3.3: Back Office Processes
improving back office processes to the standard of the best to ensure that back office operations and procurement processes
are as efficient as possible
Other Information:
Commitments: the operational efficiency Programme -- Led by five external advisers, the Operational Efficiency Programme identified
scope to save an additional £9 billion on top of current value for money targets. These savings will be achieved in five cross-cutting
areas, each led by an external adviser: • Back office operations and IT, led by Martin Read, former CEO of Logica • Collaborative
Procurement, led by Martin Jay, Chairman of Invensys • Assets, led by Gerry Grimstone, Chairman of Standard Life • Property,
led by Lord Carter • Local Incentives and Empowerment, led by Sir Michael Bichard, Director of the Institute for Government.
Actions: improving back office operations -- We are publishing back office cost benchmarking data for all central government
departments and most agencies and non-departmental public bodies with more than 250 staff. these data clearly set out departments’
performance on a range of back office benchmarks. All departments have set out plans to improve which are published alongside
this document. We will publish wider public sector benchmarking data from Budget 2010 showing the cost of hr, finance and
other back office functions. Also by Budget 2010 we will require back office consolidation plans from all AlBs to set out
plans to reduce back office costs and strengthen the drive towards shared services. We have agreed stretching new comparators
informed by private sector median performance to support improvement in public sector back offices. these include improving
the ratio of hr staff to non-hr staff to 1:77, reducing the cost of finance functions to 1% of organisational spend and reducing
occupancy to 10 square metres per full-time member of staff. We will release further resources for frontline services, by
reducing spend on consultancy by 50% and spend on marketing and communications by 25% saving £650 million. We will also reduce
spend on it projects by making greater use of existing systems rather than creating new ones. We will look to expand the most
successful shared services centres with a view to potentially creating the first public-sector shared-service company. A specialist
company of this kind could then offer services across the public sector, providing a platform for public organisations to
transform their back offices more easily to reach private-sector benchmarking levels. We will also merge international back
office operations to ensure that all overseas staff are supported by a single shared platform that delivers value for money
to all departments overseas.
Indicator(s):
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