New in this section
Shared services feasibility studies
Details of feasibility studies exploring shared services in areas across the higher education sector.
Shared services
In November 2005 the Cabinet Office published 'Transformational Government: Enabled by Technology', which set out the Government's vision for a long-term transformation of public services. One of the three key transformations which the report identified as being required to achieve the vision was that Government should 'move to a shared services culture' to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of public services.
This is not mandatory in higher education, as universities and colleges are not part of the public sector. However, higher education institutions may well wish to take advantage of such opportunities to improve services and release resources to support teaching and research.
Our approach to shared services is set out in 'Shared services: the benefits for higher education institutions' (HEFCE Circular Letter 20/2006), published on 10 August 2006.
Research into shared services in the higher education sector is available.
Feasibility studies
In March 2007 we published a second circular letter that invited the views of higher education institutions on participating in shared services where these are being developed or might be developed in the future, and asked whether they would be interested in leading feasibility studies.
The responses to this survey provided helpful indicators about areas which had the potential to benefit from shared services, and we are taking forward a number of feasibility studies.
We have prepared guidance for institutions proposing to develop shared-service feasibility studies and business plans. This sets out the areas we expect to be covered in a report detailing the outcomes of the feasibility study stage of the process.
Guidance for feasibility study and business plan
[ Adobe PDF 34K | MS Word 84K ]
Further information
Contact Steve Butcher at HEFCE, tel 0117 931 7425, e-mail s.butcher@hefce.ac.uk for further information about shared services.
Last updated 17 July 2009