Outsourcing in China: an exploratory assessment

The increasing demands for public services, growing resource externalisation and decentralisation have driven Chinese governments to seek alternative means of service delivery. This article addresses the largely ignored outsourcing practice in China. Lack of awareness of and research on the widespread outsourcing was a result of the conceptual barriers created by China's economic transition and its choice of incremental reform path. By decomposing national fiscal expenditures, the article finds that from 2002 to 2004, outsourcing accounted for about one‐third of the total governmental services expenditures and demonstrated a trend of continuous growth. Such developments effectively transformed the basic landscape of public service delivery and created significant external dependence. Within just three decades, China has quickly shifted from an omnipotent state to an ‘incomplete’ state. The capacity of the administrative hierarchy has become severely constrained. Nonetheless, the political risks of the macro‐level transformation are largely mitigated at the micro‐level by mechanisms of public–private cooperation. These developments are embedded in informal arrangements that, remarkably, maintain the survival of the current power structure. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Outsourcing in the public services: a comparative analysis of practice,capability and impact

This article analyses thinking and practice concerning privatization and outsourcing in the public services and compares recent trends with the findings of an extensive comparative survey of outsourcing conducted at Cranfield School of Management. Particular attention is paid to the systems and processes being outsourced, their importance to the organization and the impact of outsourcing on public service organizations. The results of the survey suggest that public service managers are more skilful than managers from the private sector at handling the transactional aspects of outsourcing. However, managers from public service organizations, unlike managers from the private sector, assert that outsourcing is damaging the running of public service enterprises. It is concluded that until the political and administrative processes are more closely aligned public service managers will continue to hold a more negative view of outsourcing. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Outsourcing: Uncovering the Complexity of the Decision

ABSTRACT

Outsourcing is a phenomenon that, on the surface, is used to reduce costs and enable an organization to focus on its core competencies. In researching into outsourcing and whether this assumption holds true, this article focuses on public health organizations where outsourcing has been applied to both clinical and non-clinical services. In the cases observed, public sector managers assumed contracting would lower production costs for peripheral services whose outcomes could be easily measured and monitored. Clinical services were not usually outsourced because these core services were more difficult to measure. In implementing contracts for non-core services, decision makers' political and ideological objectives overshadowed management imperatives that are necessary for effective contract design and implementation, leading to poor service outcomes and little cost savings. Choosing the “right” services to contract does guarantee good outcomes such as lower costs and improved labor flexibility, but it is necessary to understand that optimum outcomes are only achievable if the service is clearly non-core, has measurable outcomes, and has low transaction frequency. It is also clear that outsourcing will not remove management problems; it simply adds another layer of complexity on top of managing staff who still provide the service.     

Drivers and Consequences of Citizen Satisfaction: An Application of the American Customer Satisfaction Index Model to New York City

Using data from two telephone surveys of New York City residents conducted during 2000 and 2001, this article employs the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) model to examine the drivers—and behavioral consequences—of overall satisfaction with local government services. While the ACSI model has been widely used to analyze customer satisfaction in the private sector and, more recently, in the federal government, it has not been tried in a local government context. Applying the ACSI model to New York City, we find the perceived quality of public schools and especially the police, as well as road conditions and subway service, are the most salient drivers of satisfaction, but the significance of each service varies across income, race, and geography. For all groups in the city, overall satisfaction drives both trust in local government officials and intentions to move out of the city. Advantages and limitations of using the ACSI model to assess the quality of local government services are discussed.     

Outsourcing Public Service Delivery: Management Responses in Noncompetitive Markets

Capturing the benefits of competition is a key argument for outsourcing public services, yet public service markets often lack sufficient competition. The authors use survey and interview data from U.S. local governments to explore the responses of public managers to noncompetitive markets. This research indicates that competition is weak in most local government markets (fewer than two alternative providers on average across 67 services measured), and that the relationship between competition and contracting choice varies by service type. Public managers respond to suboptimal market competition by intervening with strategies designed to create, sustain, and enhance provider markets. In monopoly service markets, managers are more likely to use intergovernmental contracting, while for‐profit contracting is more common in more competitive service markets. The strategies that public managers employ to build and sustain competition for contracts often require tangible investments of administrative resources that add to the transaction costs of contracting in noncompetitive markets.     

