Many public sector CIOs do not believe that shared services can deliver sufficient cost savings, according to a report released today by analyst company Ovum.

When asked what barriers prevent them from adopting shared services, 49% of CIOs from European public sector organisations said they were concerned that shared services would not save them enough money.

Another concern was loss of control, the survey found, with 39% of European public sector CIOs reporting that they "worry about losing control of their key business operations" by adopting shared services.

Ovum analyst Jessica Hawkins remarked that public sector organisations are right to acknowledge the possible cost of  moving to shared services.

"The move to shared services does involve upheaval and invariably means changing software applications, which in turn can require system and data migration and all the complexity that this entails," she said. Although this also applies to businesses, Hawkins said that the issue is compounded for public sector agencies by the prospect of job losses and "the legal complexity of transferring staff to a shared services model".

Hawkins said she expects adoption of shared services by European public sector organisations to take off in the next two years. "Europe is slightly ahead of Asia-Pacific and North America [in terms of adoption], but the difference is not considerable," she said. "However, this gap does widen when looking ahead to the next two years, when more European bodies will be prepared to make the move."