Unit4info.unit4.com/rs/900-SZD-631/images/UKI-ALL-PUB-AP... · In 2015, Dods Research fielded a survey with Unit4 into local government’scurrent and future use of a range of IT

Unit4:Current funding challenges, appetite

for shared services, and use of cloud

across the UK

A survey of 1,086 local government staff,

conducted in 2015

www.dodspublicsector.com

www.dodsinformation.comwww.dodspublicsector.com

Introduction and methodology

In 2015, Dods Research fielded a survey with Unit4 into local government’s current and future use of arange of IT processes, including cloud.

Our research audience were sent an explanatory email inviting them to take part in a study on cloudcomputing in local government. 1,086 local government staff gave responses to the survey. A responseof this size establishes a solid benchmark for measuring the views of local government.

Differences of +/- 2 percent are statistically significant at the 95 per cent confidence level.

This means that we can be sure that if we had asked the 2.4 million UK local government staff the sameset of questions, 95 per cent of the results would be within a range of +/- 2 per cent of what we see inthe results here.

The following presentation covers the key findings from the study, and enables major trends to beobserved. More detailed tabulations have also been supplied separately. These contain full demographicinformation in a format which allows anonymous individual responses to be cross referenced by thedifferent respondent sub-groups.


Demographics

In which region do you work? Response totalSouth East 149

Scotland 118North West 109Yorkshire and The Humber 108South West 103London 91

East of England 86

West Midlands 81

East Midlands 76Wales 75North East 72

Northern Ireland 12

Other 6

Which level of seniority would you say best describes your role? Please select the closest equivalent. Response percent

Chief Officer/Top Level Director/ Board level 6%Non-Executive Board Member 2%

Service delivery 26%Manager 30%Head of Service 7%

Other 29%

The tables provide a demographic breakdown of respondents by seniority and UK region. A full list of local government organisations (and the number of respondents from each) can be found in the attached spreadsheet.

In addition, three per cent of respondents said they work in the IT profession and 23 per cent said they had financial decision making responsibility for procurement.


Headline Findings

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Local government workers are particularly concerned about reduced funding to their organisation, 65 per cent listed is as a threat to their work.

Nearly two thirds of local government staff believe that their organisation will use shared service arrangements to save money. Thirty four per cent said that this was a high priority area. Only four per cent said that their organisation had no plans to implement shared services.

Respondents thought that sharing HR, payroll and legal services would be a good idea.

Awareness and understanding of cloud computing is low across local government. Only 37 per cent thought think their organisation uses any cloud computing at all.

Reduced cost of hardware and improved quality are perceived as the most important benefits from cloud computing. Data security concerns consistently appear as a perceived barrier.

Thirty four per cent of respondents said they don’t know what G-Cloud is. Only three per cent of respondents use G-Cloud. Six per cent said their organisation had no plans to use G-Cloud.

When investigating new ERP, finance or HR systems, cost and a lack of functionality from the current system are listed as the most important factors.


Threats to Local

Government


Question 1: Potential threats

Question one asked:

Which of the following are the greatest threats

to your organisation in the next 12 months?

• Reduced funding

• Impact of a change of government

• No change of government

• Loss of key staff through redundancies or

retirement

• Risk associated with updated technology

The first question asked local government staff what they considered to be the greatest threats to their organisation over the next 12 months. Ninety eight per cent agreed that reduced funding was a threat, with 65 per cent of these strongly agreeing. Local government are also particularly worried about loss of staff, with a third listing this as a severe threat to their organisation.

Only 4 per cent of local government think that risks associated with updated technology pose a threat to their organisation. However, it should be noted that 58% overall listed it as a threat.

65%

33%

20%11%

4%

26%

35%

24%

29%

14%

7%

24%

27% 35%

40%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Reducedfunding

Loss of keystaff throughredundanciesor retirement

No change ofgovernment

Impact of achange of

government

Riskassociated

with updatedtechnology

Severe threat Quite severe threat Small threat


Question 1: Potential threats

In addition to the options presented in the previous slide, respondents were also able to provide a free text answer on what they consider to be a significant threat to their organisation over the next year. All answers to this can be found in the Excel data sheet attached to this presentation.