Is ABCM Destined for Success or Failure in the Federal Government?

The days of ballooning federal budgets are over. Today, both the president and Congress continue to strive for a balanced budget, while encouraging federal agencies to improve service delivery of the various programs and entitlement benefits provided to their customers. Stakeholder involvement and public opinion about how agencies run their "businesses" are increasingly scrutinized. Trends such as competition for service delivery through franchizing, privatization, and outsourcing are causing an entirely new way of looking at how support and program services are managed. This article explains how the success or failure of activity-based costing management (ABCM) is dependent upon its ability to link the resolution of these external factors with internal business needs, while providing government managers with a better understanding of how to use ABCM to steer their organizations into the future. We also describe the current and future status of ABCM installations at various federal entities where ABCM was recently introduced and where interviews, conducted a year ago, were updated to describe how ABCM is helping these entities align external factors to internal needs. These federal entities are the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Financial Management Service, and the Veterans Benefits Administration.     

Federalism and suitable housing for the frail elderly: A comparison of policies in Canada and the United States

Abstract

The frail elderly have special multidimensional housing needs beyond affordability, including shelter that is more adaptive to reduced function and offers supportive services. Suitable housing for this population comprises three policy areas—housing, health care, and social services. In a federal system, development and implementation of policies in these areas involves participation of several levels of government and the nongovernmental sector. This paper uses federalism as a conceptual framework to examine and compare these policy areas in Canada and the United States.

In both countries, general national housing policies—relying heavily on the nongovernmental sector and characterized by joint federal‐provincial programs in Canada and by important local government roles and age‐specific programs in the United States‐have benefited the elderly. The effects of such policies on the frail elderly, however, have been less positive because of the general lack of essential human services and, to a lesser degree, health care that enables them to live outside institutions. This is especially true in the United States, where health care policy is fragmented and is dominated by a private insurance system, partial federal financing of health insurance for the elderly, and tense federal‐state relations in financing health care for the poor. Although Canadian policies and programs operate autonomously and more uniformly within a national health plan, neither country has a universal, comprehensive long‐term care system. Geographically diverse patterns of social services, funded by grants to states and provinces and the nonprofit sector, are common to both countries. However, the United States has inadequately funded age‐specific programs and has relied on a growing commercial service provision. Housing outcomes for frail elders are moving in the right direction in both countries; however, Canada seems to be better positioned, largely because of its health care system. As increased decentralization continues to characterize the three policy areas that affect suitable housing for frail elders, the United States can learn from Canada's negotiated federalism approach to more uniform solutions to merging housing and long‐term care.     

Historical Estimates of Total Taxable Resources for U.S. States, 1981-2000

Analysts have historically relied on slate personal income (SPI)as the benchmark for comparing state spending on public goodsand services and levels of state taxes. This occurs despitethe widely acknowledged shortcomings of using SPI as a measureof fiscal capacity, a state's ability to raise revenues fromits own sources. The U.S. Department of the Treasury has developeda more comprehensive measure of fiscal capacity, Total TaxableResources (TTR). Treasury has generated official estimates ofTTR since 1992 and has used two distinct methodologies to doso. The lack of a time series using a single methodology andcurrent estimates of income and production in the United Statesrepresents a significant barrier to the widespread use of TTRfor analytical purposes. This research note generates a timeseries (1981–2000) using Treasury's current methodologyfor estimating TTR and the latest estimates for income andproductionin the United States.     

