Shared Services in Australian Local Government: Theory and Evidence

Bitter controversy surrounds structural reform in Australian local government, especially the perennial question of whether efforts devoted to reducing the number of local authorities enhances the effective operation of the newly-established consolidated council entity. However, while the existing weight of conceptual and empirical evidence suggests that structural reorganisation may improve the administrative and technical capacity of local government, it is not only costly, but it also has other deleterious consequences, not least the loss of ‘local voice’ and ‘local choice’. Shared services in the form of resource sharing arrangements and the joint provision of local services represent the most promising and viable alternative to divisive and expensive local government reorganisation. This paper considers the fundamental characteristics of shared services in an effort to determine what policies may best promote inter-council collaboration in the Australian local government milieu.