Shared Corporate Services Impacting Government Positively

The introduction of shared corporate services (SCS) in the public sector is already having a positive impact on the operations of government.

Speaking at a Jamaica Information Service (JIS) ‘Think Tank’ today (October 28), Executive Director, Transformation Implementation Unit (TIU), Maria Thompson Walters, said that performance data from the pilots for Internal Audit and Human Resource Management are remarkable.

She indicated that the pilots for Internal Audit and Human Resource Management shared services commenced in February and March of this year, respectively.

“SCS is an excellent vehicle towards achieving a methodology of providing public service efficiently and effectively. The pilots have proven that it is a sound policy decision. It is affirmed with respect to the decision of governments to move in this direction. It will allow for new opportunities to be opened up for public officers,” said Ms. Thompson Walters.

She noted that during the HR pilot, which ended in September, four entities and 1,074 employees received services from the MyHR+ Shared Service Centre. Services provided include personnel action changes, employment verification letters, employee queries, routine transaction updates on MyHR+, and reporting and data analytics.

Ms. Thompson Walters further pointed out that for HR “we have been able to achieve a 95 per cent service level agreement rate, having processed 2,088 tickets as at October 25, 2021”.

With reference to internal audit shared services, Mrs. Thompson Walters noted that four ministries are in the pilot, which will end next year.

“The team has successfully completed the first round of audits for multiple MDAs and the feedback from the chief internal auditors has been very positive,” she said.

The Government of Jamaica is implementing shared corporate services in human resource management, internal audit, finance and accounts, asset management, procurement, information and communications technology, and public relations and communication. The TIU is spearheading the implementation.

“The premise for implementing SCS is based on realising economies of scale. By coordinating routine and administrative functions under one entity, we are now able to not just provide better services but provide better services at a lower cost with increasing efficiencies,” Ms. Thompson Walters emphasised.

Source: https://jis.gov.jm/shared-corporate-services-impacting-government-positively/