A study examined pay clauses in public procurement focusing on five European countries (including the United Kingdom). It found 'ample evidence' of the positive impact of pay clauses: requiring all bidders for public contracts to respect locally established standards meant that there was no downward pressure on wages and working conditions, and that there was a level playing field for competition.
Source: Thorsten Schulten, Kristin Alsos, Pete Burgess, and Klaus Pedersen, Pay and Other Social Clauses in European Public Procurement, European Federation of Public Service Unions
Links: Report | EPSU press release
Date: 2012-Dec
A report said that a 'shadow state' was emerging in which a small number of large companies providing outsourced public services were becoming too big or complex to fail, with serious consequences for the economy and communities. Private firms were difficult to hold to account and operated without transparency, providing lower-quality services in their drive to maximize shareholder profits.
Source: Zoe Williams, The Shadow State: A report about outsourcing of public services, Social Enterprise UK
Links: Report | SEUK press release | Public Finance report
Date: 2012-Dec
The coalition government published a progress report on its policy of encouraging a greater role for third sector organizations in the provision of public services. It said that some major schemes, such as the Work Programme, had presented significant difficulties for the sector. At a local level there was a very mixed picture of engagement with the sector, and widespread concern that small and local organizations would lose out.
Source: Making it Easier for Civil Society to Work with the State: Progress update, Cabinet Office
Links: Report | Navca press release
Date: 2012-Dec
A taskforce report examined how to build a society that prevented problems from occurring rather than one that simply coped with the consequences. The global economic crisis had undermined the security of many individuals, families, and communities; and at the same time preventative services – such as legal aid, detached youth work, and open-access play – had been cut back. Demand for expensive acute provision to meet social problems was rising inevitably and inexorably – with unsustainable economic and social costs.
Source: Early Action Task Force, The Deciding Time: Prevent today or pay tomorrow, Community Links
Links: Report | Summary | Community Links press release | NEF blog post
Date: 2012-Nov
A think-tank report examined the idea of the 'relational state'. There was a need for human relationships to be given greater priority as a goal of policy and in the design and operation of public services – challenging a strict adherence to egalitarian goals and state-led agency above all others.
Source: Rick Muir and Graeme Cooke (eds), The Relational State: How recognising the importance of human relationships could revolutionise the role of the state, Institute for Public Policy Research
Links: Report
Date: 2012-Nov
A report examined how central government departments had coped with spending cuts and 'downsizing' under the coalition government. It set out the emerging lessons on leading change successfully, and the challenges that lay ahead with further rounds of cuts. The government would struggle to make more cuts without radical new thinking on ways of working.
Source: James Page, Jonathan Pearson, Briana Jurgeit, and Marc Kidson, Transforming Whitehall Departments: Leading major change in Whitehall departments, Institute for Government
Links: Report | IFG press release
Date: 2012-Nov
A think-tank report examined future prospects for the welfare states in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, focusing on age-related spending. It said that reform should be based on a clear set of principles as follows:
• Reforms needed to start quickly, because early action reduced the overall costs of change and minimized disruption.
• Changes needed not only to restrict the long-run growth of the size of the state but also to reform what the state did.
• No area of government should go untouched: nothing should be 'off limits' and no single change (such as increasing the retirement age or auto-enrolment for defined-contribution pensions) would suffice.
• People had to put aside more money for their own needs and contribute more to public services, including health and care.
• Market-based solutions were required to support greater individual contributions – for example through income smoothing and risk pooling, and releasing the equity built up in assets.
Source: Patrick Nolan, Lauren Thorpe, and Kimberley Trewhitt, Entitlement Reform, Reform
Date: 2012-Nov
A booklet highlighted ways in which social policy related to family life, education, employment, and welfare could have beneficial effects for the overall health of individuals.
Source: Mel Bartley (ed.), Life Gets under Your Skin, UCL Research Department of Epidemiology and Public Health
Links: Booklet | Telegraph report
Date: 2012-Nov
A paper said that fundamental change was required in the relationships between communities, families and individuals, and the state if social well-being were to improve. The capacity for communities, families, and individuals to provide mutual support and self-help was the most convincing way to add to well-being. Effective public services could make a valuable contribution, but experience showed that they were not the solution. The role of the state should be to support the capacity of communities, families, and individuals to enhance well-being, in addition to maintaining an underpinning framework of excellent public services.
Source: John Elvidge, The Enabling State – A Discussion Paper, Carnegie UK Trust
Links: Paper
Date: 2012-Nov
A report said that a new model of 'values-based leadership' needed to be developed across the public sector if the twin objectives of reducing spending and providing more customer-focused services were to be met.
Source: Leading Culture Change: Employee engagement and public service transformation, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development/Public Sector People Managers Association
Links: Report | CIPD press release
Date: 2012-Nov
The coalition government published a digital strategy, setting out how it would redesign its digital services to make them so straightforward and convenient that all those who could use them preferred to do so.
