green Jobs” Skills Funding Agency
event and setting up sector focus groups.
Exam procurement: Work has been
undertaken on looking at joint awarding
bodies’ aggregation and price/service
negotiation, linked with national work I am pleased to
being co-ordinated by AoC, and an Exam
Officers’ group has now been established report that further
for the City Region. education Colleges
In addition, other areas of sharing are still
being explored by members of the group
are already playing
including finance and human resources. a role with local
enterprise partnerships
Model
WYCC have a pre-existing collaborative
in the north-east
model as a company limited by guarantee and elsewhere. In
with each College Principal being a
company director. There is a company
Yorkshire, the Leeds
secretary appointed by one of the city region held its ﬁrst
member Colleges and the accounts are
audited by external auditors each year. skills conference with
There is a member of staff who works for the West Yorkshire
the consortium to manage and oversee
its affairs, the Consortium Manager Consortium of Colleges
reports directly to the WYCC board.
The formation of the Skills Network
and it is now setting
has attracted positive recognition and up its own skills
publicity from a number of key figures.
network
The project is being used to examine
whether the existing structure can be
used more effectively in the interests Mark Prisk, Minister of State,
of its member Colleges. Department for Business, Innovation
and Skills



Savings Enablers
The partners project that the from late The following factors have been
2012, annual savings will be made in important in taking forward the project:
the following areas, although detailed
• The existing long-term relationship
quantification is not available:
between the Colleges as members
• Marketing £50,000; of WYCC;
• Procurement £70,000; and • Initial analysis by an external consultant
• Efficiency gains in LEP £100,000.
assisted WYCC members to focus on
potential developments;
• Having the resources to engage with
Outcomes and the Future strategic partners at a regional level is
The project has been used to position enabling the co-ordination of the further
WYCC for future shared opportunities, education offer in an effective manner; and
shared information and intelligence for
• National level work on exam
the City Region, capturing the economic
procurement has underpinned the
skills and related data and providing a
local activities in this area of work.
shared strategic perspective to inform joint
planning and College-specific planning.
Further work is being undertaken on
collaboration with the LEP Employment
and Skills Board to strengthen the offer …positive
on employer engagement activity,
through closer working arrangements
relationships have
with other skills providers and developed (between
identifying good practice.
ESB and Colleges)
WYCC is also establishing self-sustaining
Exam Officers’ Network to help drive
forward common approaches.

WYCC was
instrumental in
establishing the Skills
Network



Critical Factors
Factor Barrier Solution Importance

Leadership & Leadership Teams need to own this agenda Need to spend time with Principals Medium
Governance for it to have impact and leadership teams to get buy in

Establishing a common understanding An incremental approach and time High
of the aims and benefits and resources are needed

Culture & Managing expectations over the potential Feeding in information on what has Medium
Climate for efficiency gains and savings worked elsewhere, including use of
case studies and practical examples

Process The complexities of examination Need to find out about what others High
procurement, as there are important issues are doing, and what had been
of value for money and where resources achieved. Activities need to be
are expended integrated with national work and
other local and regional networks

Summary
The project has assisted a pre-existing
partnership of Colleges to focus on All being done with
key collaborative areas. The resources
available have made a significant impact
minimal central
on the extent to which the Colleges resources
collectively engage with strategic
economic developments in the City
Region for mutual benefit.
At another level, the project has also
illustrated the difficulties of addressing
shared service development (in this case
over exam procurement) with a large Need a co-ordinated
number of partners in a complex area. approach at all times
In this case, it is clear that not all wins
are quick.



Developing Soft
Federation Services

The Partners

This project is led by Epping Forest College with all
partners involved in the project having a significant
history of collaboration through ACER (the Association
of Colleges in the Eastern Region). The responsibility
for managing and facilitating this project was given to
ACER who has considerable experience of facilitating
collaboration among Colleges through a range of
activities, including procurement.
Partner Colleges involved in the project are of a relatively
similar size and are geographically spread across the
Eastern region. Therefore key meetings were held at
different Colleges within the group on a monthly basis.


Areas of Focus
[the project aims] to The project is a feasibility study focused on exploring
the potential for developing shared service models
demonstrate that this within the following areas:
[efficiency savings • Human Resources (HR);
• Procurement;
through sharing] • Finance;
should be achievable • Payroll and recruitment;
without jeopardising • Timetabling;

individual • Health & Safety; and

organisational • Sharing expertise.

independence Rationale
In the current climate Colleges involved in the
partnership were keen to build on collaborative
activity undertaken in the Eastern Region and explore
opportunities for generating efficiency savings and drive
service improvement through sharing. Therefore the
project is essentially part of the evolution of collaborative
activity among Colleges. ACER are focused on driving
improvement and efficiency among its members and
this project provided the group with the opportunity to
undertake a feasibility study to explore the potential for
sharing a wide range of service areas in order to reduce
costs and improve service delivery, thereby enhancing
the resilience of partners.

[the project] builds on a successful
history of collaboration within the
Eastern Region
Vision
Project documentation outlines the following vision:
“That the project can achieve efficiency savings beyond the
scope of the individual Colleges participating. We hope to
demonstrate that the benefits transform services through a
higher quality customer experience from these functions...
that this should be achievable without jeopardising
individual organisational independence but also to
provide a platform for future partnership models that
can be adopted elsewhere in the sector”.



Objectives Communication
The project sought to identify the
feasibility of Colleges in the project group
of the project needs
sharing the various service areas outlined to be disseminated
above in order to achieve the following
objectives: effectively, so that
• Achieving financial efficiencies not staff are aware of the
possible as individual Colleges; project and the possible
• Retaining organisational independence,
regardless of the chosen business model;
beneﬁts
• Providing organisational resilience;
• Implementation and activity planning
• Delivering improved systems; – a series of workshops and meetings
• Freeing up time for the participating to explore the ideas generated further,
Colleges to focus on teaching and including an assessment of potential
learning outcomes; and collaborative models and share identified
areas of good practice in service design,
• Develop a shared business model across
delivery and process.
the six Colleges and to deliver a scalable
model based on shared services for back Partners found the functions analysis
office functions. and benchmarking and comparative
analysis processes particularly beneficial
as it enabled them to gain a real
Activities understanding of where they are as an
The project has incorporated the organisation, in terms of what they are
following activities. doing well and where improvements
could be made, as well as providing
• Functions analysis – mapping,
clear examples of good practice from
analysis and benchmarking of current
across the partnership. This has enabled
responsibilities and processes involved in
some partners to identify and act on
each service function within each College.
“quick wins” by making relatively
This included analysis of staff resources,
minor and inexpensive adjustments
IT processes, costs and utilisation, thereby
to their processes.
enabling a transparent and accurate
assessment of each service function across “the aims of this project was to share
each College; business models...the toolkits are the
• Comparative analysis – comparison of backbone of the models, they look at
each College’s current approaches to each where a College is now and how
service area; they can improve their services”