“We have some frameworks for dynamic purchasing which work extremely well in captivating the real market price. One of the biggest gripes is the public sector quite often change the requirements or are not clear enough at the start, this adds risk and cost to the tender.”

Head of Service, Newry and Mourne District Council.

“Mobile technologies have improved significantly in the past five years, however local government seems reluctant to embrace these

technologies that can save a significant amount of time on administration, report writing and producing the requested outcomes

from data gathered.”Building Control (seniority unknown)

Guildford Borough Council


Question 2: Funding Challenges

Question two asked:Within your organisation, how are your funding challenges going to be realised?

Nearly two thirds of local government staff believe that their organisation will use shared service arrangements (65 per

cent) and business transformation (64 per cent) to save money. Over half of local government staff (52 per cent) said their

organisation plans to cut front line services, and 39 per cent said they would be outsourcing services to realise funding

challenges.

Senior respondents (chief executive level and board members) gave slightly different answers to the group as a whole.

Interestingly, 80 per cent of the senior group said that technology would be used to save money, compared to 51 per cent of

the group as a whole. More respondents from the senior group said they expect funding challenges to be realised through

shared service arrangements (74 per cent) and less expect front-line service cuts (44 per cent).

65

%

64

%

52

%

51

%

39

%

SHARED SERVICE ARRANGEMENTS

BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION

CUTTING FRONT -LINE SERVICES

TECHNOLOGY TO SAVE MONEY

OUTSOURCING


Question 3: Priority Areas

48%

34%

20%3%

35%

44%

38%

18%

6%9%

19%

25%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Reducing staffoverheads byrationalising

internaloperations

Use of sharedservices

Use of mobiletechnologies

Use ofgovernmentframeworks(such as g-

cloud)

Which of the following areas are considered a priority by your organisation to reduce

costs?

High Priority Somewhat a priority Low Priority

Question three asked:

Which of the following areas are considered a priority by

your organisation to reduce costs?

• Reducing staff overheads by rationalising internal operations

• Use of shared services

• Use of mobile technologies

• Use of government frameworks

Only three per cent said that use of government frameworks was considered a high priority – nearly 44 per cent could not answer this option, suggesting that awareness of government frameworks is very low across local government.

Eighty seven per cent of local government think that using shared services are somewhat of a priority, 34 per cent of which think it is a high priority.

Twenty per cent of central government said that using mobile technologies are considered a high priority by their organisation as a means to reduce costs.


Shared

Services


Question 4: Has your organisation implemented shared services?

75%

16%

5% 4%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Yes, we alreadyrun some

shared services

Yes, we arecurrently

implementing ashared service

We tried toimplement

shared services,but we didn't

proceed

No

Question four asked:

Has your organisation considered implementing

shared services?

Three quarters of local government staff said their organisation is already running some shared services, and a further 16 per cent are currently trying to implement some. A list of organisation who previously tried to implement shared services (but did not proceed) are shown on the next page.

Eighty seven per cent of local government think that using shared services are somewhat of a priority, 34 per cent of which think it is a high priority.

Twenty per cent of central government said that using mobile technologies are considered a high priority by their organisation as a means to reduce costs.


Question 5: Potential Areas for Shared Services

Question five asked:

Which of the following areas do you think your organisation could share with other

organisations?

HR and payroll services were the most common answer for this question. Senior respondents (c-suite and boardlevel) were more positive toward all options for shared services.

Only five per cent of the whole group said that none of the options in the list would be potential areas for sharedservices, none of which were senior staff. There were no statistically significant differences between ITrespondents and the group responses as a whole.

Participants were given the option to state any other areas which they think may be suitable to share services. Anumber of participants thought that sharing regulatory services between organisations would be a good idea, aswell as services around buildings – building control, building conservation etc. Few talked about sharingtechnological services, presumably as this had already been covered in the question.


