A survey by Civica of around 100 social housing and local government service directors and IT managers at its annual conference in January 2012 showed that 89 per cent thought that shared services were a viable solution to budget freezes and cuts, up from 52 per cent in last year’s survey and 24 per cent in Civica’s 2010 survey.
In terms of their top three business priorities, 54 per cent of the group cited delivering the required cost efficiencies, 35 per cent said improving service delivery, and 26 per cent said maintaining services within budgets.
84 per cent of respondents said that they were on track to meet austerity targets, although in doing so, 71 per cent said that the savings drive had seriously or partly affected services.
