Interview: Kevin Dicks

Kevin Dicks says he is an advocate of shared services, but is worried that some public authorities are being forced to rush into collaboration. "The others that are starting to do it are struggling to catch up, because at least we did have that 12 months to take a good view at both councils and the issues before we started to push, and I don't think some of the others would have that time now," he says. With authorities announcing plans to merge their services, a prime example being Westminster, Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea, earlier adopters could provide good examples of how to go about collaborating. Neighbouring Worcestershire authorities Bromsgrove and Redditch share about 50% of their services, and recently announced plans to bring forward the timetable to share the rest. They currently share IT, payroll (also provided to Wyre Forest council), CCTV, telecare, procurement, a single management team that serves both councils, elections, policy performance and communication. There are ambitious plans to share more, although Dicks acknowledges that it may not be possible to do so for every last service. "The service offering at both councils is drastically different," Dicks says. "For example, Redditch has housing stock and Bromsgrove doesn't, so the majority of the calls through Redditch's customer service centre are for housing. Until we've actually gone through the transformation agenda for those, we don't think it makes much sense to share that team. It won't necessarily be everything shared all the way down, but it will be shared to some degree." Dicks says the initial collaboration was partly the result of an "opportunistic approach", but also due to the foresight of the council leaders at the time. "This started back in March 2008 when the chief executive of Redditch decided to retire for personal reasons, so the two council leaders at the time decided to consider sharing a chief executive." From August 2008 Dicks was drafted in to carry out the joint chief executive role for a year. He started putting together business cases for other services that could be shared, and one of the "medium term wins" he identified was sharing IT. He was then given a three year contract and told to deliver shared services between the councils within this timeframe. "That's where ICT came in, and we basically spoke to other councils that had done a lot more shared services and had shared a management team. They said a key enabler of all of this is a joint IT infrastructure," he explains. "It has to be said that the Redditch's infrastructure in regards to IT was poor, and that's probably being very polite. Bromsgrove had invested quite heavily in new technology to readdress a number of issues similar to Redditch in terms of the quality of its infrastructure, so Bromsgrove was the host on that one." They have been sharing IT since April 2010, and Dicks estimates that this element will save about £150,000 a year. The project has involved harmonising the two separate networks and creating a single intranet where all staff can access information and files. "And this means not being too precious about whether it's a Bromsgrove document or a Redditch document, but obviously being clear about data protection issues," Dicks says. All staff, whether they are part of a shared service or not, have been given a 'bromsgroveandredditch.gov.uk' email address because "we were keen to say we're serious about this". A virtual server environment has also been set up due to "significant concerns" about the resilience of some IT systems, including problems with basic housekeeping, data protection, and disaster recovery. "We've also worked on software to make the files and systems compatible across both businesses," Dicks reveals. "This is obviously quite serious work because of the host systems. We're also just about to implement a new VoIP telephony system, which also includes Wyre Forest council." The councils are aiming to deliver further savings of £220,000 annually through better procurement and contract negotiations. Bromsgrove has also moved its CCTV control room to Redditch as it was considered to be a more secure and appropriate environment. This also includes monitoring Wyre Forest's CCTV cameras. Despite the successful transition, he acknowledges that the move to share IT has not been without difficulties. "It did take a while to get there, because after the initial technological assessment at both councils, after you start to scratch the surface, some of the practices aren't perhaps as robust as you were led to believe they were. That involved a lot more work than we thought, but it is now a key enabler for the business and has got us to a good level," he says. One of the other challenges has been the difference between the two communities. Dicks describes Redditch as relatively urban with some deprived areas, while Bromsgrove is predominantly rural and affluent. "If you pull off shared management services across the two here, you can most probably do it anywhere," he says. To help keep employees involved in the process the councils also arranged 'coping with change sessions' for staff who were apprehensive about the move. "But as is always the case there is a lot of uncertainty. Until people know that they've got a job then times are very worrying," Dicks says, adding that he is "not naive enough to think that this is met with a great degree of support". He says he shared services project at Bromsgrove and Redditch proves the model can be implemented anywhere "as long as it's being done alongside a transformation agenda", and emphasises the importance of first implementing a shared management team to drive the changes through. "I think you do have too much organisational politics if you have individual management teams trying to drive it forward. That's not to say it's not doable, I just think it makes it a damn sight easier. As long as the uniqueness of each area is maintained - democratic accountability in each locality – I would absolutely advocate it." This article is published by Guardian Professional. For weekly updates of news, debate and best practice on public sector IT, join the Government Computing Network here.