• Identifying efﬁciencies – based on
the findings of the earlier activities this
involved collaborative activity to identify
service areas with the greatest potential to
generate efficiencies for partner Colleges
through the adoption of best practice
from other partners or the development
of shared services; and



Shared Services Model Outcomes and the Future
There is no one definite business model As mentioned above partners are
for taking forward shared services looking to take forward different sharing
between partners. There is appetite to activities over the short, medium and
take forward activity in some of the areas longer term. Examples of this range of
scoped, with different partners interested activity, include:
in taking forward different approaches in
• partners are looking to share HR
different service areas. Therefore the ways
procedures with a view to ensuring all
in which these are taken forward will
are delivering these in accordance with
differ and will be dependent on partners
the most efficient and effective practice;
having resources to do so. In some
case this will simply involve a partner • one partner leading on developing a
College adopting the best College model collaborative agreement on sharing
identified from across the partnership. occupational health services;
• pooled recruitment advertising budgets
Savings have been agreed between a number
Project documentation suggests that of partners;
approximately £500,000 of potential • following the lead of one of the partners
savings have been identified across the a College is planning to outsource its
areas of focus for this project, over three procurement service;
years to 2014. Examples of potential
savings include an estimated saving of • a number of Colleges are looking to
£240,000 over two years on the contract jointly procure legal services;
value of recruitment advertising budgets • two Colleges are looking to share payroll
through sharing between eight Colleges. services; and
Other potential, but as yet unquantified,
savings could be generated through • one College is re-tendering its outsourced
the range of activity that may be taken absence management contract in March
forward by partner Colleges. 2012 and has invited other Colleges to
collaborate in this exercise.
Partners estimate that project costs were
recouped through savings generated by A key outcome from the project to date
the end of 2011. has been the development of Shared
Services Toolkits for HR, Finance and
Procurement which are essentially “how
the approach has to guides” which include generic analysis
tools for College looking to review
enabled a number of services in the context of developing
quick wins through a shared service. Though the project
focused on specific Colleges in the region
knowledge and practice the decision was made to extend this
to other Colleges in the region. To date
exchange between three toolkits have been shared with 21
partners Colleges in the Eastern region and there
are plans to share these more widely.



Enablers commitment by the
Key factors in the project’s development partners to meet the
have been:
expectations placed
• Partnership dynamics – the Colleges
involved in the project are of a similar upon them is crucial
size and are geographically spread across
the Eastern region. As a result issues
relating to competition and fear of the
motives of larger providers are not an
roles and
issue for this project; responsibilities need
• Additionality of FE Efﬁciency to be clearly deﬁned
Innovation Fund – this has provided the
project with the resources and capacity
and assigned from the
to enable partners to fully explore the outset
feasibility of sharing a range of services,
something they could not have done
without this support;
• History of collaboration – having
worked together through ACER for a
number of years there already was a
culture of trust between partners and
with ACER;
• Existing independent collaborative
infrastructure – the project benefitted
from an established and trusted
collaborative infrastructure with a
track record in facilitating collaborative
working across Colleges in the region.
• Preliminary work to ensure buy-in
– ACER undertook a considerable
amount of work up-front to ensure that
those participating in the project were
committed to exploring the potential
for shared services across a range of
College functions, thereby minimising
the likelihood of divergence over this
in the future.



Critical Factors

Culture & Differing priorities Each College has their own individual priorities in terms of High
Climate service areas. As a consequence the project provided partners
with the ﬂexibility to opt-in or out of activity around different
service areas

Process Timescales and Process mapping and scoping the feasibility of shared service High
time commitments options is a time consuming and complex process which
requires considerable commitment from all partners. Fulfilling
these time commitments can be challenging to partners.
Consequently partners needed an independent dedicated
resource to drive the project and a ﬂexible approach. Planning
delivery so that it avoids peak times of year or holiday periods
is also important

Staff reticence Some staff below senior level posses some reservations High
over the shared services agenda. Raising awareness, staff
engagement and communication are central to addressing
this challenge

Summary
This project highlights the importance Colleges are of a
of a history of collaboration and a lack
of competition between partners. It similar size and
also highlights the importance of an
established “independent broker” to
share a similar offer
drive the project while encouraging open with learners. They
debate and discussion. The processes
involved have enabled partners to gain
are geographically
the intelligence that will enable them diverse with no direct
to drive improvement and generate
efficiencies in their operations. As a result competition which
numerous plans for implementation are removes one of the
being developed across various service
areas and partner Colleges. barriers of shared
Resources received through the service projects
Innovation Fund have acted as a driver
of the project, enabling partners to
explore the feasibility of shared service
solutions in a range of service areas,
benchmark their approaches and also
to develop and strengthen relationships
between participants, resulting in a
variety of different potential collaborative
activity being taken forward.



College Qualification
Project

The Partners


Areas of Focus
collaborating The project aimed to develop new qualifications within
the three pilot areas of:
with College(s) • Security (North Hertfordshire);
right through • Hospitality and Catering (Westminster Kingsway); and
the qualiﬁcations • Product Design (Walsall).

development and These are being developed by an awarding body, OCR,
launch process in partnership with Colleges that are subject leaders
within these sectors.
There are seven stages to the qualification development
process and this project specifically focuses on: concept;
design; and development; leaving the establishment of
any qualification to be developed commercially. The
processes involved are summarised in the figure below:

Concept Design Development Accreditation Launch Delivery Review

EIF funded process Commercialisation/Implementation

Rationale
As a pilot, this project explores the opportunities presented
by the Qualifications and Credits Framework (QCF) for the
further education (FE) sector to work with awarding bodies
to develop not just new qualifications and units but to use
and improve existing ones. One of the objectives of the
project is to explore this potential and note both the barriers
and solutions to this development and inform future policy.
The project also explores alternative models to either those
FE Colleges considering becoming an awarding organisation
or those who already are, in exploring partnership models
with larger awarding organisations.



(OCR) are… Activities
assessment experts and The project is built on three strands,
one of which (Walsall College) was
the Colleges involved included in the project shortly after bid
submission. The projects are:
are the subject experts
Security: North Hertfordshire is one of
the founders of Bridging the Gap (BtG),
an Olympics Legacy project that aims to
Vision address the ongoing skills shortage in
The project aims to develop and pilot an the security industry by guaranteeing
innovative way of working to produce a an interview for paid security work at
qualifications offer for vocational learning the Games to all participating full time
involving the leading Colleges within students who are 18 years or older in
each sector subject area in partnership July 2012.
with a well established awarding body. The development of this strand was
stopped, due to complications over
Objective negotiations between BtG, OCR, and the
Security Industry Authority (SIA). Major
The project identified “partnership
complicating factors have been the issues
points” in the qualification development
and challenges of operating within this
process where the FE sector can
sector, primarily regarding malpractice,
contribute directly, with the aim of:
and OCR subsequently concluded that
• keeping costs down with resultant the risk associated in validating potential
lower fees; centres was too great.
• creating opportunities for re-investment Hospitality and Catering: It was
in the sector by making payments to the originally intended that a full
sector rather than other third parties; and qualification (10 units) was to be
developed within this strand and a
• developing better qualifications in the
new learning programme, but this has
spirit of “by the sector, for the sector ”. subsequently been limited to four units
following discussions with the Sector
Skills Council. The remaining units
supported by the College for
development are:
• Sustainability at Levels 1 and 2; and
• Procurement at Levels 1 and 2.

