Back office savings "could already be made"

If you're not early birds like us, you won't have heard the business news on Radio 4's Today programme at 6-20 last Friday morning.
What you missed was an interview with Richard Cuthbert, the Chief Executive of Mouchel.
Mouchel is a company that helps the public sector save money - and by all accounts has done a good job for Lincolnshire County Council.
Last year the duo won the Municipal Journal's annual award for the Public Private Partnership Achievement of the Year. The award was announced as the partnership between the County Council and the company was extended to 2011 - and in less than a decade it has made savings of more than of £60m, in areas such as personnel, IT, finance, property and catering.
Mr Cuthbert told Today that local government had been seeking "more for less" for some years now, and whilst it had done quite well, there was still room for improvement.
So what has this got to do with Boston?
Quite a lot by the sound of it.
The borough council is presently making a considerable song and dance about saving on what it calls "back office services" by combining resources with neighbouring authorities South Holland and East Lindsey.
As usual this is going through all the exploratory fun and games, with Boston chucking £20,000 into the pot as a contribution towards the process.
Enter Mr Cuthbert from Mouchel.
He told Today:- "We have a customer in Lincolnshire (the county council) where there are six or seven district councils in the second tier who are currently doing a lot of their own back office work and services, and actually it would be a lot more efficient if it were to be done through a single tier (Mouchel.)
"We've invested a huge amount of money over the last seven years to put a platform in place of IT that would actually help save all of those councils quite a lot of money."
Asked how realistic it was that the councils involved would use such a platform, he replied:- "Politics and economics don't always match up, but maybe we're reaching a tipping point in those shared service opportunities now."
It would seem not.
Even though what sounds to be a useful alternative already exists to cut back office costs, Boston Borough Council is forging ahead with its own solution - which we can't help but feel will be more expensive and less efficient than the option Mouchel might provide.
Certainly, we have seen no mention of Mouchel being considered as a possible contender to help solve the problem of rising costs in the back office.
Can anyone tell us why?


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