Source: Government Digital Strategy, Cabinet Office
Links: Strategy | Cabinet Office press release | Guardian report
Date: 2012-Nov
A report examined the impact of demographic ageing on the provision of public services. It said that the government should bring together all relevant departments and agencies to deliver a new strategy on the issue. People needed to accept that they would have to work longer to help sustain public service provision. There would also need to be a focus on public service reform, including (for example) increasing public spending on preventative healthcare.
Source: The Impact of Demographic Change on Public Service, International Longevity Centre – UK
Links: Report
Date: 2012-Oct
A report examined the experience of charities in bringing transformation and innovation to public services. It said that there needed to be greater openness and flexibility in commissioning services to capitalize on the contribution from charities. In addition there were new opportunities emerging from social investment and open data that could ease contract risks and make services more accountable to their users, if adopted.
Source: Charlotte Stuffins (ed.), Open Public Services: Experiences from the voluntary sector, National Council for Voluntary Organisations (with 14 other organizations)
Links: Report | NCVO press release | Public Finance report
Date: 2012-Oct
A think-tank report examined some of the main policy challenges that would confront a future Labour government. Separate chapters dealt with economic policy, employment policy, public services, and social care funding.
Source: Graeme Cooke, Patrick Diamond, and Steve Van Riel, Purple Papers: Real Change for Britain, Real Choices for Labour, Progress
Links: Report
Date: 2012-Oct
An article said that it was premature to dismiss the 'Big Society' project as exclusively concerned with expenditure cuts and privatization. The Big Society was also being used to shrink the state and undermine long-standing systems of public service employment relations. Volunteering was being promoted as a more user-centred and cost-effective way of delivering public services. More competition between diverse providers, in conjunction with budget cuts, was placing downward pressure on terms and conditions and encouraging employers to question national pay determination mechanisms.
Source: Stephen Bach, 'Shrinking the state or the Big Society? Public service employment relations in an era of austerity', Industrial Relations Journal, Volume 43 Issue 5
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-Sep
An employers' organization said that savings of £22.6 billion or more could be made by further opening up public service delivery to 'independent' providers. Local authorities called the estimate 'pie in the sky'.
Source: Open Access: Delivering quality and value in our public services, Confederation of British Industry
Links: Report | CBI press release | LGA press release | NCVO press release | Guardian report | Public Finance report
Date: 2012-Sep
A paper challenged the assumption that economies of scale were achieved in the running of public services. It said that local organizations could respond to local needs in a way that 'large, remote and bureaucratic' corporations could not. 'Human scale' operations delivered high-quality services as well as value for money.
Source: Public Services, Civil Society and Diseconomies of Scale, Locality
Links: Paper
Date: 2012-Sep
A think-tank report said that, in the eyes of the public, the state was far more popular and less 'problematic' than conventional political wisdom would suggest. In respect of arguments for or against state spending on public services, people were more concerned with competing notions of entitlement, compassion, and desert than with the size or relative powers of government. It was not the state in itself that mattered, but the values and ethos that state activity could represent.
Source: Natan Doron and Andrew Harrop, No Right Turn: Britain's enduring support for public services, Fabian Society
Date: 2012-Sep
A study identified research evidence on commissioning (or public service purchasing) in education, health, and/or social welfare; and investigated the impact of joint commissioning.
Source: Mark Newman, Mukdarut Bangpan, Naira Kalra, Nicholas Mays, Irene Kwan, and Tony Roberts, Commissioning in Health, Education and Social Care: Models, research bibliography and in-depth review of joint commissioning between health and social care agencies, Report 2007, EPPI-Centre (Institute of Education/University of London)
Date: 2012-Sep
A think-tank report examined the relationship between the state and the individual in the areas of health, community safety, and financial well-being. It looked at how interventions designed to encourage responsibility and maintain risk at the appropriate level might work for each. It included suggestions such as: providing cash top-ups if recipients of the new universal credit attended the gym regularly; and abolishing savings means-testing in the benefits system to reward those who had taken 'responsible' financial decisions in the past.
Source: Max Wind-Cowie, Rebalancing Risk and Responsibility, Demos
Links: Report | Summary | Guardian report
Date: 2012-Sep
A research briefing gave an overview of public attitudes to public services reform. Many people felt that they lacked access to good services in core public service areas, including schools and the National Health Service. People wanted more choice of providers, and this desire was especially strong among poorer and more vulnerable groups of people. To deal with poor-quality services, most people (including a majority of public sector workers) supported the idea of allowing business and charity providers to replace services or to set up new alternatives.