These are expected to be developed in
early 2012.
Product Design: OCR have a history
of previous involvement with Walsall
College and its associated awarding
organisation Accredited Skills for
Industry (ASFI) through the collaborative
development of a new qualification for



product design. Whilst this partnership Savings
was originally developed outside of
The project focuses on income generation
the College Qualifications Project, this
as well as savings in the form of engaging
was brought into the project due to
the FE sector in the qualification
its close alignment with its aims and
development process and rewarding their
objectives. This alignment is not just in
efforts through direct payment or other
terms of the collaborative development
financial incentives.
of a new qualification; but also the
joint working between a relatively These benefits are expected to be realised
small local FE awarding organisation later in the project.
with a national awarding organisation
leading to organisational synergy. This
is seen as having the potential for a new
partnership model with other FE sector
awarding organisations with potential
efficiency savings. (The project is)
The new qualification has now been about ensuring…
fully designed and accredited and is
ready to use.
qualiﬁcations are
entirely ﬁt for purpose
Model
There is no formal structure to the project.
Individual agreements are developed as
appropriate between the participating
Colleges and OCR for development of
the qualifications.



Outcomes and the Future Enablers
As noted above, the position of each The following factors have enabled
of the strands at present are: project development:
• Security: not developed due to OCR • Recent encouragement by the
concerns over centre validation; Department of Business Innovation and
Skills for Colleges to become awarding
• Hospitality and Catering: it is envisaged
bodies;
that the four units will be accredited by
Spring 2012; and • The shift from qualifications towards
programmes of learning;
• Product Design: full qualification now
ready to use. This process has been • The recognised need for industry
accelerated since development work had engagement in developing the QCF;
already been undertaken, and Walsall
• Restructuring of the role of Sector Skills
College has its own awarding body.
Councils (SSCs) who will have less of a
Where there has been limited focus on qualifications development;
development, participating Colleges have • The Colleges involved were recognised
reported an insight into working with leaders within the sectors that were
industry and accreditation bodies. targeted; and
• The College that had an existing
relationship with the awarding body, and
we will do more work which had a small awarding body itself,
is furthest ahead in implementation.
with SIA after the
Olympics
we are creating new
opportunities



Critical Factors

Culture & The restructuring of SSC responsibilities The role of external bodies needs High
Climate over the project period introduced to be understood and built into the
delays, as they still had a significant role planning process
in qualifications development over the
initial period of the project

Process Limited partner resource availability Decide very early on the resource Medium
and consequent slippage requirements and plan more than one
slot in advance

Externalities Industry regulation (e.g. SIA) Need for clear understanding over High
the nature of, and inﬂuences over, the
industries that are targeted

Summary
The project sought to demonstrate ways
in which Colleges can become more
directly involved in the accreditation we’ve learned how to
process – “by the sector for the sector”. mix and match QCF
The project highlighted the complexities
of the relationships and engagements
between providers; accrediting
bodies; and industry representation
in achieving this. Replicability of the
approach will therefore be contingent
on the engagement of the relevant
Colleges with specific industry expertise
and collaboration with an existing
accreditation body.



Efficiency in
Recruitment in Colleges
(ERIC) National

The Partners

Led by Plumpton College and delivered by FE Sussex (the
consortium of Sussex Colleges), this project builds on a substantial
history of collaboration between the Sussex based Colleges.


Areas of Focus
a focused project This project is focused on developing shared software
that will enable participating Colleges to manage the
with a single recruitment of part-time or temporary teaching and
support staff in accordance with their requirements,
objective thereby removing their reliance on recruitment
agencies to carry out this function.

Rationale
Presently any Colleges using agencies to recruit
temporary teaching staff are required to pay for a
minimum of half a day of time, regardless of the length
of teaching requirement, which may often be for 45
minutes to 1 hour. Furthermore the agency retention fee
for a member of staff required to teach for 1 hour can
account for 77% of the fee paid. Consequently removing
partner Colleges’ reliance on agencies can generate
significant savings for these organisations. The software
developed through the project will also place the onus on
potential temporary staff to drive their own calendar of
availability which Colleges can then check against their
needs, thereby reducing the administrative burden on
partners. The direct sourcing of temporary staff by partner
Colleges will also serve to ensure the quality of teaching
as will require staff to comply with the Quality Assurance
arrangements of any particular College, something which
is not guaranteed through agency based recruitment.

[ERIC] is about developing a more
responsive and efﬁcient system
with reduced costs



Vision Activities
The project’s vision can be summarised as: The project has been designed as a 2
phase process involving the following
stages before full implementation:
using new technology 1. System scoping and design – establishing
partners requirements; agreeing and
to transform part- establishing system requirements,
time recruitment content, parameters and processes;
designing screen formats; and reviewing
practice...providing and refining all of the above in
sustained efﬁciency collaboration.

savings and value for 2. System Pilot – piloting the system with
four partner Colleges over 1 year to
money improvement ensure that it is entirely fit for purpose
by removing all fees before roll out across Sussex and the
wider FE sector and beyond in the
paid to agency stafﬁng academic year 2012-2013.
organisations.
Shared Services Model
Once established partners plan to roll The current proposed model is that
out the system nationally by offering it of a not for profit company limited
to Colleges from across the FE sector. by guarantee.

Objectives
Key project objectives can be summarised
as:
• Removing the use of expensive external
specialist agencies to supply part-time
staff;
• Establish a responsive solution for the
recruitment of part-time staff;
• Reduced expenditure, administration
time and procedures.