中国地方政府公共服务合同外包的发展现状——基于二手数据的分析

近年来,合同外包日益成为地方政府提供公共服务的重要机制。本文基于二手数据,在对地方政府公共服务合同外包发展状况(2000~2009)的概括性分析中发现,2000年以来,地方政府公共服务合同外包发展迅猛,其应用的广泛性和深入性均前所未有,并且逐步迈入法制化轨道。由于影响合同外包成效的因素相当复杂,政府显然缺乏相关操作经验,无论是在合同外包的决策当中还是在实施当中,"审慎"是最明智的策略。     

Financing Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness: Use of Interlocal Cost‐Sharing

Before this study, much of the research on interlocal collaboration has focused broadly on interlocal service agreements, of which interlocal cost‐sharing is but one dimension. This study is one of the first to examine the nature of interlocal cost‐sharing agreements for a specific (and critically important) functional area. A mail survey of Florida city and county finance officers finds that the most common interlocal cost‐sharing partnership is between local general purpose governments rather than with local special purpose governments. The strongest incentives for interlocal cost‐sharing are (1) inadequate funding for emergency management in a jurisdiction's capital budget, (2) the perceived inadequacy of federal and/or state homeland security funding, and (3) greater faith in horizontal (local‐to‐local) than vertical (federal‐state‐local) intergovernmental agreements. The research also highlights the importance of asking fiscal condition survey questions in a more functionally specific manner rather than as an “overall fiscal condition” question.     

Equity in Federal Contracting: Examining the Link between Minority Representation and Federal Procurement Decisions

The federal government increasingly relies on nongovernmental organizations for procuring goods and services. This long‐term trend presents a significant challenge for administrators because it risks the egalitarian values of democracy by further distancing administrative action from direct, participative, democratic oversight. The authors put forward a theory of representative bureaucracy as a way to reconcile democracy with the reality of the contemporary policy process in which unelected officials are the principal decision makers. The theory is tested in the domain of federal procurement, specifically within the contract award decisions of 60 federal agencies over three years. The authors argue that increased minority representation in leadership positions results in an increased proportion of federal contracts awarded to small minority‐owned firms.     

Risk and the Outsourcing of Risk Management Services: The Case of Claims Management

Outsourcing of risk management activities is a well-established practice, involving a range of services from actuarial audits to loss control training to risk financing management to claims administration services. Surprisingly, little work has been done to examine the risks associated with outsourcing risk management activities. This article examines the outsourcing of claims management services by reviewing the research on outsourcing risks and by interviewing leading practitioners. In doing so, the authors draw some provisional observations about risks and risk costs associated with outsourcing claims management services—observations that seem generalizable to all risk management outsourcing.     

Devolution and outsourcing of municipal services in Kampala city,Uganda: an early assessment

The late 1980s saw the beginning of wide‐ranging economic and political reforms in Africa, prompted by both external and internal pressures. Demands for political reform pushed for democratisation, including decentralisation of power and resources to lower levels of government. Alongside pressures for democratisation were those for economic liberalisation, including the rolling back of the state characterised by, among other things, reducing its role in service provision. This article looks at aspects of political and economic liberalisation in Uganda, involving devolution and outsourcing of service provision in Kampala city. It focuses on the city's experience with devolution and outsourcing of solid waste management. It shows that, pockets of resistance notwithstanding, the reforms enjoyed widespread popularity and led to many positive changes. In addition, it shows that they begot problems and encountered others that rendered the process of change more problematic than its advocates had anticipated. Its major conclusion is that while devolution and outsourcing are useful tools for improving service delivery, they cannot ensure long‐term success in the absence of financial, technical and managerial capacity on the part of contractors and contracting authorities. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Federal Budgeting After September 11th: A Whole New Ballgame,or Is It Déjà Vu All Over Again?

Federal budgeting has undergone some profound changes since the tragic events of September 11th, 2001. Large surpluses that existed prior to September 11th and were forecast to continue have been replaced by equally large and intractable deficits. The consensus around a macro‐level norm for federal budgeting has completely broken down. In other ways, the federal budget process has not changed at all. Despite the emphasis on defense and homeland security, domestic discretionary spending is still continuing unabated, as it has since the late 1980s. Further, the federal government continues to have chronic difficulty adopting its budget in a timely fashion.     

