Wednesday 22nd July, 2015 

Three neighbouring East of England councils have agreed plans to share IT, legal and building control services.

Under the plans Huntingdonshire District, South Cambridgeshire District and Cambridge City Councils will share these services operating under a single management team.

A lead authority to drive forward each proposal has been chosen with shared service managers to be appointed.

Currently £5 million is spent by the three councils on IT, with a further half a million on building control and £1.4 million on legal. The move to working together is expected to save around 15% of the costs

Reports for the shared service plans detailed how the changes would save over £1.1 million a year in 2016/17 onwards with the councils sharing expertise, capacity and systems to improve the resilience of relatively small in-house teams.

The first step would see shared service managers appointed and then work would be carried out to review current staff structures at all three councils to ensure one team was in place to best meet the needs of their customers. 

The councils plan to move to shared teams from October this year.

Cllr Lewis Herbert, Leader of Cambridge City Council, said: "Huge cuts to local government funding means we must evolve to protect services that people need the most."

"Our staff are a really important asset and we believe that this move will help create structures that will provide opportunities and develop talent as well as making a vital contribution to the savings each of our councils have to make to balance the books."

Cllr Ray Manning, Leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council, said: "Shared services is all about joining together expertise to raise standards as well as creating teams that are more resilient. Everyone knows that savings must be found, but the structures being put in place are making sure we have a team with the right skills and capacity that can work effectively across the three councils."