'Staff block to shared service initiatives'

Employees' resistance to change will be the greatest obstacle for local authorities to overcome when they set up shared services centres, the Society of IT Management (Socitm) has warned in a report.

The warning comes just weeks before the Cabinet Office publishes its plan to encourage councils to share.

Socitm also warns in the report that although central government had provided its backing for shared services, it had yet to provide sufficient incentives for the majority of authorities to share.

And it said that shared services projects would take longer to implement than projects involving just one council, due to the number of competing interests involved.

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