Local Government
Local government plays a vital role in representing the interests of its citizens, delivering and commissioning local services and promoting the goals of the ‘big society’. As part of this, they will be the key players in using new delegated powers and devolving powers further down to the grassroots level.
There is no doubt that local authorities also have a crucial role to play in ensuring that day-to-day services provided to their communities are:
- efficient and effective
- offer good value for money, and
- deliver what people actually want.
To achieve this, they will have to be more accountable and transparent to citizens.
Demands of CSR10
The demands of the Comprehensive Spending Review 2011 (CSR10) top the agenda for every local authority. Representing a budget reduction of 28% over four years, the review has accelerated the implementation of new working practices – and brought the need for efficiencies and cost savings into even sharper focus.
- With this in mind, local authorities need to address the following:
- Timely access to accurate real time information is required in order to make effective decisions and plan for the future
- Merging local government operations and organisations demand new levels of flexibility and efficiency from underlying IT systems
- Around 90% of government costs are personnel-related, making workforce reduction an inevitable consequence of budget cuts
- Financial management at all levels of local government is under pressure like never before
- Making the right choices for cost reductions will involve greater clarity of current spend
- Insight into the knock-on effects of financial decisions, and the ability to accurately assess potential savings made through outsourcing, will be required.
Local authority services will require new functionality and closer support from related IT systems and solutions in order to continue to deliver – and improve.
What we can do for you
As a prime Government Procurement Service Supplier we enable local authorities, from Plymouth to Aberdeen, to increase efficiency and maximise resources. We offer a complete set of services and solutions across the information management and knowledge management spectrum, including: