CONTRACTING FOR PUBLIC SERVICES: A REVIEW OF ANTIPODEAN EXPERIENCE

In this article the evolution of competitive tendering and contracting ( ctc ) policy in Australia and New Zealand is documented and evaluated. Policy implementation at Commonwealth, State and local levels in Australia is examined in some detail. This was followed by a similar analysis of the two levels of government in New Zealand. An overall appraisal of the impact of CTC on efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery is undertaken, based on disaggregated contracting surveys of State and Commonwealth government agencies as well as a wide range of other sources of information. The key findings, which are summarized in tabular form, indicate that the pace of implementation has varied widely across jurisdictions. This variability is largely a function of differences in political orientation of the governments in power, particularly in Australia. Despite these differences, the findings suggest that efficiency gains stemming from the application of ctc are substantial and widespread. Furthermore, quality of service has not, in general, been sacrificed to cost reductions. There is every indication that the current rate of progress of policy implementation is set to continue. In Australia, it may even accelerate with the onset of a national competition policy which will place competitive pressures on providers of public services.     

THE ROLE OF EXTERNAL INSPECTION IN THE PUBLIC SERVICES: THE CASE OF THE UK TRAINING MARKET

We consider two interpretations of the role of external inspection in the public services in the UK in the context of publicly funded, work‐based training programmes for young people. The first is that inspection provides substantive information to buyers concerning training quality, thereby improving efficiency in the ‘training market'. The second is that it provides procedurally oriented reassurance concerning service quality to government and the public, irrespective of substantive quality. Evidence is drawn from the inspection procedures and reports of the Adult Learning Inspectorate between 2001 and 2005. The inspectors rated training providers on various attributes, some clearly procedural, others potentially substantive. We find that while inspectors took both procedural and substantive dimensions of training into account in judging the quality of a provider's services, they attached considerably more weight to procedural than to substantive attributes. In particular, they undervalued the trainee completion rate, despite its potential association with the substantive quality of training and the priority the government attaches to raising it. These results are interpreted as evidence of limited validity in inspection findings, which do little to resolve information asymmetries in the UK training market.     

REFORMING PUBLIC SERVICES IN THE UK: BRINGING IN THE THIRD SECTOR

In the UK, the government continues its project to reform public services. Earlier projects have focused on the modernization of public sector organizations; in the latest round of reform, New Labour has focused on widening choice and the personalization of services. To this end, the government has been working with Third Sector (TS) organizations to expand their role in shaping, commissioning and delivering public services. The government’s vision is predicated on a normative assertion, that, unlike traditional public sector organizations, TS bodies create public value by being more innovative, are inspired by altruistic aims and values, and have greater commitment to their clients. This paper reviews recent policy and questions whether the government’s policy is flawed, contradictory and risks damaging the attributes of the TS admired by New Labour.     

THE LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT FOR UK PUBLIC SERVICES MODERNIZATION: THE CASE OF PATIENT SAFETY AND SERVICE QUALITY

This article assesses the contribution of management of knowledge across organizational and professional boundaries towards improved public services. We empirically investigate the potential for knowledge sharing within the context of the NHS modernization agenda, taking as our focus the current ‘patient safety’ policy agenda. Specifically, we evaluate the introduction of a knowledge management system, namely the National Reporting and Learning System (NRSL) and its impact in the area of operating theatres within a university teaching hospital. We suggest that government policy in this area needs to reflect more upon limits to the management of knowledge and issues of the nature of knowledge, professional cultures and institutional power and politics.     

CHANGE IN THE MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICES

This article identifies the main themes in recent changes in public sector management and shows the extent of the challenge to past organizational assumptions. While recognizing the objectives of the changes could bring benefits if realized, it argues that there are a series of issues that are unresolved. The language of consumerism, the development of government by contracts, the form of performance management and the use of quasi-markets are seen as creating problems. These are seen as deriving from an attempt to apply approaches drawn from the private sector to the public domain. It is argued that they need to be balanced by approaches that recognize the values of the public sector.     

THE MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS: A LITERATURE REVIEW

This article presents a review of the recent literature on change management in public organizations and sets out to explore the extent to which this literature has responded to earlier critiques regarding the lack of (public) contextual factors. The review includes 133 articles published on this topic in the period from 2000 to 2010. The articles are analysed based on the themes of the context, content, process, outcome, and leadership of change. We identified whether the articles referred to different orders of change, as well as their methods and theory employed. Our findings concentrate on the lack of detail on change processes and outcomes and the gap between the common theories used to study change. We propose an agenda for the study of change management in public organizations that focuses on its complex nature by building theoretical bridges and performing more in‐depth empirical and comparative studies on change processes.     

TRANSFORMING PUBLIC SERVICES: CONTRACTING FOR SOCIAL AND HEALTH SERVICES IN THE US

Government contracting with private service organizations has grown rapidly in the United States in the last 25 years. Advocates of contracting hope that it will spur competition among service agencies, lowering costs and improving service quality. In practice, however, contracting departs significantly from this competitive model. Instead, government and private agencies develop long-term relationships which can be considered regimes governed by specific norms and expectations. These regimes profoundly influence the delivery of services and the politics of contracting. This article analyses these regimes in the context of the contested nature of public authority. The article concludes with suggestions for reforming public policy to improve the performance and effectiveness of contracted services.     

