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Case Study

Liverpool City Council (A): The ICT outsourcing decision

By David C. Robertson and Henri Bourgeois

17 pages

June 2004

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Reference: IMD-3-1289

In July 1999, David Henshaw was appointed chief executive of the Liverpool City Council. The public organization was in collapse, charging the highest local tax in the UK and being ranked third from bottom in terms of service quality. The case presents the organizational changes Henshaw implemented at first to restore confidence among employees. It then introduces Henshaw’s vision of re-engineering the council’s services around the needs of its customers. ICT was a key component of this vision. Participants are invited to analyze the pro and cons of three ICT procurement options and recommend one of them: outsource, keep the service in-house or come up with an innovative framework of partnership with a private company. The case is supplemented with a video of David Henshaw and followed by a (B) case: “LCC (B): co-sourcing public services through a JV with BT”.

Keywords

Public Services, Information Technology, Communication Technology, Outsourcing, Reengineering, Joint Venture

Settings

October 1999

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

Related material

Video

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