Shared service foundation principles
Purpose
To provide a framework for the effective and efficient delivery of the shared service model.
Audience
This document is primarily intended to guide how the shared service is developed, managed, and operated in the Queensland Government.
Principles
Principle 1: Outcomes-focused services
Shared service delivers value through consistent, best-practice guided services that supports the seamless, ongoing functions of government
Considerations
- From the start, the Queensland Government’s Shared service policy is considered during the design of new services or when changing existing services, including what services are offered or not offered and how they are delivered. As a starting point, shared service providers and customers consider:
- How does the change to service or new service directly or indirectly support the policy objectives? What is the whole-of-government value? Are the benefits isolated to a niche customer base? How would the benefits be measured and who will measure it?
- Are the services contemporary, supported by core, common and connected digital platforms and streamlined business processes?
- What is the longevity of the service? Does it meet the current and future needs of the government and customers?
- Does it support or enhance the ongoing viability of shared service providers and/or the shared service model? What opportunity or problem is this service solving?
- How does the service align, enhance, or complement a shared service that is a model of excellence?
- Shared service providers and customers must ensure that investments in adjacent and transformational innovations are underpinned by quantifiable and measurable benefits for government.
- Shared service will be customer-centric, digitally inclusive, trusted, responsive, easy to use, and compliant with current cyber security, information privacy, and accessibility policies and guidelines.
- Shared service will provide contemporary, consistent, and integrated systems and processes that delivers a one-government experience.
- Shared service providers will have a long-term plan for services and innovations that is regularly reviewed and updated. Plans are informed by Queensland Government strategies, insights from customers, market trends, the latest research, intelligence and data insights.
- Shared service providers and customers will adopt the Queensland Government Shared service standards and principles, and other relevant Queensland Government standards and frameworks.
Principle 2: Shared-first
Providers and customers are committed to the shared service model to minimise duplication and customisation, using secure, core, and interconnected digital platforms to simplify processes and enhance responsive, interoperable government service delivery.
Considerations
- For Queensland Government, shared service is a centralised point of service that uses common or shared technology and business processes to deliver core services to multiple agencies. The services are purchased from a pre-defined service catalogue which outlines the price and quality parameters. It is underpinned by a partnership approach to service delivery where responsibilities, accountabilities and authority are clearly understood, and the objective is to improve the effectiveness and quality of services through innovation and performance monitoring.
- As the starting point, shared service will be considered as the first option by government. shared service providers and customers understand that a one-size-fits-all approach is not always feasible. The starting point is to ask: “Why not shared?”
- Where appropriate, Queensland Government will have the choice of shared service providers to drive value for money and allow customers (working in partnership with shared service providers) to find the best fit for their service needs. A provider must be classified as a shared service provider using the Shared Service Criteria.
- A robust and viable business case is required to justify:
- New shared service arrangements (i.e. establishing a new shared service provider)
- Deviations or exits from the model (i.e. in-house arrangements that decrease demand and/or duplicate the shared service offering)
- Customisations to services, processes, and technologies (including agency-specific solutions).
- Shared service is not limited to corporate services. It can extend to any service that aligns to the Queensland Government shared service purpose and principles, delivers on the strategic objectives, and is assessed as a suitable shared offering (as defined by the Service standards).
- When planning internal services, customers consider how their internal business processes impact and interact with shared service processes and partner with shared service providers to develop processes that integrate seamlessly with shared service.
Principle 3: One-government
Providers and customers collaborate on service planning and design, strategy, and addressing challenges while sharing knowledge for government benefit. They acknowledge the value in unified strategies, collective investment, and streamlined services, committing to listen, learn, and leverage.
Considerations
- As a starting point, decisions on strategy, investments and services are informed by collaborative engagement between shared service providers and customers (regardless of customer size or complexity).
