Experiences of Shared Services
There are many excellent examples of shared services in the sector and much has been published on the experiences of developing and delivering the services. We highlight a few of them here:
Effective Financial Administration in FE
Led by North Hertfordshire College (NHC) in partnership with City College Norwich, The College of West Anglia and SHM.
The Problem
- A desire to understand the practicalities of an FE College operating certain functions and activities through a shared service solution.
- To bridge theoretical work undertaken by JISC with a demonstration pilot in a real FE college setting.
The Solution
- An understanding that business process change is a precursor to shared services and can in itself deliver considerable benefit.
- A 30% reduction in the operating costs of NHC Finance processes in only 6 months by reviewing and re-engineering the processes.
Find out more
HELASS Project (Higher Education and Local Authority Shared Services)
Led by the University of Plymouth in partnership with Plymouth City Council and SERCO.
The Problem
- Public sector spending cuts driving the requirement to find new delivery models which reduce cost whilst maintaining or improving key frontline services.
- Responding to IT trends that include a shift to provision of storage and other technology based services, including applications to shared provision or cloud architectures.
The Solution
- An expertly facilitated project to explore options and generate high level business cases for the preferred solutions.
- A transferable methodology to identify where the greatest benefit can be achieved through sharing.
Find out more
RMAS Project (Research Management and Administration System)
Led by the University of Exeter in partnership with the University of Kent and the University of Sunderland.
The Problem
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To address current inefficiencies in research administration and lack of a commercially available fully integrated system.
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To explore the demand and options for a 'cradle to grave' research management and administration system.
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To respond to Research Excellence Framework (REF) requirements.
The Solution
- A shared services solution, whereby a group of HEIs worked together to specify an RMAS.
- Procurement of a Cloud solution.
- Implementation and piloting in partner institutions.
Find out more
The FSD Early Adopters STudy (FEAST) Report (Clark et al 2011) contains a series of case studies of early adopters of both shared services and Cloud computing. Of particular interest are studies on:
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An Chéim hosted admin services in 13 Irish Institutes of Technology (there is also an excellent case study on this from a user perspective)
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Research Councils UK Shared Service Centre
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Bloomsbury Learning Environment (see also Bloomsbury Media Cloud)
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NORMAN out of hours helpline (see also a report to HEFCE on the service)
There were many interesting projects amongst the HEFCE Shared Services Feasibility Studies. Of particular interest may be:
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Stoke-on-Trent University Quarter HE and FE support services
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University of York business plan for pilot study on Software as a Service (SaaS) in research
As of 2011 other initiatives are being taken forward as part of the HEFCE University Modernisation Fund (UMF) with JISC supporting a particular strand of activity under the UMF Shared Services and the Cloud Programme.
