I have read that health and council jobs in the Borders are at risk through a possible merger of departments to cut costs.
NHS Borders, NHS Lothian, NHS Fife, NHS Tayside and NHS Forth Valley will look at sharing more back-office departments and systems at a meeting later this month.
Possibilities are also being explored with the relevant councils and a report on progress is expected to be published before the end of November.
Mr Egan pointed out that there were five different HR directors and five different but repetitive HR policies across the five health board areas.
"You can maintain the function and quality in the public sector by doing it cheaper, by merging departments," he said.
This is another one of the articles highlighting the desire to save costs by merging.
An inspirtarion for those who advocate merger go to Sutton Council, who have said the creation of a shared Sutton and Merton HR service last October – which resulted in 10 job losses – would allow the function to save £500,000 in the coming financial year.
Of course, it remains to be proven if those costs savings can manifest.
Before the various bodies within the public sector start getting ready for merger it may be worth reflecting on the following.
Most mergers actually from the private sector fail to add value.
For example, eBay is selling 65 per cent of Skype for $1.9 billion after the merger failed.
John Donahoe, eBay's CEO, said, "Skype is a strong standalone business, but it does not have synergies with our e-commerce and online payments business."
In fact, a lack of synergy is one of the reasons why a merger fails.
A 2004 study by Bain & Company found that 70 percent of mergers failed to increase shareholder value. More recently, a 2007 study by Hay Group and the Sorbonne found that more than 90 percent of mergers in Europe fail to reach financial goals.
Since the public sector is looking to the private sector for guidance, I wonder how many human resource departments and managements have a plan for merger management.
Justin Patten, Mediator.