Reconsidering the Revolution? Australian Public Sector Administration in 2000

While the year 2000 was memorable for public administration in Australia it was notable mainly for the unexpected. Success occurred where risk and failure were predicted. Failure emerged where success had been talked-up. Notable examples include the so-called Y2K problem, management of the Olympic Games, the introduction of the GST, and the outsourcing of government services (especially Information Technology (IT)). Also memorable were important shifts in the policy fields of defence and welfare. The Howard government ended the year in decision-making and largese mode—setting the agenda for the following election year. The events of 2000 invite reconsideration of the merits of the traditional bureaucratic model and those of the emerging post bureaucratic models of service provision.     

Using local longitudinal records to estimate transient and resident homeless populations

Abstract

Many local agencies that provide services to the homeless have only limited data and resources to estimate the extent of need or the size of the local population at risk of requiring the services they provide. Methods exist, however, that are capable of providing reasonable estimates of underlying service populations with minimal record keeping. In this paper one group of such models, first‐capture models, is discussed as a resource‐efficient technique for estimating the underlying population consistently at risk ("residents") and those occasionally at risk ("transients") of requiring agency services.     

Counting homeless persons with surveys of users of services for the homeless

Abstract

Because of their comparative economy, the most commonly used methods for counting the homeless focus on users of shelters, food lines, health clinics for the homeless, and other services for the homeless. This paper argues that surveys restricted to shelter users are of limited usefulness, but that joint surveys of food‐line, shelter, and clinic users include very substantial proportions of the homeless in many communities. Such comprehensive surveys can provide an accurate basis for research on the homeless in communities with reasonably capacious service systems. The reliability of such surveys has grown as service systems for the homeless have improved. Groups of the homeless that tend to be missed in service user surveys include homeless youths on their own as well as substantial portions of the rural homeless population and of the doubled‐up or institutionalized homeless populations. Surveys of homeless persons sleeping in known places “on the streets” can be used to supplement surveys of service users. Research in Colorado suggests that such supplemental surveys of the street population provide a practical basis for comprehensive estimates of the homeless street population.     

Contractualism, Democracy and Ethics

Contractualism, as concept and practice, may be defined in different ways (Yeatman 1995, 1998). In this article I am concerned with contracting out or outsourcing as it is otherwise known. That is, I focus upon the process whereby functions undertaken formerly by government are now performed by private or voluntary organisations in a contractual relationship with public service departments and agencies. Whereas departments and agencies once provided a full panoply of services directly, government purchasers now select providers by tendering competitively for an expanding range of employment, education, health, social welfare and local government services. Contractualism, then, involves the recon-figuation of public service provision to favour quasi-commercial rather than bureaucratic forms.     

Revisiting the Income Tax Effects of Legalizing Same‐Sex Marriages

In this paper we estimate the impacts on income tax collections of legalizing same‐sex marriage. We utilize new individual‐level data sources to estimate the federal income tax consequences of legalizing same‐sex marriages. These data sources also allow us to estimate the impact of legalization on state income tax collections. We find that 23 states would realize a net fiscal benefit from legalization, while 21 states would experience a decline in revenue. The potential (annual) changes in state tax revenue range from negative $29 million in California to positive $16 million in New York. At the federal level, our estimates suggest an overall reduction in revenues, ranging from a potential loss of $187 million to $580 million. Overall, we find that the federal and state impacts are quite modest. We also find that our estimates are only marginally affected by alternative assumptions about how many same‐sex couples will choose to marry and which partner will claim any children for tax deduction purposes.     

Does supported employment work?

Providing employment‐related services, including supported employment through job coaches, has been a priority in federal policy since the enactment of the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act in 1984. We take advantage of a unique panel data set of all clients served by the South Carolina Department of Disabilities and Special Needs between 1999 and 2005 to investigate whether job coaching leads to stable employment in community settings. The data contain information on individual characteristics, such as IQ and the presence of emotional and behavioral problems, that are likely to affect both employment propensity and likelihood of receiving job coaching. Our results show that unobserved individual characteristics and endogeneity strongly bias naive estimates of the effects of job coaching. However, even after correcting for these biases, an economically and statistically significant treatment effect remains. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.