The Gauteng Shared Service Centre was established by the Gauteng Provincial Government in 2001 to provide a dedicated and professional back-office support service to all the departments of the provincial government.

This marked the realisation of the Gauteng Provincial Government's vision of creating a world-class internal support service unit driven by efficiency and maintaining a focus on high quality service delivery.

The Gauteng Shared Service Centre's core business is the provision of a provincial government-wide internal support service in terms of Audit Services, Human Resource Services, Procurement Services, Finance Services and Technology Support Services.

The shared service centre concept is showing itself to be a proven solution for today's leading organisations internationally.

The Gauteng Shared Service Centre provides a number of advantages to the Gauteng Provincial Government. These include:

• Harnessing the Gauteng Provincial Government's collective 'buying power,' so reducing the overall cost of purchasing goods and services. Currently, the Gauteng Provincial Government expends some R4 billion per annum on goods and services. Through the improvement of the management of its procurement process and contracts, the Gauteng Shared Service Centre sets out to achieve a 2,5% cost saving on procurement alone, translating to an annual saving of some R100 million. Such saved funds will then be made available to further improve service delivery in other areas of government, in line with the Gauteng Provincial Government's ideal of a better life for all;
• Managing services through formal agreements ensures that the Gauteng Shared Service Centre remains true to its customer- focused principles. Such agreements clearly set out the 'customer-service provider' relationship between the various user departments and the Gauteng Shared Service Centre. The Gauteng Shared Service Centre and the various departments have entered into Service Level Agreements which detail the responsibilities of the respective parties, deliverables and acceptable performance standards. Key performance indicators and performance targets are agreed and performance statistics are tracked. This enables departments and employees at institutions, such as hospitals, to monitor service received,with such transparency ensuring that the Gauteng Shared Service Centre may be held accountable;
• Ensuring that the Gauteng Shared Service Centre maintains a positive influence over the role played by the departments it serves. Departments are relieved of the burden of day-to-day management of administrative functions. Instead, they are afforded the necessary time to focus on core service delivery;
• Standardising processes has improved the flow and quality of information, which - in effect - supports the provincial government in terms of quality decision-making;
• Pooling of departmental resources within the Gauteng Shared Service Centre has enabled the creation of centres of excellence which render specialised advisory and consulting services across the province. Such specialised services have been provided in the fields of labour relations, organisational development, computer auditing, information technology and training. The primary objective is to share knowledge and to deliver standardised, quality service. The Gauteng Provincial Government found it difficult to attract and retain highly skilled staff within its support functions, which were often neglected. This, in turn, had the effect of severely limiting the career prospects for practitioners; and
• Offering employees of the Gauteng Shared Service Centre the opportunity to specialise, to grow professionally and to develop new skills. Career path development is considered to be integral to the organisation's core business mandate.