04 / 10
Turning Three Councils' & Two ALMOs' HR Into One Shared Service
Headline result
33% cost reduction, sustained 5+ years
The challenge
Three councils were each running their own standalone HR and payroll operations duplicating cost, duplicating effort, and each carrying inconsistent governance with little room to invest in doing things better. Individually, none had the scale to modernise; together, they did.
My approach
As Programme Director, I designed and implemented a single shared HR and payroll service spanning all three partner organisations. That meant a genuine operating model redesign – not just a relocation of existing teams with a transition plan that protected statutory service levels for residents and staff throughout. Governance and business partnering were rebuilt alongside the service itself, so the new model wouldn't simply recreate three sets of local policies inside one shared structure. I also deliberately designed the platform to be extensible, because a shared service that only ever does HR leaves value on the table for a public-sector partnership.
The impact
The new service delivered a 33% reduction in HR and payroll operating costs, with partner organisations sustaining an average 31% saving over five years – a rare example of a public-sector transformation saving that held up well beyond the go-live date. The platform was later extended to support a Housing ALMO and the outsourced EK Services which included ICT, Finance, Customer Services and Housing shared services – multiplying the value of the original investment far beyond HR.