PRESS RELEASE
Financial Shared Services at Somerset County Council
Somerset County Council is taking advantage of the scalability and flexibility of the COA Solutions (Now Advanced Business Solutions) financial management system to provide financial shared services to other public bodies in the county. This approach enables all parties involved to cut their overheads while benefiting from a state-of-the-art integrated financial system.
As part of a public-sector reform programme prompted by the Gershon Review, the UK government has identified a need to implement a shared-services approach in areas such as finance and human resources (HR). Given that the public sector includes more than 1,300 organisations, most with their own core systems, there is huge potential for making efficiency gains through standardisation, simplification and sharing. It has been estimated that the optimal implementation of finance and HR alone could save £40 billion over ten years.
Although this agenda is relatively new, some public sector organisations already have a long track record in shared services. Somerset County Council, for example, has been using this approach to reduce overheads since 1999. Based on its core COA Solutions system, the council provides three other public bodies with financial shared services.
Somerset County Council first implemented the COA Solutions system in 1997, as a replacement for an in-house mainframe-based system. The latter had been in use for a long time and was no longer flexible enough to meet the council’s evolving needs. The COA Solutions system, on the other hand, was fully integrated and offered a high degree of flexibility at a reasonable cost. It was also highly rated by users.
Responding to budgetary pressures
Not long afterwards, Somerset County Council began to look for ways to cut its costs in response to the constantly increasing pressure on its budgets. As Kevin Nacey, acting head of finance, explained: “It was suggested that it might be possible to leverage our expertise in managing and using the COA Solutions system to offer a service to other public bodies in the area. This would benefit all parties involved because the overheads could be shared amongst them.”
According to Nacey, the exceptional scalability and flexibility of its financial system suited it ideally for use as a shared-services platform. Following discussion, COA Solutions agreed to support Somerset County Council’s proposed operating model. In 1997, the council started to provide Avon & Somerset Police and the Exmoor National Park Authority with financial shared services. Four years later, South Somerset District Council came on board.
“People from South Somerset District Council contacted us because they needed to purchase a new financial system and were looking at the possible options,” explained Nacey. “When we got talking, they realised that the shared-services model would not only cut their overheads but would also remove the need to start from scratch with a new implementation. They would save time and resources, and our expertise would be available to support them when they needed it.”
“A great product”
Today, Somerset is using the core COA financial management system with eProcurement. Running on an UNIX-based Fujitsu Siemens Primepower 650 server, the system is used to manage all the council’s financial operations and has about 1,350 users. In addition, shared services are provided to Avon & Somerset Police, Exmoor National Park, South Somerset District Council and the South West Regional Assembly. All four of these organisations access the core financial system, and in addition Somerset County Council provides the first two with treasury management and exchequer services as well.
According to Nacey, all parties involved are very happy with the COA Solutions system. Users are enthusiastic and external auditors have reported positively, while the council’s shared-services partners are highly satisfied with the service supplied. South Somerset District Council, for example, signed an initial agreement for five years. This was then renewed for a further two years.
First and foremost, we use the system because we think it’s a great product,” commented Nacey. “In the ten years we’ve been using it, it’s helped us to modernise our way of doing business. Our staff have more accurate information and can do a better job, our processes are much more streamlined, and we’ve been able to respond to e-government demands.”
Need for information
In Nacey’s view, management information capabilities constitute one of the key strengths of the system. Managers can interrogate it in an ad hoc fashion and get any information they require, starting from the broad picture and drilling down to specific transactions if necessary.
“When we first implemented COA Solutions in 1997, one of the biggest advantages compared to the old system was the ability to query the general ledger. Ten years on, people are still impressed by the speed and flexibility with which information can be extracted from the system,” said Nacey.
The fact that the council does not need to invest time and effort in system development constitutes another major benefit. According to Nacey, COA Solutions keeps abreast of all changes that affect the financial environment within which local authorities operate, and it takes these changes into account through a continual process of product development.
“It’s obvious that the product managers are fully aware of the government agenda as well as the needs of local authorities. In addition, there is an active user forum whose input informs the product development process, with the result that the system provides an excellent match to user requirements,” he said.
“When we first implemented our financial system in 1997, we felt confident that we would be able to enter into a long-term relationship with the supplier and have a voice in the further development of the product. This is exactly what has happened. COA Solutions is an exceptionally responsive company with a superb after-sales service.”
Sharing costs
In Nacey’s view, the COA Solutions system is particularly well suited for shared services. Its scalability means it can meet the needs of an organisation such as Exmoor National Park, with 150 staff, just as well as it meets the needs of Somerset County Council, with 17,000. Furthermore, the process for setting up a new chart of accounts is highly flexible. It is also easy to configure the system so that when a new shared-services customer is set up as a separate company, it is provided with options as to how much of the functionality it has.
Somerset County Council’s policy is to enhance the system in line with its own needs when a relevant new module is launched, and then propose the solution to its shared-services partners in order to share costs. This is what happened with eProcurement. The council is currently in the process of implementing the business intelligence and collaborative planning modules, which it hopes will also interest its partners.
Nacey believes that there is great potential for achieving cost savings within Somerset through sharing some functions. In particular, he is confident that the existing COA Solutions implementation would be capable of supporting all the financial management needs of local government in the county.