Savings Outcomes and the Future
The ERIC National Feasibility Report All partners are committed to the project
outlines the following projected annual and intend to implement the system
cost savings for the four pilot Colleges. following its piloting and refinement.
ERIC has clear potential to drive
College Annual post-project savings improvement while reducing costs and
enabling the development of a pool of
A £ 31,936
part-time staff ready for deployment
B £ 49,871 within any locality or sub-region in which
Colleges sign up to the service.
C £ 12,500
Once finalised the system will be
D £ 50,601 able to be rolled out nationally across
the FE sector and possibly beyond, and
Total savings £ 144,959 project leads are developing plans to
drive this process.
The baseline for calculating the projected
savings is the additional cost of using
recruitment agencies in the year 2010/11,
compared to direct recruitment by the
participating Colleges through the use
of ERIC in 2012/13. Therefore if the [ERIC] is speciﬁcally
shared service costs remain below this
benchmark, they have the potential to
geared to enable sector
generate year on year savings. wide replication and
It should be noted that the distribution implementation
of projected savings differs significantly
between partners depending on their
use of temporary staff.



there is interest in the funding has been
approach from beyond crucial to the project...
the [FE] sector enabled us to extend
the scope of the project
Enablers beyond the local
Key factors in the project’s development
have been:
• The nature of the shared service being
developed – is non-threatening to
any partners or their staff and as such
cultural and personal barriers have been the project has had
considerably less of an issue than in other to deal with a lot
shared service projects;
• Strategic commitment and regular
less issues than
engagement of Principals and staff – this other shared service
has ensured that the project has been
focused, driven and remained on target;
projects...challenges
• Additionality of FE Efﬁciency
have largely focused
Innovation Fund – has provided on design practicalities
additional resources and capacity to
enable partners to build on their existing rather than other
collaborative activity and take this project issues
forward to drive efficiencies and roll out
the project nationally;
• History of collaboration – as a
result of the long term relationship
between partners there is a strong culture
of trust and a degree of consensus in
terms of the direction of travel for the
institutions involved;
• Existing collaborative infrastructure
– the presence of FE Sussex provided an
existing collaborative organisation with a
track record of collectively working with
and on behalf of partner Colleges.



Critical Factors

Culture & Strategic Establish partner buy-in well in advance to enable cultural Medium/
Climate commitment embedding of cooperation and commitment to the project High

Process Timescales Developing the system and ensuring that it is entirely fit for Medium
purpose for all partners is a time intensive process. Sufficient time
and feedback processes must be incorporated within the process

Systems It is essential that a clear system specification is agreed before High
specification commissioning software as post-design modifications are costly

Intellectual Intellectual property ownership cannot be taken for granted and High
property must be written into procurement documentation and contracts

Externalities Legal Costs Considerable legal advice is required when developing any new Medium/
shared service or system. Where possible this advice should be High
shared across the sector

Summary
An innovative project that clearly has
the potential to be rolled out across the
FE sector and beyond, thereby changing
the practice and costs associated with
recruiting temporary and part-time staff.
This project illustrates the importance
of both a history of collaboration and an all partners have
existing collaborative infrastructure in
identifying and driving shared service
expressed their
opportunities. This is a project that poses intention to implement
no perceived threat to organisational
independence or sovereignty and as [ERIC] fully
such it has encountered less personal
and cultural challenges and barriers
to implementation.



BUSYNESS – Building a
South Yorkshire Network
to Enable Shared Services

The Partners

Partners involved in this project have a
common history with South Yorkshire
Colleges having collaborated together
for over 15 years. Through such
collaboration partners share regional
bandwidth through a common ICT
network (the Yorkshire and Humber
Metropolitan Area Network) which
this project is seeking to utilise.


Areas of Focus
[the project] represents This project is focused on ICT to support business
continuity and disaster recovery.
a cost saving for the BUSYNESS aims to develop the first Further Education
sector and creates a led private cloud capable of delivering disaster
recovery and business continuity services across
collaborative approach a number of Colleges.
which institutions Rationale
both large and small The project builds and extends the scope of on an existing
can beneﬁt from project which had secured funding from the Learning
and Skills Improvement Service to explore the potential
for a consolidated disaster recovery service across South
Yorkshire Colleges involved in this partnership.
Overall the project seeks to ensure that partners have
disaster recovery and back up services that are entirely
fit for purpose and to reduce the financial investment
required to develop and maintain these services through
collaboration. By sharing cloud storage, licences and
skills sets, maintenance and support it is anticipated that
the approach will significantly reduce the costs for each
member institution. Partners feel they are particularly
well placed to develop the first approach of this kind
within FE due to the prior existence of an existing shared
infrastructure through the shared Metropolitan Area
Network. The Network has been operational for over 10
years and network managers and each partner College
have collaboratively developed its capabilities and
resilience over this period.
This is an emerging technology, which partners see as
a crucial step which could ultimately facilitate greater
sharing of services, should partners wish to proceed
further with this agenda.

The project will enable data to be
expediently stored and available
for retrieval anywhere within
South Yorkshire



Vision • improved disaster recovery and business
continuity services for smaller Colleges;
Partners identify the project vision as:
• enabling data to be available for retrieval
“Creating the first Further Education anywhere within South Yorkshire.
private cloud delivering shared
disaster recovery and business
continuity services. Through building Activities
knowledge and experience, there will Partners initially sought to build on
be significant benefits for large and existing collaborative agreements and
small Colleges having equality of previous discussions driven through
access to disaster recovery services, joint working on the Metropolitan Area
and will act as a unique exemplar to Network, by jointly exploring and
other institutions in the collaborative identifying how software licences and
use of cloud services. It will provide hardware can be jointly procured across
a transferable footprint that AoC several organisations and the likely
and partners can showcase to all barriers they would encounter. Following
Colleges and educational institutions this process partners undertook a detailed
beyond the life of the project... [it will] information gathering and process
enable data to be expediently stored mapping exercise which identified
and available for retrieval anywhere each College’s existing approaches to
within South Yorkshire, crucially disaster recovery and business continuity.
paving the way for future innovations Partners then mapped these approaches
in location independent learning and against their requirements of the new
shared education initiatives using system before holding initial discussions
cloud computing”. with market leading suppliers in the field
of cloud computing and disaster recovery
services in order to facilitate honest
Objectives open and transparent discussions on the
Key project objectives, include: possibilities of developing the desired
• the design and re-engineering service and the likely cost implications.
of existing practices; Following these discussions partners
undertook a procurement exercise to
• the creation of transferable skill sets purchase the necessary hardware and
at strategic and operational levels; this is now in place with connectivity
• less overall power requirements across established between two Colleges.
partners Colleges, contributing to Partners hope to begin piloting the
sustainability targets; system in February and March 2012.
This process is summarised in the
• lower cost for disaster recovery
diagram on the next page.
and business continuity services
will be reduced;



Initial
Information
exploration Cost
gathering Requirements Supplier Piloting the
of issues beneﬁt Procurement
and process scoping discussions System
and analysis
mapping
barriers

Shared Services Model At present partners face a particular
challenge in partitioning each instructions
Partners have not yet finalised the shared
data while simultaneously allowing
services model having decided to focus on
the full connectivity which is necessary.
ensuring the system is fully functioning
However, partners are aiming to have
in practice before dealing with formally
this issue resolved and the service fully
clarifying issues of ownership.
piloted and ready for full operational by
the end of June 2012. At present another
Savings of the partner Colleges already has the
The project has already generated necessary infrastructure in place to join
£5,000 of savings through the joint the service once it goes live, whereas
purchasing of the necessary hardware. the remaining five partners would be
required to purchase the necessary
Partners hope to achieve 20% savings hardware. Partners also have ambitions
on disaster recovery and business to roll out the service more widely
continuity spend in year one following in the future.
the full implementation of the service,
with the ability to release additional
savings in year two onwards by utilising
the private cloud to provide additional
services. Partners need to pilot the The project seeks
system and undertake further cost
analysis work before more detailed
to resolve the
cost savings can be developed. well recognised
Outcomes and the Future
institutional problem
The initial system is in place between
of disaster recovery
two Colleges and the next step will be to and backup services
prove it works in practice and to refine
the system to ensure that it is entirely without increasing
fit for purpose. To that end the project the required ﬁnancial
will continue to test the transfer of data
between two institutions and the ability investment
to restore data.



The project builds on there is a history
existing collaborative of collaboration in
agreements and developing systems for
identiﬁes how shared the partnership
procurement of licences
and hardware across The project builds on
multiple organisations existing collaborative
can be addressed agreements and
Enablers
identiﬁes how shared
procurement of licences
have been: and hardware across
• History of collaboration – as a result multiple organisations
of the long term relationship between
partners there is a strong culture of trust can be addressed
and a degree of consensus in terms of
the direction of travel for the institutions
involved. Partners also have specific partners trust each
experience of working together around
shared ICT solutions; other, that’s very
• Existing collaborative infrastructure important
– the presence of the Metropolitan Area
Network means that partners have an
existing shared infrastructure on which
the project can build;
• Evolution of the project – this project
sought to build on a pre-existing
direction of travel for collaboration
between the partners involved. As
a consequence partners had already
taken those important first steps in their
shared services journey before securing
AoC funding.



Critical Factors

Process Timescales Procuring the necessary hardware and software, developing the Medium/
system and ensuring that it is entirely fit for purpose for all partners High
is a time intensive process. Sufficient time and feedback processes
must be incorporated within the process from the outset and
partners should ensure that sufficient time is allocated to potential
purchases which require procurement via tendering processes

Alignment Partner Colleges possess different software and hardware resulting Medium/
of software in compatibility challenges. As a consequence an agnostic solution High
has been introduced to cope with these differing systems

Technical Ensuring that each partner’s data is portioned and inaccessible to High
issues with others while allowing full connectivity has proved problematic.
the service Partners will continue to refine the system to overcome this challenge

Staff skills Some staff have lacked the skills required to install or configure Medium
new or existing hardware or software, resulting in the need to
external support and staff training. A review of skill sets should be
carried out before undertaking such a project in order to identify
any potential skills gaps

Partner The project has experienced differing levels of partner High
commitment participation throughout. The establishment of a memorandum
of understanding committing resources up front would have been
beneficial to avoiding this issue

Strategic The project has been driven by IT Managers, who are Medium
commitment subsequently dependent on Principal buy-in before they can fully
commit to the solutions they have played a role in developing.
This can present a challenge, and ongoing communication is
essential to ensuring this does not adversely affect the project

Externalities Timescales The time of year and timescales involved in such a project need Medium/
to be carefully considered to ensure partners have the capacity High
to participate. The project has adopted a ﬂexible approach and
have utilised numerous means of communicating with key
stakeholders in order to address this challenge

Summary
This project highlights the benefit of a activity should the system be fully
collaborative history and infrastructure implemented following its piloting
to developing a shared services solution in early 2012.
among Colleges. By developing through a
process of evolution projects such as this, “the project is an evolution of this
minimise the challenges posed by cultural partnership... a natural step to realise
issues and a lack of trust between partners. the potential of the collaborative
network we established some
BUSYNESS has already resulted in some years ago”
quantifiable small scale savings as a result
of shared purchasing and there is scope
for further savings and collaborative



Federation of Essex
Colleges (FEDEC)
Shared Services

The Partners


Area of Focus
The opportunity The project was broad-ranging, exploring the feasibility
of shared service options across a range of activities for
of developing FEDEC members. While FEDEC has 12 members, the
initial focus for the work was to be on three Colleges,
collaboration which South Essex, Colchester Institute and Writtle. Writtle
produces excellence subsequently scaled down their involvement, although
Chelmsford has become more actively involved.
and a distinctive The initial priorities were the functional areas of
pattern of operation Finance and Payroll, Marketing, Human Resources
and Procurement. Information and Communications
and provision, with Technology systems were included on the basis of their
capacity and potential to support development of these
high value-added areas through shared services.
and reputation.
Rationale
The project is designed to assess the optimal model for
providing Shared Services to FEDEC, with the potential
to offer these services to a broader market once it has
been successfully established.
“The extension of shared services … will be achieved best
through approaches which are concurrently systematic,
ﬂexible and visionary”

Vision
The Project identified its broad aim as being to “assess
the optimal model for providing shared services to FEDEC”.
Full provision of a shared services function is intended
to come after a sequence of activities, as Colleges move
from exploration of feasibility to implementation, the
conversion of business plans into models and processes.

Objective
The objectives for the Project were:
• To widen participation in shared services to a broader
market, with the intention of moving beyond education
providers and involving the NOVA Partnership (a
training provider partnership that includes South Essex
College); and
• To achieve significant savings within a three year
horizon, estimated by the project manager to be of
the order of 30% on backroom services.



Activities • Procurement
FEDEC members identified the following - Includes Colchester, South Essex
functions as having the potential to be & Chelmsford;
shared as Phase 1 of the project: - Significant savings have already
• Procurement; been made;
- A Partnership Agreement has been
• Marketing; established with a Procurement
• Human Resources; and Manager working across the
three Colleges;
• Finance.
- There is some interest to actively
Information and Communications participate in this agreement from
Technology (ICT) was added at a later other Colleges.
stage, although investigation concluded • Marketing
that there was not a business case for
including this strand, although ICT is an - South Essex have reviewed marketing
important component of the other strands. and now the proposal is that
similar work be undertaken with
Consultants were assigned to each
other FEDEC Colleges, with the
of these areas, with the exception of
intention of developing a group wide
Procurement, in order to determine the
implementation strategy. It is an active
scope for sharing of services as well as
area of investigation and currently at
the extent of re-engineering of business
processes required to make sharing feasibility stage only at present.
possible. Marketing and procurement • Human Resources
were reviewed by South Essex College
and Colchester Institute. - South Essex has undertaken
initial work;
The Project has been managed on - Systems are being reviewed across
behalf of the Colleges and FEDEC’s FEDEC and other Colleges in the group
Shared Services Working Group by
an external consultancy, who in turn
- Findings have been presented to wider
FEDEC group, with shared licensing
engaged the consultants undertaking
of systems investigated.
the feasibility studies. Partners initially
narrowed the project’s Phase 1 focus • Finance
to involve only three Colleges (South
Essex College, Colchester Institute and - South Essex and Colchester Institute
Writtle College), which was subsequently leading on collaborative working,
reduced to two with Writtle’s withdrawal with interest from Chelmsford;
from active participation, although - Reviewing systems;
Chelmsford later participated more - Feasibility Plan completed;
actively in the procurement strand. In - Recommended system involving
addition, Colchester Institute limited its shared specialist staff to be set up
participation in the Human Resources for early 2012.
and Marketing strands.
Health and Safety issues are now being
The current position on the active strands considered as a new strand of activity
is therefore: to be explored.



