Southwest One,
a ground-breaking joint venture to provide IT and other
services to the public sector in Somerset, ought to be the object
of desire for dozens of councils, police forces and even companies
in the private sector.
Many local authorities across England have set up joint ventures
with suppliers of IT or other services and have seconded hundreds
of staff to them. Theseinclude Capita, BT, and Mouchel Parkman.
But Southwest One remains unique because of its blend of
partners:
IBM, a police force, a district council and
a county council.
Hundreds of public sector IT workers have been seconded to
Southwest One. It offers a one-stop shared services shop for IT,
finance, human resources, property management, purchasing,
facilities management, customer contact centres and services to
schools.
It even offers IT transformation services, so organisations
joining it can run more smoothly in a standardised, simplified
way.
"No other partnership of a similar nature exists across Europe
so we are breaking new ground in bringing excellence to the
citizens of the area," it says on its website.
The contract is worth about £500m to IBM. In return, IBM offers
its global experience and skills, and must cut costs and offer
better services to people in the constituency of Southwest One's
partners: Somerset County Council Taunton Deane District Council
and Avon and Somerset Police.
Southwest One actively promotes itself. For more than a year it
has been asking dozens of organisations to join, or at least buy IT
and other shared services.
Councils and even companies in the private sector in the
Southwest of England, where the joint venture is based, should be
at its door, wanting to know how to join as a partner.
But nobody is willing to join.
One reason could be simply because they think participation will
be legally complicated and expensive, with upfront joining costsas
high as £2m-£3m.
Or they may be staying away because they perceive Southwest One
as a risky and unconventional venture. It may improve services to
the public - but any failure could disrupt public services,
as happened at Birmingham City Council when its joint venture
company
implemented a SAP-based system which led to
18,000 invoices not being paid.
Somerset County Council's Chief Executive, Alan Jones, who
founded Southwest One, says councils which do not join are missing
an opportunity.
He told the Public Sector Transformation Summit, near Hyde Park
in London, if public authorities want to join Southwest One, "we
will welcome them - but if they don't, that is their business".
He added: "We think - I think - they would be looking a gift
horse in the mouth, but that's my opinion, and not necessarily
theirs."
The more organisations join, the lower the costs per transaction
for each member, Alan Jones said. Any public authority wanting to
join has an entrance fee, which Jones called a "spike". This is an
upfront payment which funds transformation and savings later on.
Jones said the spike is putting off authorities from joining the
venture.
That may change if a SAP go-live across Southwest One, which is
due to happen on 1 April, defies the odds and proves a success.
It is likely many potential participants in Southwest One are
waiting to see whether it succeeds with its SAP-based
transformation, which has been planned since 2007.
After Birmingham City Council went live with SAP and invoices
went unpaid, bailiffs visited the council, some suppliers withdrew
goods and services and employees claimed that staff had to use
their own money to buy food for a children's care home.
Even without the explicit support of other councils and
organisations, Southwest One may impress its founders and local
residents. But technology costs are coming down anyway, especially
with developments such as cloud computing. It remains to be seen
whether SouthWest One will cut costs and improve services any more
than could have been achieved without such a huge and risky
venture.