“Shared service” arrangements are increasingly popular among public agencies looking to overcome the financial and capability disadvantages associated with decentralisation and suboptimal organisational size. Rather than face the disruption and adverse side effects of full-scale merger, agencies amalgamate specific functions to generate economies of scale and increased critical mass.
Although a small amount of research has examined the financial effects of shared services, little is known about the less quantifiable outcomes and unintended consequences. This mixed-methods study provides a corrective by exploring the impact on bureaucratic accountability.
Our case is British central government, which recently began inter-departmental and inter-agency sharing of professional capabilities (legal counsel, internal audit, HR, etc.). We measure the progress of the reform for six key professions between 2012 and 2017, using civil service employment data. We then explore the impact on bureaucratic accountability by coding elite interview data according to Mark Bovens’ (1998) accountability-responsibility framework.
Our results indicate, firstly, that progress in sharing professional capabilities differs across the six sampled professions; and, secondly, that sharing risks eroding the sense of responsibility (but not accountability) among the professional workforce.
