Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his department has made an assessment of the potential merits of delivering the Synergy payroll service in-house.

Bringing Business Process Services in-house was considered as part of the 2020/21 delivery options assessment for Synergy, which concluded that maintaining an outsourced model offered the best value for money.

Cabinet Office and Treasury controls on civil service headcount were a key consideration, as full insourcing would have required over 1,600 additional FTEs.

The assessment also reflected the existing outsourced shared services model, the availability of a mature supplier market, and the Strategy’s requirement to separate technology delivery from transaction service delivery.

Synergy is, however, establishing an in-house Shared Services Hub to manage end-to-end service delivery, partner contracts, and continuous improvement.