Civica response to Spending Review announcement

Commenting on todays Spending Review announcement and discussion Paul Bradbury, Group Business Development Director at Civica reviews what this means for the public sector: 26th June 2013: Further reductions to local government budgets and continued spending reduction targets set at 2% overall should come as no surprise to the public sector as Britain continues to spend beyond its means. It means that local authorities are looking into a financial black hole, of around 15 billion in the next five years, according to the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE). Whilst many organisations have already made big strides to achieve efficiencies and bring new ideas into action, the combination of growing financial pressures, further welfare reform changes announced today and increasing demand from citizens means they will have to continue changing the way they operate and continue on the route of shared services and localised transformation. Innovation is now a fundamental priority in order to deliver the essential services which safeguard people and places. There is no doubt that local authorities face a period of massive change and risk, working with their communities and other sectors to extract the most out of every public pound while they re-design services (or cease them) and create new partnerships in order to shape the future of local government. George Osborne stressed Reform, Growth and Fairness as essential steps for change to strengthen Britains place in the global field, but change to support this needs to happen now, with the support of the Government, for overall 2% savings to be realised. With over 3 billion set to be spent on services that are commissioned jointly and seamlessly by the local NHS and local councils we look forward to seeing how this is rolled out across the country. To better understand the implications of these revised budget cuts, and how prepared local authorities are for this transformation, were working with independent local government think-tank Localis to speak directly to those at the local level. By doing so, we hope to reveal the capacity and capability challenges at the heart of the problem and to identify practical solutions." Further information will be announced later this year. Ends

About Civica Civica (www.civica.co.uk) is a market leader in specialist systems and business process services for organisations across the public sector and around the world. Through experienced people who understand service delivery, the Group applies software, cloudbased services and outsourcing to help customers transform the way they work. Drawing on a unique combination of people, technology and business process expertise, Civica supplies more than 2,500 organisations in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada and the USA.