Shared Services - Outsourcing by Insourcing?

As I work in local government I found the article about shared services over on CIO Update an interesting read.

There is a great drive from central government encouraging working in partnership with other organisations and this is something that is very much happening where I work (and has been for the past three years). In particular we have been developing shared services around ICT and other areas.

The article pinpoints some key success criteria that need to be in place to make such partnership working to create shared services a reality. In particular the need to put sufficient time and money in up front, in order to see the financial gains later. When this (on the face of it) appears to be in conflict with Gershon's efficiency saving agenda it highlights what a hard job local government have of getting the balance right.

Which end of the seesaw are you? For us, I see ourselves having learned lessons the hard way and slowly bringing things into balance.