- The success of shared service is dependent on the effective partnership between policy owners, central agencies, and shared service providers. From the start, shared service providers should be engaged when designing or proposing policies to government to identify and understand the potential impacts for shared service providers and customers.
- Shared service providers and customers adopt and support the Queensland Government shared service governance model and processes, ensuring that the governance model is used to support effective decision making.
- As one-government, shared service providers and customers will monitor the performance of shared service and actively contribute to its overall success.
- Shared service providers and customers explore partnerships and collaborations within a department, across Queensland Government, other jurisdictions, and industry to ensure Queensland Government has the talent they need to thrive and is maximising opportunities from investments and people capabilities.
- Shared service providers and customers aim to learn from each other, sharing insights, experiences, and knowledge as frequently as possible.
Principle 4. Proven comparable value
Providers will continuously strive for service excellence by routinely measuring their value and benchmarking performance against peers and other jurisdictions in a transparent manner.
Considerations
- When planning and designing a new service, shared service providers identify and plan for how a service or improvement can be measured.
- As a starting point, the demonstrated value of shared service is defined by shared service providers, customers, central agencies and governance groups in terms of:
- Economic value – the degree that shared service reduces costs for government. For transparent economic value, price of services will represent the economies of scale achieved for the service. Cross-subsidisation will be avoided. The cost of service and pricing of services should be easily understood with costs for exiting, stranded costs and discretionary services/offerings known.
- Quality of service – the degree that shared service meets or exceeds the quality standards, degree that processes and systems are standardised and core and common, and that shared service adopts best practices and contemporary technology (including early adoption, testing and trials).
- Capability – the degree that the shared service model enables government to focus on frontline service delivery and outcomes.
- Business continuity – the degree that shared service enhances the agility and flexibility of government, particularly during machinery-of-government changes, and the degree that shared service controls and risk mitigations are effective in reducing or eliminating risks to government’s business continuity.
- To continuously improve, it is common practice for:
- Regular benchmarking to be conducted.
- To support effective benchmarking, the services will be defined and measured consistently.
- Performance reports to identify areas for improvement and for shared service providers and customers to act on the improvements. Performance reports to acknowledge the strengths and how to leverage the strengths for continuous improvement.
- Shared service providers, customers, central agencies and governance groups work to understand the performance reports, considering the operating environment and context that may impact shared service performance.
- Proven value is not limited to shared service providers and customers. The value of the shared service model must also be proven to Queensland Government.
Principle 5. Employees as experts
Shared service providers are centres of excellence. Queensland Government employees need the skills for present duties and the ability to adapt for future demands. They require the knowledge and tools for high-quality service provision.
Considerations
- From the start, shared service providers and customers consider their workforce when developing their strategic, operational, and innovation plans. Wherever possible the plans should account for the time and effort required to uplift employees.
- Shared service providers and customers proactively plan for the capabilities of the future. They understand the current capabilities and continuously uplift the workforce.
- Customers will invest in their workforce, ensuring that the workforce has the knowledge and expertise to adopt future services, interact efficiently with shared service, and resolve shared service problems.
- Shared service providers will invest in their workforce, continuously uplifting their skills and knowledge to remain experts in shared service who provide trusted advice and high-quality services to government.
- Shared service providers and customers give their employees every opportunity to grow and evolve with them, at a pace that is reasonable to the employee and employer.
- Aligned to the Queensland Government’s guide for Engaging and managing consultants and indirect workers, shared service providers and customers are “committed to attracting, retaining and developing a workforce with the core capabilities to deliver the business of government, ensuring productivity and value for money. Agencies must not engage consultants or indirect workers for ‘core’, ‘general’, ‘long-term’ public service functions…that are essential to the every-day running of the government and the delivery of its priorities. …Agencies must support the building of in-house skills in these areas. In limited and specific circumstances, public sector capability may need to be supplemented with skills, expertise or capacity from either consultants or other workers.” Providers and customers engage indirect workers only when necessary and take the opportunity to increase internal capability by ensuring knowledge, skills and capability transfer are included in specifications.
