Former Member 9 Years yn ôl I'm aware of a survey that was carried out in the West Midlands around the possibility of shared services between local councils to achieve better economies of scale. The key stumbling block that was hit was that to achieve any real savings the group sharing services would have to include Birmingham. The smaller councils surrounding Birmingham all felt that if they joined up with Birmingham the difference in scale would be so big that any services would have to be designed to fit the way Birmingham worked and they would be overwhelmed and have to almost merge with Birmingham if not actually merge. Even just going with the same ICT supplier as Birmingham is considered too risky by some councils as they feel that Birmingham can demand changes to applications and services that will have a knock on effect on how the business/public services supported by those applications and ICT services are delivered. Unfortunately this is probably true, Birmingham is by far the largest single authority in the region. Even if all the other councils got on board Birmingham would still, by virtue of its size, budget and population, be a major player. 0 Reply as... Canslo
Adrian Barker 9 Years yn ôl Stephen, thanks for the comment. I can see how Birmingham's size could be a problem when trying to join up regionally. I think the same sort of thing can happen when trying to join up within a local area - there can be suspicion of one body dominating or taking over. 0 Reply as... Canslo