Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the number of shared services between local authorities and other parts of the public sector; and what guidance his Department gives to local authorities to encourage them to collaborate and share services with others wherever possible.

The Department does not issue guidance or collect data on the number of shared services between local authorities and other parts of the public sector.

However, the Local Government Association undertakes an annual survey of shared services in local government. It estimates that at least 96 per cent of councils across the country currently share services. Since 2012, sharing arrangements such as these have delivered over half a billion pounds of savings across local government.