Model …the approach to
The Project reviewed a number
of approaches, comprising:
shared services can
• a corporate, stand alone central body
begin to emphasise the
purchasing services and leasing or potential for revenue
selling these to participating Colleges;
generation, as has
• an inter-College approach, involving
shared specialist staff. Although a happened signiﬁcantly
shared set of activities, this would
possibly require one College to act
in other areas of the UK
as the lead body;
• informal joint initiatives, for Outcomes and the Future
activities which were neither constant
nor recurring. “The success of shared services change
management will be measured by the
For some partners the ultimate goal is
following outcomes: Disruption to the
a Shared Services Consortium within
organisation… is kept to a minimum;
FEDEC, where participating Colleges are
People… are guided through the
the shareholders and share cost, however,
there remains some distance to travel. change to the shared services
organisation; and The right kind
of leadership (is) established”
Savings
The project has achieved significant The priorities for Phase Two depend on
savings in South Essex College and a set of decisions being made by FEDEC
Colchester Institute, at an early stage: over development of the project. The
priorities include:
• Procurement
• Developing the Procurement strand;
- Savings were achieved immediately
through being able to reduce staff costs • Developing business cases across the
by £40,000; other strands of activity;
- Other savings through joint procurement • Widening participation in the first
activities between most notably on round of shared service areas;
energy costs, have already saved
£242,000, with an additional £495,000 • Identifying new areas for Feasibility
anticipated over the next year, Studies;
primarily from print hardware, waste • Development of a vision for FEDEC
management, and communications; and which emphasises shared services but is
• Human Resources also a message about excellence, branding
and the future potential to create an
- Software solutions for Managed “Essex System”; and
Recruitment are anticipated to achieve
£50,000 savings over the coming year. • Incorporating new intelligence and
legal opinion about VAT Liability and
More extensive savings are anticipated the characteristics and advantages of
as other Colleges participate in the Constitutional and Corporate Models.
procurement vehicle.



Enablers Flexibility (is)
The key enablers for the project have been:
demonstrated through
• A pre-existing federation that provided
a basis for joint working; having different modes
• The involvement of external assistance in of engagement for
project management and in undertaking Colleges: allowing
feasibility studies, in order to provide
momentum to the project; Colleges to feel
• Active leadership by a small number comfortable with rather
of Colleges who have taken clear and
unambiguous ownership over developing
than constrained by
strands, notably in procurement; participation
• The implementation of a systematic
approach, based on an initial assessment
of current practice and the capturing of
measurable outcomes in terms of cost and
savings; and
• A ﬂexible approach that has allowed for
differing levels of participation across
FEDEC’s membership, so that those
most committed to development can
actively take interventions forward,
demonstrating the potential gains to
be achieved.



Critical Factors


Leadership & The time to get the concept of Establish pilot and working groups well Medium/
Governance sharing across and bringing in advance of project to enable cultural High
Colleges together. Also needs to embedding of cooperation.
acknowledge the scheduling of Plan project meetings to include Governors
Governors’ meetings

The withdrawal of some Colleges Attempt to build in systems that encourage Medium
from participation creates continuing participation of stakeholders
imbalance and temporary even if this is at a lower level than
loss of momentum originally anticipated

Culture & Across the external consultants Ensure that an effective communications High
Climate there were issues of access to key plan is embedded within the project, so that
College staff and also of awareness stakeholders at all levels are aware of its
by staff of the project aims. processes and aims

Process Time slippage When writing the project plan there is a High
need to allow for catch-up time even if this
appears to be against the ethos of a smooth
and efficiently delivered project

Summary
…a shared service
The project set itself an ambitious
should not be rolled
set of objectives across a wide range out with a ‘big bang’
of partners and activity areas. The
implementation of project activity is approach, where
therefore incremental, as one would the entire scope is
expect in a project of this scale.
The initial successes, notably in
implemented at once,
procurement, have been achieved where but rather is divided
a small number of Colleges have worked
closely together in an area of shared
up into different
interest. This collaborative working phases with different
can demonstrate benefits to a wider
stakeholder audience, and ultimately capabilities and
increase participation and savings. functions implemented
at each phase



Shire Shared Services

The Partners

While leaders from each of the Colleges regularly network there is a limited
background of collaborative working across all partner organisations.


Areas of Focus
a gradual exploration The project is focused on the following three areas:

of the integration of • The Virtual learning environment (VLE);
• Continuous professional development (CPD);
services in a phased • Procurement of goods and services.
manner, allowing
members to move on
as conﬁdence in the the areas chosen are relatively
sharing of expertise easy to share
and of services is
increased partners had different views on
what was interesting for them

Rationale
In order to drive improvement, respond to budget
pressures and protect as many front-line services as
possible the Shire Shared Services project sought to
enable partners to build on their linkages and explore
the potential for partners to move towards greater
collaboration and the sharing of back office functions
and expertise.

Vision
The creation of a membership organisation that promotes
openness, co-operation and sharing of costs and expertise
between member Colleges, and allows them to deliver
services at a lower cost than would have been possible by
them working independently. By bringing partner Colleges
closer together, it is hoped that Shire Shared Services will
become a champion for the values and benefits of further
education across Worcester and Herefordshire.



driving improvement Activities
was the main thrust of Substantial discussions have been held
regarding the nature of the services to
the project be shared. Some partners are reluctant
to move towards a fully formal shared
services model. Therefore an incremental
approach has been adopted through
Objectives which partners will initially adopt an
Partners have identified the following informal approach with sharing activities
anticipated benefits for partner initially focused on less threatening
institutions: CPD, VLE and the procurement of some
goods and services. Attitudes, barriers
• A membership organisation within which
and opportunities for collaboration
to realise the efficiency gains inherent in
and cost savings through shared CDP
sharing services; and VLE have been explored with all
• A shared vision and business case to partners. Implementation activity is now
guide future activities; being taken forward within these two
workstreams. Scoping activity is still
• Reduced expenditure in each of the
being undertaken within the procurement
areas of focus;
workstream, with activity focusing
• Reduced ‘time to market’ for VLE on determining savings that could be
developments. generated through shared IT purchasing
and other high value areas of expenditure.
• Sharing and development of best
practice in the areas of focus.
Model
Partners have agreed a more informal
approach based on trust with VLE
and CPD services to be delivered
it’s about sharing costs and exchanged between partners on
and expertise an in-kind basis. It is hoped that the
adoption of such a ﬂexible approach
will represent an important first step
in the implementation of a long term
shared services journey among partners.



