HM Prison Service will go live with a new shared service
centre in April, providing finance, procurement and HR
services.
The project, part of the Prison Service's Phoenix programme, is
unique among central government shared service centres in providing
all the services from the same facility.
The centre, in Newport, Wales, will support 130 Prison Service
establishments and 48,000 staff and offer order to cash, accounts
receivable/payable and a number of HR services.
Steve Hodgson, head of the shared service centre, said, "Having
three service lines in one centre reduces overheads."
A new telephony system is being built at Newport that will
integrate with a workflow management system. "Any document entering
the building is scanned and routed to a service delivery team,"
said Hodgson.
The Prison Service has already implemented Oracle Financials and
has partially implemented Oracle iProcurement, and these will be
moved to the shared service centre in April.
Speaking at Oracle's Summit 2006, Hodgson said the HR project
will lead to the biggest changes. "Instead of prison officers
walking to admin offices in the prisons, they will use online and
call centre services to contact human resources."