GoC’s Shared Services Represents Only Part of the Solution

The Government of Canada announced an initiative to centralize services across the government, to develop consistency across departments, and most importantly cut costs by reducing redundant systems and contracts.

On paper, it makes sense. To improve efficiency and lower costs by consolidating services centrally and reducing contracts. Solid argument, seems very reasonable.

In 2006 Tokyo’s Department of Recreation launched their “Swimming Pool shared services” initiative resulting greater efficiencies and lower costs for pool administrators by combining the pools (and their staff) together and reducing pool hours. “Pooling resources” is always the right solution.

Sadly and unsurprisingly, in practice, there is no direct correlation between simply centralising services and realising cost benefits. Despite many attempts before to centralise services, the result hasn’t always been savings in cost, but instead the opposite.