Thursday 1 December 2011

VAT on shared services

This story in the Higher barely counts as news, given that the intention to make this change was clearly signalled in the White Paper. Pretty much from the off, though, I have felt that it was in fact big news. And I still do.

The scope for economies of scale in sharing back-office functions is large. Given the sector's mixed history of outsourcing, the scope for services to deteriorate in the process, or even for outright disasters, is also large. Without anything major necessarily changing overnight, I would expect shared services to be a big issue for those of us who work in the back offices of universities over the next few years.

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