Council withdraws from shared services project
Archived press release
Date Published: 19/01/10
Aylesbury Vale District Council has agreed to withdraw from a project aimed at delivering ‘back office’ services in a new way.
The Pathfinder Shared Support Services project was set up to look at improving efficiency and making savings by combining the support services of Buckinghamshire County Council, Aylesbury Vale, South Bucks and Wycombe District Councils as well as the Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Fire and Rescue Service.
Private sector companies were invited to submit outline proposals on how they would deliver a range of services for these five authorities, including finance, human resources, payroll, facilities management and information and communication technology, through the creation of a joint venture company.
However, after considering an evaluation of the outline proposals received from bidders, the council has agreed to take no further part in this particular Pathfinder project. An agreement between the participating authorities gives any partner authority the option to withdraw at this stage without incurring further costs of procurement.
Councillor John Cartwright, Leader of the Council, said: “Having considered the proposals and taken a look at the options available to the council, although disappointing, we do not feel this is the best way forward for AVDC. Unfortunately the two tenders on the table do not provide the savings required within the timeframe that we had hoped for and have higher set-up costs than originally anticipated. Nor could they give us sufficient promises about keeping jobs in the Vale, which we feel is crucial given our target to help deliver new jobs.
“We still have to find the savings we hoped to make from this project by other means. Every service will have to look at ways to reduce costs in the coming years, so that we can continue to provide great value to our taxpayers.
“I must stress that this doesn’t mean the end of the Pathfinder programme, or any of our other collaborative projects. We already collaborate on a number of services with partners across Buckinghamshire and we will continue to do so.”
The Pathfinder agreement between all the councils in Buckinghamshire to join up services to create greater efficiencies and lower costs to council taxpayers is progressing well.
One of the most advanced projects is the community engagement programme, which plans to make it easier and simpler for communities to engage with all the public sector agencies. Pilots are being run in the Aylesbury Vale and Wycombe districts to look at ways in which councils, police, health and the voluntary sector can involve local communities in a joined up way rather than approaching them separately.