Question 5: Potential Areas for Shared Services

5%

15%

34%

36%

38%

47%

56%

56%

63%

0%

4%

55%

56%

40%

63%

76%

74%

77%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

None of the above

I don't know

Benefits administration

Facilities management

Marketing

Finance

ICT

Legal Services

HR and Payroll

Which of the following areas do you think your organisation could share with other organisations?

Senior Group All

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Cloud

Computing


Question 6: Use of cloud computing

Sixty five per cent of local government staff said they did not know the answer to this question, potentially indicating a very low understanding of cloud computing in general.

Of those who answered, the majority said that they used cloud computing in some form.

Eleven per cent think their organisation plans to use cloud computing in the next six months, and a further 18 per cent think this will happen in the next twelve months.

Unsurprisingly staff working in the IT profession had a greater understanding of cloud computing in their organisation, and were more positive about current and future use. Only 1% of respondents working in IT answered “no” for this question.

We already use cloud

computing in my

organisation, 37%

Yes, in the next six months

11%

Yes, in the next twelve months

18%

No 34%

Question six asked:

Is your organisation planning to use cloud

computing?


Question 7: Benefits of Cloud

Ranking

Reduced cost of hardware 1

Improved quality 2

Improved support 3

More focus on core functions rather than managing finance systems 4

Greater possibility for bring your own device 5

Greater security 6

My organisation doesn't think cloud computing will be beneficial 7

The table above shows the ranking for each of the answers. Reduced cost of hardware was the main perceived benefit of cloud computing, followed by improved quality and improved support. Fifty per cent of senior staff said that reduced cost of hardware was the greatest perceived benefit, compared to Only a very small group five per cent said that their organisation does not see the benefit of cloud.

IT staff perceived reduced cost of hardware, more focus on core functions rather than managing finance systems, and improved quality as the greatest perceived benefits to cloud computing.

Question seven asked:Thinking about your organisation, which of the following are perceived benefits to cloud computing?


Question 8: Barriers to Cloud

50%

24% 21%

11%15%

26%

12%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Data securityconcerns

Regulatoryconcerns

Data accessibility SLA worries Loss of controlover upgrade

schedule

Lack of controlover data

New pricingmodels

Question eight asked:

Which of the following do you think are the greatest barriers to your organisation using cloud

computing?

As to be expected, data security is the main concern for public sector workers in local government. Answers for this question did not differ significantly between senior respondents (c-suite, board level) and the group as a while. Respondents working in IT were more concerned about all options than colleagues who do not work in a role related to IT.

Twenty seven per cent of respondents said that they did not consider any of these to be a barrier, either indicating that this group is already using cloud computing, or that their organisational culture is happy to move toward cloud.


Question 9: G-Cloud

Question nine asked:

Do you plan to use the G-Cloud(or an

alternative framework) to procure IT

services?

Respondents were asked if their organisationcurrently use G-Cloud (or an alternativeframework) to procure IT services. Only threeper cent said that they currently procure viacloud services, five per cent said that they planto use it in future and six per cent said theyhave no plans to use it in future.

Fifty one per cent said they didn’t know, and a further 34 per cent said they didn’t know what the g-cloud was.

Yes, we currently

procure via cloud

services, 3%

We plan to use it

in future,

5%

We have no plans to use it,

6%


Question 10: Changes to ERP, Finance and HR Systems

Question ten asked:

Has your organisation investigated changing its ERP, finance or HR system, and if so, what were the

drivers for this investigation?

Sixty eight per cent were unable to answer this question. Of those who answered, most respondentslisted the overall cost of solution as the main driver for investigating a change of system. Ninety onerespondents said that a lack of functionality of their current system was a driver for change, followed by“doesn’t support our business needs” (88 respondents).

172

46 49

91 88 83

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

Overall cost ofsolution

System supportbeing withdrawn

Cost of makingchanges to the

system

Lack of functionality Doesn't support ourbusiness needs

None of the above

NU

MB

ER O

F R

ESP

ON

DEN

TS

For more information, please contact

[email protected] or 020 7593 5603

Documents

Unit4info.unit4.com/rs/900-SZD-631/images/UKI-ALL-PUB-AP... · In 2015, Dods Research fielded a survey with Unit4 into local government’scurrent and future use of a range of IT