Applying the principles
Shared service providers are centres of excellence
Shared service providers are hubs that provide exceptional expertise and services in a particular domain or function that can be leveraged by Queensland Government. The concept is grounded in the consolidation of skills, knowledge, and best practices, and a focus on delivering high-quality support and driving continuous improvement.
For Queensland Government, shared service providers are centres of excellence that:
- possess advanced knowledge and skills in shared service delivery, their services, and functional domains - they are to “go to” for this expertise.
- lead innovation in researching and implementing new methods and technologies to improve processes and outcomes.
- develop, document, and share best practices.
- provide guidance and support to their customers and other shared service providers to help resolve complex problems and improve overall performance.
- maintain high standards of service delivery and quality.
- centralise expertise and resources to help reduce duplication of effort, increase operational efficiency and uplift the overall capability of government.
Customer-centric shared service
The Queensland Government’s shared service model is customer-centric, characterised by:
- clear lines of communications between shared service providers and customers that maintain transparency about service offerings, performance and changes that may affect each other.
- a mutual understanding of each other’s strategic objectives, the alignment between objectives and the role of shared service in supporting delivery.
- the use of customer feedback to inform service improvements, innovations, and adaptability.
- offering scalable solutions and services that are core and common and flexible enough to adjust to the genuine business needs of customers - the flexibility should not create undue pressure on the operations of shared service providers or increase the operational and strategic risk to shared service providers, other customers, or the Queensland Government.
Digitally inclusive shared service
The Queensland Government’s shared service will adopt digital services that are accessible, user-friendly, equitable. All digital services will cater to a wide range of users with varying abilities, needs and circumstances. To deliver digitally inclusive services, shared service providers will comply with Queensland Government’s Digital services policy and adopt the Digital service standard, ensuring that the service is accessible and inclusive of all users regardless of their ability and environment.
Investments in innovations
In the shared service context, innovations are classified into three categories:
- Core innovations: Initiatives that enhance existing products and services for existing customers. Examples are incremental or small-scale process and application enhancements e.g. improvements to user interface, changes to optimise performance, increase or maintain security controls, introducing chat or call back features for service desk.
- Adjacent innovations: Initiatives that extend an existing product or service into a new opportunity. Examples are enabling a new module in applications, building a form in self-service platforms, and system and platform upgrades that require vendor engagement and may change contracts.
- Transformational innovations: Initiatives that create new services, business or customers. Example is implementing new technology that enhances service delivery or creates opportunity for new services.
Adopting the principles in decision making
The Shared service foundation principles help by:
- providing a set of values or aspirations to support consistent shared service decision making within the Queensland Government
- providing guidance to shared service providers and customers on service delivery and operations.
The principles are not meant to direct immediate action or specific instruction but rather support a mindset or provide guidance in making shared service decisions and setting policy. The considerations help in asking the right questions around shared service and provide an indication of where a department should be heading if they are aligning with the principles. They are intended to have long term applicability and their essence is reflected and refined in other QGEA documents.
Departments must align with the principles but may choose to expand on them or adopt their own terminology to reflect more accurately their business context.
Adopting the principles in departmental planning
In the absence of more specific guidance within the QGEA or within a department, the principles should be used to address emerging issues and guide departmental planning, management and implementation processes, including guiding decisions about service delivery and business processes.
Consistent departure from the principles will lead to increasing difficulties at department level and may impact adversely on the departments capacity to fulfill commitments to the Queensland Government.
Precedence within the principles
There is no precedence defined in the principles. At times the principles may appear to diverge from each other. This will require interpretation on the part of the decision maker considering the whole-of-government benefit.
Departments can contact the QGCDG if they have any questions or require further clarification on these principles. Feedback on the principles is always welcome and can be emailed to StrategyandTransformation@chde.qld.gov.au.