LGSS commenced in 2010 with a partnership between Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC) and Northamptonshire County Council (NCC) to realise benefits of sharing their business support services. Over the last decade LGSS expanded its partner portfolio with Milton Keynes Council (MKC) joining in 2016. LGSS became one of the largest UK shared service providers in the public sector which attracted a number of customers to join the partnership.

Over the past 18 months a number of reviews of LGSS have taken place in response to the changing environments of our partner councils who jointly commissioned The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) to analyse the operating model and produce a report with future options for consideration.

The key driver for this formal review for the partner councils was to ensure the shared service model was fit for purpose for the future with changes in the local government landscape, nationally and locally.

The CIPFA report scoped a number of key recommendations which the LGSS Partner Councils considered. The main outcome of the review was to create a revised operating model with the agreement to continue to work in a shared service partnership for certain services with one council taking the lead on the strategic and operational management of that service – known as the Lead Authority model. The remaining services would be repatriated back to their ‘home’ council.

The LGSS Business Transition Programme, with Claire Townrow as Programme Director, delivered the transition to the new operating model and the closure of LGSS.

The following services repatriated to their home council on 1 October 2020.
• HR Advisory
• HR Workforce Policy and Projects
• Health, Safety and Wellbeing
• Learning and Development
• Procurement
• Client Funds
• Financial Assessments
• Monitoring and Payments
• IT Operations
• IT Commercial
• IT Strategy and Architecture
• IT Digital

The following services transitioned to the Lead Authority model from 1 December 2020 and LGSS formally closed.
Lead Authority – Cambridgeshire County Council:
• Accounts Payable
• Debt
• Income
• Income and Payables
• Finance Helpdesk
• Insurance

Lead Authority – Milton Keynes Council:
• Audit and Risk
• Revenue and Benefits (including MKC income and debt)

Lead Authority – Northamptonshire County Council:
• Payroll and HR Transactions
• Business Systems and Change
• Performance and Governance
• Pensions

For contact information and further details on the services and the partner councils please visit their websites
Cambridgeshire County Council
Milton Keynes Council
Northamptonshire County Council