Local services - one lump, or two, or three?

We said yesterday that there were a couple of interesting items on the agenda for tonight's meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.
The second subject is the progress on shared services - to save money by lumping together the same jobs carried out in different local authorities.
A month ago today, the cabinets from Boston, East Lindsey and South Holland met to discuss the different strands and activity under the shared services umbrella.
These include “back office” services, such as personnel, IT and finance), but also council tax payments, benefits and customer services.
The report stresses that the councils want to stay independent whilst they cut costs, but the fact is that these days,"localness" is not an essential when it comes to running services that are not only repetitive, but identical whether they are performed in Boston, Spalding or East Lindsey.
So many jobs now are uniform in the way they are conducted that they can be done wherever is cheapest - the use of overseas call centres by banks is a key example ... although we would not for one minute suggest something like this!
So much is potentially up for centralisation - Boston is in early talks on sharing environmental health, trading standards and possibly licensing.
And its also possible that things such as community safety, emergency planning, private sector housing and environmental enforcement could also come under the microscope.
If ideas like this go ahead, a major impact in staffing must be on the cards, as they go hand in hand with changes such as this.
In the local papers, Council Leader Richard Austin has been trumpeting the number of staff who have lost their jobs since the BBI took power - down from 355 to 295 ... a hefty percentage.
At this stage, the question will soon need to be asked: Does the council need to maintain its expensive premises in West Street? Perhaps it could move out to Endeavour Park, where there's plenty of room; it's much cheaper as well and parking can be provided free of charge at no cost to the taxpayer.
Aristotle said: “If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.” Perhaps he should have said deleted the word "in."

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