The NHS White Paper, "Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS"  represents the completion of a devolution journey the NHS has been undertaking for over a decade. Moving all service providers either to Foundation Trust status or to one of a number of social enterprise models, it effectively de-nationalises NHS organisations.

Despite what many people think, employees in public service generally work hard for the benefit of their clients. People at many levels (not just doctors, nurses and teachers) are really dedicated to providing service and improving lives and society.

When the coalition government came to power it was given credit for the protection it offered to health services by ringfencing NHS budgets. The Coalition Government has come under pressure to reverse its pledge to ring-fence health spending in order to protect other services but as yet has not backed down.

The NHS White Paper allows individual employers the freedom to determine pay for their own staff. While this is a relatively small provision in the paper, it has potentially serious implications.

In July 2010, Anthony Dance asks on the HRZone website why poor manager performance was not seen as a key issue for HR practitioners. It's absolutely the case that many organisations see gaps in management capability as a  serious problem.

The Tax Payers Alliance recently criticised the treatment of bonuses by the Home Office, which had set aside 8.6% of its pay bill for such payments but was planning to use only 4.4%.

It is possible the UK is about to witness the decline and fall of the 20th Century's monolithic, centralised state institutions. But trying to read the early actions of the coalition government is difficult and it's too soon to tell how the new world of public service, created by the government's actions, will look.

When organisations refer to their "shared services" projects, they are not all talking about identical solutions. Different experiences and variations in savings will reflect the nature of changes being made and the approach to implementation.

The Guardian's recent stories on privatisation, the opportunities for private health providers and private sector job opportunities for key civil servants should surprise nobody...

Over the last decade, it's become increasingly clear the transactional side of Human Resources and the Payroll service are two sides of the same coin.

The HR team helps managers source and deploy people into effective roles on the right employment terms. The Payroll team implement those terms accurately and in accordance with tax legislation.

Completing the cycle, the Payroll Team provide invaluable workforce and cost information which cab support strategy, planning and policy review.

Both teams help manage the workforce and support the reduction of associated risks while removing burdens from front line management, allowing them to focus on operations and team leadership.

In the article "The Other", SystematicHR described the highly structured environment payroll inhabits and the contrast with the "flexibility" which managers and HR departments so highly value. Working with both teams regularly, Attractor recognises the description and accepts there are elements of truth in the common stereotypes.

There is something else which, until recently at least, distiguished the two departments.

In the UK, organisations have traditionally been happy to outsource payroll transactions to a commercial partner. They recognise the work needs technical skills but can be labour intensive. They consider it safer to pass risks to a specialist body who guarantees compliance and, hopefully, generates economies of scale.

Some perceive the reluctance of organisations to outsource HR as protectionism or empire-building by the management team. HR is often considered more central to business operations, making it less attractive to outsource. Fears often arise over "losing control" of key issues on staff appointments and difficult people management issues. With HR supporting action by senior and line managers, it isn't possible to  transfer "compliance risk" in the same way.