Government eyes €50m annual savings in ‘shared services’ centralisation strategy

The Government is eyeing savings of around €50 million a year, as it seeks to deepen a “shared services” strategy using more call centres and centralised pay and procurement systems by 35,000 civil servants staff working across central government departments and agencies.

It is part of a push to drive reforms of the way central government does business that were started at the depth of the crisis four years ago.

Detailing the so-called Civil Service Renewal Strategy, Robert Watt, secretary general of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, said that though set-up costs would run into the tens of millions of euro, €50m savings a year were anticipated if common payroll and staff management systems were employed in the civil service, local government, in education, and in health services procurement.

The lifting of the hiring freeze and the opening of many posts to outside competition would help attract more people from the private sector into the civil service to complete periods of work and projects, and not necessarily for life-time careers, Mr Watt said.

There are now 500 people working in shared services in central government and agencies, aiming to end duplicating services and implementing “a standard way of doing things”, said Hilary Murphy-Fagan, the chief of the National Shared Services Office, which is driving the reforms.

Winners are Payroll shared services centre of @IRLDeptPER for Introducing Payroll Shared Services pic.twitter.com/nkSuWmoGQo

— Government of Ireland (@GovIE) December 3, 2015

Under the troika bailout agreement, the numbers of central government civil servants has fallen from a peak of 39,000 in 2007 to 35,000.

A Health Business Services project involves an agreement with the HSE for common systems to cover payroll and procurement.

The project team is now looking to extend the procurement systems.

Asked whether such new systems would end consistent spending overruns in recent years in the health budget, including a huge €600m overspend this year, Mr Watt said there were many issues in play involving the health budget that were separate from the shared services strategy.

Health has a number of management systems, and there is no single integrated financial management system in health.

The renewal strategy has also involved establishing an “accountability board” chaired by the Taoiseach, a civil service management board for departmental chiefs, and the agreement of a new disciplinary code for civil servants.

The results of surveys of civil servants and satisfaction of users would regularly be published