keen to develop a Outcomes and the Future
structure that partners The proposed approach has been
designed to enable partners to build
are able to dip in and on current informal partnership
arrangements by initially moving
out of at will rather towards a slightly more formal
than a more formal ‘membership’ structure, through which
they will be able to trial the sharing of
process or structure services in the three areas described
above. It is anticipated that this approach
will build mutual confidence in
collaborative working and the sharing
of services which in turn may lead to
Savings the gradual integration of services in a
The Business Case for the project phased manner.
highlights the following potential
cost savings to July 2014:
• £60,000 saved per annum through process has caused
joint purchasing;
us to reﬂect on our
• £20,000 saved per annum through
joint development of VLEs; strategic approach
• £15,000 saved per annum through moving forward
reduced duplication of CPD.
In terms of implementation partners
are sharing 30 VLE courses from
January 2012 and three major shared
not just about the CPD events are being run between
January 2012 and July 2012.
money...being able to While partners are clearly committed to
trade skills will be very the sharing of CPD and VLE activities,
valuable to our College in particular, the future and extension of
sharing to further functions and through
more formal structures remains uncertain.

get on pretty well and
working together eased
the process



Enablers external expertise is
have been:
essential to enable
partners to more
Innovation Fund – the provision of readily identify
funding to enable partners to “dip their
toe in the water” and explore the shared beneﬁts and move
services agenda. from generalisations to
• Flexible approach – the adoption of
a ﬂexible, pragmatic and incremental
practicalities
approach to sharing that has ensured
that partners concerned about sharing
through formal federal structures remain
engaged and committed to exploring the
potential of shared services.
• External support – The utilisation
of external support. In particular the use
of an ex-Principal of one the Colleges
who is independent of the partner
organisations but has the “personal
respect” of each Principal was identified
as particularly valuable.
• Existing relationships – The pre-existence
of an informal discussion network of
Principals of the participating College’s.



Critical Factors


Leadership & Lack of It has been proposed that Governors should be provided with High
Governance Governor guidance on how to challenge and drive this agenda
involvement

Culture & Trust issues Some partners are nervous about the motivations of partners
Climate and the potential threat to their autonomy. Partners have
sought to build trust and have adopted an incremental
approach to sharing to address this

Process Time Smaller Colleges in particular have capacity issues. Utilising High
commitment external consultants has been one way the group has sought to
address this

Number It has been suggested that starting a shared services journey Medium/
of partners should involve less partners High
involved

Externalities Sector Climate Some partners may be more focused on addressing funding High
cuts through other means. Need to ensure that the benefits and
potential of this approach are communicated effectively

Summary
This project highlights the importance hopefully it will wet
of lead times in building relationships
and trust and the need for a ﬂexible and
the appetite for further
pragmatic approach where partners may sharing in the future
share different priorities and desires.
As a number of partners are presently
reluctant to move towards a formal
shared services model, this project
and the shared services journey is
being taken forward on an incremental
basis with partners initially exploring
shared services through more informal
structures and processes.



Wessex Colleges
Federation

The Partners

These Colleges cover a relatively wide geographical area and while the Colleges involved in this
partnership do not have a shared history of collaboration there are previous linkages which the project
has sought to build on, with Principals from three of the Colleges having previously worked together.


Areas of Focus
[the project is The project has focused on a wide range of activities.
This has included exploring and testing contractually
about] Shared and based federation models for services across the
following five workstreams:
coordinated strategic
• New income streams – including exploring the
thinking and development of a single partnership approach to
innovation across the marketing, Higher Education provision; international
students and engaging the top twenty commercial
Wessex Colleges organisations in the region;
• Learner facing activity – including exploring
opportunities for cost and efficiency improvements
through shared assessment, examinations, travel and
transport, libraries and teacher deployment;
• Non-learner facing (back ofﬁce) activity – including
HR, payroll and finance, MIS, IT support, training,
health & safety, catering, registration and legal;
• Employability – increasing the employability
of students; and
• Standards – raising standards of teaching and
learning across the region.

Rationale
The Wessex Colleges Federation project seeks to enhance
the resilience of all partner Colleges by exploring
a multifaceted approach to shared services which
simultaneously seeks to drive growth and open up new
opportunities while reducing inefficiencies and driving
improvement in existing services. Therefore, while
decreasing resources is a context common to all Colleges,
the need to realise efficiencies through reduced costs is
only one of the drivers of activity being taken forward
within this project, with partners seeking to explore the
potential for growth and development through the
greater critical mass that sharing offers.

Vision
The project Business Case outlines the following target
end state for the Wessex Federation project:
• shared and coordinated strategic thinking and innovation
across the Colleges;
• shared or jointly outsourced support services potentially
saving up to £1M a year;



• a regional centre of excellence for Activities
embedding the very highest standards of
The project has incorporated the
teaching and learning whilst driving out
following core activities:
all forms of ‘satisfactory’;
• Exploratory meetings within each of
• Highly effective and cross College use
the five partner Colleges, which involved
of emerging learning technologies;
discussing and agreeing partner
• Development of ‘world class’ student expectations and vision for the future,
employability based on comprehensive core objectives and the scope of the project;
and insightful ‘destination’ data;
• Functions and process mapping activity
• New and sustainable Wessex-wide focused on mapping and analysing
income streams from international current approaches, processes and
students, higher education and the resources for each of the five key areas of
targeting of the largest employers focus described above;
across the region;
• Planning and “mobilisation” workshops
• Joining up vital learner facing areas to analyse evidence, discuss and identify
to achieve major quality and capacity options and agree the way forward; and
improvements and in other cases
• Development of a business case and
realising major savings; and
prioritised actions and opportunities.
• Maximum use of self serve and
customer enabling to reduce or Following agreement of the Outline
avoid unnecessary activity. Business Case partners are currently
establishing a series of workstream
blueprints which will outline the
Objectives
way forward and are expected to be
The ultimate objectives of this project completed by February 2012.
are to develop:
• High quality and employable students; Shared Services Models
• New income and savings; Given the wide scope of services and
activities being considered for sharing
• Energised staff who feel secure and
within this project a single federal
excited about the future; structure between the five partners
• Senior staff who recognise the benefits is likely to be too rigid an approach.
of mutual support, knowledge transfer Consequently, partners require and are
and innovation; seeking to take forward a more agile
and ﬂexible federation which involves a
• A national and international reputation
range of shared services models which
for high standards and innovation; and have been tailored specifically to the
• Employers know they get a world requirements of partners for each service
class offer that helps them build or activity. Such an approach will enable
business profitability. partners to opt into sharing the services
and functions that they feel are most
appropriate for their own circumstances.