THE PUBLIC MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES OF CONTRACTING WITH NONPROFITS for SOCIAL SERVICES

ABSTRACT

States and municipalities increasingly pursue privatization as a way to deliver public goods and services because of two expected outcomes, reduced costs and quality improvements. Several reasons are frequently cited for these anticipated benefits ranging from market competition to increased management flexibility and discretion to fewer rules and regulations. One policy area in which government has privatized many services through contracting with nonprofit organizations is social services. Contracted services are as diverse as providing shelters for the homeless, vocational education and job retraining, domestic violence services, refugee esettlement, child and elder abuse services, and food banks. A proliferation of public administration and nonprofit organizational scholarship has examined a range of issues associated with the government-nonprofit social service contracting relationship, not the least of which are topics related to management, measurement, and accountability. This article examines the public management challenges and implications of contracting with nonprofit organizations for the delivery of social services.     

DECENTRALIZING HEALTH SERVICES IN THE UK: A NEW CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Decentralization is a central plank of current government health policy. However, it is possible to discern both centralist and decentralist movements in the UK. This paper examines existing frameworks of decentralization in relation to identifying whether policy is decentralist or not and identifies a number of problems that limit their value. Key problems relate to the way decentralization is conceptualized and defined. Existing frameworks are also highly contextualized and are therefore of limited value when applied in different contexts. The paper then presents a new framework which, it is argued, provides a more useful way of examining centralization and decentralization by providing a way of categorizing policies and actions and avoids the problems of being contextually constrained. The paper ends with a discussion of how the framework can be applied in a health context and shows how this framework helps avoid the problems found in previous discussions of decentralization.     

BUREAU SHUFFLING? THE REVIEW OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND

The Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement of 1998 resulted in the return of devolved government to Northern Ireland and, with it, a decision by the Executive and Assembly to conduct a radical review of public administration. The review is now reaching its final stages and this paper considers the likely outcomes. It both argues that the parameters of the review will limit its impact and describes the reform proposals as either structural changes or administrative rationalization, both devoid of a wider modernizing approach to improving public services. In Northern Ireland, the on/off nature of devolution could result in ‘one of the major tasks for devolved government’ (according to the Northern Ireland Executive) being implemented by Direct Rule ministers.     

THE DYNAMICS OF PROFESSIONS AND DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ROLES IN PUBLIC SERVICES ORGANIZATIONS: THE CASE OF MODERN MATRONS IN THE ENGLISH NHS

This study contributes to research examining how professional autonomy and hierarchy impacts upon the implementation of policy designed to improve the quality of public services delivery through the introduction of new managerial roles. It is based on an empirical examination of a new role for nurses – modern matrons – who are expected by policy-makers to drive organizational change aimed at tackling health care acquired infections (HCAI) in the National Health Service (NHS) within England. First, we show that the changing role of nurses associated with their ongoing professionalization limits the influence of modern matrons over their own ranks in tackling HCAI. Second, the influence of modern matrons over doctors is limited. Third, government policy itself appears inconsistent in its support for the role of modern matrons. The attempts of modern matrons to tackle HCAI appear more effective where infection control activity is situated in professional practice and where modern matrons integrate aspirations for improved infection control within mainstream audit mechanisms in a health care organization.     

LOCAL INQUIRIES OR PUBLIC HEARINGS: CHANGES IN PUBLIC CONSULTATION OVER THE REDISTRIBUTION OF UK PARLIAMENTARY CONSTITUENCY BOUNDARIES

The UK government undertakes a variety of public consultation procedures during the implementation of a range of policies, some of which involve public hearings with varying formats. In 2011 it proposed a major change to such procedures used in the redistribution of Parliamentary constituency boundaries. Local Inquiries were deemed ‘not fit for purpose’ and eliminated, because they were lengthy and dominated by the political parties seeking electoral gain. This change was opposed in Parliament and an alternative procedure introduced involving Public Hearings which were to be shorter and less conflictual than the Local Inquiries they replaced. The Hearings for the first round of redistributions under the new procedure have now been held. This article assesses whether they were any ‘fitter for purpose’; there was very little participation by the general public and, as before, the proceedings were dominated by the political parties.     

A NEW EPOCH OF INDIVIDUALIZATION? PROBLEMS WITH THE ‘PERSONALIZATION’ OF PUBLIC SECTOR SERVICES

The paper discusses the role of the concept of ‘personalization’ in New Labour policy on the reform of public sector services. The analysis points to the contradictory ways in which the concept has been used in both policy statements, in the work of various authors, and in the think tank Demos, which has been closely associated with the diffusion of the concept. The correlative uncertainties with respect to implementation are discussed and related to the use of ‘epochal’ forms of argument in the justification of this latest instalment of public sector reform in the United Kingdom.     

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND THE PUBLIC SECTOR: SOME ISSUES AND EVIDENCE FROM THE NHS

The 1990s have been marked by a resurgence of interest in questions of corporate governance in both public and private sector settings. The 1990 reorganization of the NHS is taken as an example of a recent attempt to‘reform’arrangements for corporate governance in the public sector based on a board of directors’model. The policy background is reviewed and the salient features of the NHS reorganization outlined. Empirical case study evidence is adduced which enables us to make an assessment of the advantageous and disadvantageous effects of the 1990 reorganization. Some unresolved questions are outlined in the concluding discussion.     

THE ORDER OF QUESTIONS IN A SURVEY ON CITIZEN SATISFACTION WITH PUBLIC SERVICES: LESSONS FROM A SPLIT‐BALLOT EXPERIMENT

Surveys of citizen satisfaction with local public services have become widespread, with the results increasingly used to reorganize services, to allocate budgets, and to hold managers accountable. But evidence from a split‐ballot experiment that we conducted suggests that the order of questions in a citizen survey has important effects on reported satisfaction with specific public services as well as overall citizen satisfaction. Moreover, the correlations of specific service ratings with overall satisfaction, and thus the identification of key drivers of overall satisfaction, also turn out to be highly sensitive to question order. These findings are in line with research on priming and question order effects in the survey methodology literature, but these effects have not been carefully examined before in the context of citizen surveys and public administration research. Policy and management implications of these finding are discussed.