The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is hoping to save over £100 million through a new shared services system, according to Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke.

The news comes following previous criticism of the MoJ’s £14 million per annum spend on implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, a huge figure compared to the Department of Health (DH), that declared a spend of only £1.4 million per year on ERP.

The MoJ’s comparatively high spend is borne out of having three separate ERP systems from the prison, probation and court agencies. The three systems are set to be replaced in 2013 by a single shared service and the move is expected to save £102 million over ten years in costs.

However, the introduction of the new system is also expected to make huge ‘real’ savings in efficiencies. Clarke said “The new solution will deliver significant savings of £40m per annum through increased efficiency, reduced systems maintenance and support and improved management information. These benefits are quoted excluding any sharing of our platform by other departments and will increase should this occur.”