Dear All,
Call For Papers: Understanding Contracted-out Public Services in theory and practice
XVII IRSPM Conference 10-12th April 2013, Prague, Czech Republic
********The deadline for papers has been extended to 21st October.*********
Panel chairs: James Rees and Tony Bovaird, University of Birmingham; Jan Pavel, University of Economics Prague, Czech Republic, Juraj Nemec, Matej Bel University Banska Bystrica, Slovakia
Please submit abstracts to: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Under contracting out arrangements, a government retains responsibility for providing a service, but hires private or third sector organisations to produce and/or to deliver it. The theory suggests that provided certain conditions are met contracting out has the potential to improve efficiency without sacrificing quality, compared to direct in-house production by public organizations. So in developed countries, contracting can sometimes improve the performance of the public sector. In transitional countries the situation is much more complicated – as several socio-economic preconditions for successful contracting are not fully met public production may be the better option. These discussions have taken on extra importance in contexts where governments are promoting the use of quasi-markets and increasingly complex arms-length arrangements to deliver ‘human welfare’ public services – a trend which was first evident in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand, but which is slowly becoming of global importance.
In the UK and elsewhere there has been increased support for the commissioning of services employing ‘prime’ contractors or ‘service integrators’ – organisations which manage a supply chain of other providers. A key part of the rationale for contracted out services is to transfer risk away from government, and for risks to be effectively managed in a more market-based context. The intention is that the overall costs of risk would be minimised by ensuring risks were managed by organisations best placed to deal with them and to absorb them into their overall risk portfolio.
Whatever the theoretical justification for some of these approaches, the reality has seemed much less attractive. In most countries there have been high profile provider failures and allegations of fraud or gaming, and despite all the talk of risk transfer, it appears that the public sector has often paid a high price in dealing with the consequences of these crises. The most obvious ‘headline’ risk – reputational risk to government if particular programmes or public services systems fail in part or in entirety – has often appeared not to have been mitigated at all. Demand and technological risks have fallen back on the public sector when external providers have gone bankrupt or have had contracts renegotiated on more favourable terms. Moreover, ‘risk assessment’ and ‘risk management’ amongst public service organisations (on both sides of the contracting relationship) have been accused of focusing more on the minimisation of the risk to which the organisations and their staff are exposed, than to minimisation of the risk of sub-optimal outcomes to service users.
This track is intended to be broad in its scope and heterodox in approach, throwing light on the issues above. The main focus of this panel are papers based on primary or secondary empirical data and evaluating processes and results of externalization of production of public services or internal services in public organizations. Questions that papers might address could include:
* Does externalization decrease costs and/or increase quality?
* What are the main barriers to successful externalization?
* Has risk transfer from the public sector to external providers actually occurred in practice?
* How are risks in arms-length public services different to those in existing approaches to the delivery of public services? Does risk need to be thought about in new ways?
* Are risks to users greater in such systems – does the nature of the delivery mechanism make much difference to risks to users?
* Are the transactions costs of pricing and transferring risk too high in some public services to justify risk transfer as a strategy for increasing efficiency of public services?
* Regional/country specific features influencing results from externalization. How can processes of externalization be improved in different settings?
Theoretical contributions will be welcomed where they shed light on new ways of conceptualising risk in public services but we will privilege theoretical papers which explore how their conceptual frameworks might be operationalised. Case studies of risk regulation and management and of the politics of risk in particular policy or service domains will also be welcomed, but they should be related to specific theoretical and/or conceptual frameworks.
Dr James Rees
Research Fellow
Third Sector Research Centre
University of Birmingham
Park House, 40 Edgbaston Park Road
Edgbaston, Birmingham
B15 2RT
0121 4143673
http://www.tsrc.ac.uk/About/Staff/JamesRees/tabid/784/Default.aspx
twitter: @JamesRees_TSRC
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