While shared services models have been It should be noted that a number of the
explored throughout the project these cost savings are based on a uniform
will not be agreed until discussions are 10% saving on the total current cost of
held on the service blueprints that are activities/services rather than specific
currently being produced. detailed financial modelling which
However, while the models to be utilised partners will undertake in the future.
across the partnership are yet to be
agreed two of the partner Colleges are in
the process of moving towards a statutory
Outcomes and the Future
soft federation through which they will Partners have identified a series of
share their management team but retain long term, medium term and immediate
their separate governing bodies. Partners activities to take forward the shared
suggest that this has occurred as a result services agenda. At present some
of discussions held and relationships immediate activities focusing on the
developed through this project. exchange of best practice and sharing
smaller scale contracts are being taken
forward around HR, procurement and
The ultimate solution exams. In addition partners are also
currently facilitating the sharing of the
will involve a range of expertise of their advanced practitioners
in order to drive improvement in
elements of federation provision with activity also ongoing
tailored to the speciﬁc around the coordination of employer
engagement activities and employability
requirements of each skills. However, detailed planning and
challenge development activity is still ongoing
around more complex medium and
longer term activities. Therefore the full
Savings scope of the outcomes from this project
is still to be determined.
As described in the “activities” section
above, partners still have to finalise the
detail of the specific activities to be taken
forward and shared services solutions to
be implemented. Therefore full savings
projections have not yet been calculated.
However, project partners have provided
activities around
the following projections: quality improvement,
• Savings to date – £260,000; sharing best practice,
• Total savings due by end of 2011/12 employer engagement
– £550,000; and
and HE are moving on
• Additional savings by the end of 2012/12
– £1,024,000. at pace



Enablers we have had full buy-in
have been:
and commitment from
• Strategic level buy-in – Principals have
all Principals upfront
played an important role driving this
project with partners suggesting that their
initial buy-in and ongoing commitment the geographical spread
has been a key enabler to the project’s
development; of partners means that
• Geographic spread of partners competition is less of
– the fact that the Colleges are relatively an issue than it would
geographically spread means there is less
direct competition between the Colleges be elsewhere
in this partnership than can be present
among Colleges in closer proximity. This
has enabled partners to develop a culture
of trust more rapidly than may have
AoC funding was
otherwise been the case; the catalyst for the
• Professional linkages – three of project...it wouldn’t
the Principals have experience of
working together in the same institution
have happened
and this eases some of the personal otherwise...it gave us
challenges that can often negatively
affect shared services projects; the capacity to do it
Innovation Fund – partners see the
Fund as a real catalyst behind the we are trying to
project, giving them the resources and a be very ambitious
framework in which to explore sharing a
range of services. Consequently partners but challenges come
suggest that it is unlikely that such with that
activity have happened otherwise due
to the lack of any historical collaboration
between the partners. This funding
enabled the project to be driven by
a dedicated resource through a paid
external consultant which gave the
additional capacity and focused resource
that is essential to ensuring any project
maintains its momentum.



Critical Factors

Culture & Differing levels Each College has their own individual priorities in terms High
Climate of priority of the service areas they are looking to share as well as
the important that they place on developing shared services.
For example, some partners have recently generated
significant back office savings and as such the need to drive
this agenda is not as pressing as for those that have not already
done this. As a consequence the project has provided partners
with the flexibility to opt-in or out of activity around different
service areas

Process Timescales Undertaking such a feasibility study and developing plans for High
and time activity moving forward is an incredibly time consuming and
commitments complex process which requires considerable commitment
and dedicated resources. Consequently partners needed an
independent dedicated resource to drive the project and a
flexible approach

Scope of the The wide scope of the project added significantly to the Medium/
project workload and resource required to take the project forward. High
Consequently the scope of activity has been refined throughout
the project

Externalities Partner Partners are tied into existing contracts which prevent them Medium
Commitments from taking forward the optimal shared services solution.
Partners have had to be flexible in their approach by refining
the scope of the project and providing opportunities to opt in
or out of planned activity

Summary
This project highlights the importance partners separate to the overall group.
of a dedicated resource to drive the The development of a soft federation
project and upfront commitment from between two of the partner Colleges is
the leaders of partner Colleges. It also the clearest example of this.
highlights the fact that working with
Colleges across a wider geography
can prove beneficial to exploring and
developing shared services as this can
minimise the barriers and challenges
caused by competition and subsequent
issues of trust.
The Innovation Fund intervention
For further information: i
has acted as an important catalyst
for the project and has facilitated The Shared Services Team
the development and strengthening Association of Colleges
relationships between participants, Email: sharedservices@aoc.co.uk
resulting in some spin-off collaborative Visit ‘Shared Services’ under
activity that is being taken forward by ‘Policy and Advice’ at www.aoc.
co.uk/en/policy-and-advice/
shared-services



Contact us

National Office Regional Offices AoC East (ACER)
AoC National Office AoC North West Suite 1
No. 1 and 2-5 Stedham Place Suite 2 Peter’s Court Lancaster House
off New Oxford Street Peter Street Meadow Lane
London WC1A 1HU Chorley St Ives
Lancashire PR7 2RP Cambridgeshire PE27 4LG
We are open Tel: 01257 279 791 Tel: 01480 468 198
8.30am-5.30pm weekdays. Fax: 01257 261 370 Fax: 01480 468 601
Regional Director: Tony Watmough Regional Director: Andrew
Please feel free to drop in if Thomson
you are in London. AoC North
Room 126 Regus House AoC South East (AOSEC)
Tel: 020 7034 9900 4 Admiral Way c/o Bracknell & Wokingham College
Fax: 020 7034 9950 Doxford International Business Park Church Road
Sunderland SR3 3XW Bracknell
Tel: 0191 501 8035 Berkshire RG12 1DJ
Regional Director: Alan Dixon Tel: 0118 3782 523
Regional Director: Janet Edrich
AoC Yorkshire and the Humber
4 Crown Yard AoC South West
Southgate The Exchange
Elland HX5 0DQ Express Park
Tel: 01422 311 300 Bristol Road
Fax: 01422 377 633 Bridgwater
Regional Director: Caroline Rowley Somerset TA6 4RR
Tel: 0845 130 2562
AoC West Midlands Fax: 01278 445 750
Wolverhampton Science Park Regional Director: Ian Munro
Glaisher Drive
Wolverhampton WV10 9RU AoC London
Tel: 01902 824 399 Ground Floor
Fax: 01902 824 397 2–5 Stedham Place
Regional Director: Steve Sawbridge London WC1A 1HU
Tel: 020 7034 9900
AoC East Midlands (EMFEC) Fax: 020 7034 9950
Robins Wood House Regional Director: Kate Anderson
Robins Wood Road
Aspley
Nottingham NG8 3NH
Tel: 0115 854 1628
Fax: 0115 854 1617
Regional Director: Paul Eeles


Association of Colleges Designed by Bentley Holland
2-5 Stedham Place www.bentleyholland.co.uk
London
WC1A 1HU With thanks to all project
Telephone: 020 7034 9900 partners who contributed to
Facsimile: 020 7034 9950 the development of these case
Email: sharedservices@aoc.co.uk studies and Lesley Templeman
Project Manager – Shared Services
Or visit our web site Efficiency Projects at the AoC.
www.aoc.co.uk/en/policy-and-
advice/shared-services


Case Studies Phase 2

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