HM Treasury has explained that departmental buy-in for shared services consists of two distinct commitments. Departments’ Permanent Secretaries first signed up to the Shared Services Strategy, and Permanent Secretaries then must make a separate judgement about whether to go ahead with joining their assigned cluster or not. HM Treasury claimed that it is this second judgement which it is yet to make.57 The Cabinet Office said that the Transformation Board, chaired by the Chief Operating Officer of the Civil Service, is the forum through which Permanent Secretaries’ buy-in to all aspects of shared services is obtained.58 As owner of the strategy, the Cabinet Office maintained that Shared Services is going ahead, and joining is not optional for departments.59 Managing interdependencies