Source: Sean Worth with Colleen Nwaodor, Do the Public Back More Reform of Public Services? An overview of the latest opinion research, Policy Exchange
Links: Briefing | Policy Exchange press release
Date: 2012-Sep
A think-tank report said that the coalition government's plans to digitize public services could prevent 5.4 million older people – over half of all people aged 65 or above – from accessing vital services such as their state pension. The report supported the greater use of the internet to deliver more personalized, cheaper, and speedier public services: but it said that the government needed to pay special attention to older people, who often preferred face-to-face contact when carrying out activities such as paying bills, grocery shopping, or banking.
Source: Sarah Fink, Simple Things, Done Well: Making practical progress on digital engagement and inclusion, Policy Exchange
Links: Report | Policy Exchange press release
Date: 2012-Sep
A think-tank report said that there was strong public opposition to the coalition government's 'open public services' agenda, whereby there was no preference between public and private providers. Most people were suspicious of public services becoming too much like businesses and losing the ethos of the 'public good'. There was also widespread scepticism about the motivations of politicians, with people associating words like 'choice' and 'reform' with decline, chaos, and privatization.
Source: Natan Doron and Andrew Harrop, For the Public Good: How people want their public services to change, Fabian Society
Date: 2012-Aug
A think-tank report examined attempts to create markets in public services in four key areas – welfare-to-work services, social care, healthcare, and local government. It was unclear whether greater choice and competition had improved public services. Market mechanisms seemed to have played some role in improvements in some services over the previous 30 years, while proving less useful in others.
Source: Tom Gash and Theo Roos, Choice and Competition in Public Services: Learning from History, Institute for Government
Links: Report
Date: 2012-Aug
The Cabinet Office published its annual report for 2011-12.
Source: Annual Report and Accounts 2011-12, Cm 56, Cabinet Office, TSO
Links: Report
Date: 2012-Aug
A paper examined the scope of European Union procurement law, focusing on the United Kingdom experience of outsourcing. It said a total review needed to take place at the national and European levels to critically assess the interface between the public and private sectors, and the use of procurement frameworks/contracting within this.
Source: Andy Morton, European Union Public Procurement Law, the Public Sector and Public Service Provision, Briefing Paper 4, European Services Strategy Unit
Links: Paper
>Date: 2012-Jul
A report said that the coalition government's arguments for localizing public sector pay were not supported by the evidence, and that the policy would have a significant negative impact on the economy – of as much as £10 billion per annum.
Source: The Economic Impact of Local and Regional Pay in the Public Sector, Trades Union Congress
Links: Report | Labour Party press release | UNISON press release
Date: 2012-Jul
A paper examined the objectives and scope of new and extended rights in relation to public services and assets under the coalition government (such as new community rights to bid and buy; existing individual rights to buy; and personal budgets). It called for a broader set of rights that included the right to (for example) participate in the design, planning, and delivery of public services.
Source: Dexter Whitfield, The Mutation of Privatisation: A critical assessment of new community and individual rights, Research Report 5, European Services Strategy Unit
Links: Paper
Date: 2012-Jul
An article examined the continuing resilience of the notion of community in social policy-making and wider political commentary. Placing community at the heart of existing welfare provision illuminated a number of tensions in the coalition government's policy-making agenda. The authors highlighted the contradictions between top-down, depoliticized understandings of community and the types of community engagement and participation that were to be found in poor, disadvantaged communities in particular. Such communities were also where the impact of 'austerity' measures were being most keenly felt.
Source: Lynn Hancock, Gerry Mooney, and Sarah Neal, 'Crisis social policy and the resilience of the concept of community', Critical Social Policy, Volume 32 Issue 3
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-Jul
A paper said that the promises of cost savings and better quality from outsourcing public services were 'unproven', based on European comparative research.
Source: Steve Jefferys, Shared Business Services Outsourcing: Progress at work or work in progress?, Working Paper 11, Working Lives Research Institute
Links: Paper
Date: 2012-Jul
A paper examined the implications for public services of an era of public spending restraint. It said that in place of the original Beveridgean compact a 'culture of entitlement' had grown up that 'celebrated rights without responsibility'. People had become accustomed to the state providing services from a tax base that was shrinking relative to the demands made upon it. This situation would have to change in fundamental ways, involving wholesale restructuring of public services.
Source: Nick Seddon, Time for a Plan C? Slow Growth and Public Service Reform, Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce
Links: Paper
Date: 2012-Jun
A think-tank paper examined how co-operative societies could help overcome the environmental, social, and economic problems that neither the private market nor the state had been able to solve. It challenged the view that co-operatives and the state were mutually antagonistic, highlighting examples of successful co-operation that could be adopted within the public sphere.
Source: Robin Murray, Social Innovation and Public Service Reform: The new wave of mutuality, Policy Network
Date: 2012-Jun
A new book examined the central place of the 'responsible individual' in the contemporary remaking of public services. This emphasis on the individual had gone hand in hand with a rise in subtle authoritarianism, which had insinuated itself into the government of the population. Although present throughout the public services, this authoritarianism was most conspicuous in the health and social welfare sectors, such that a kind of 'governance through responsibility' was enforced upon the population.
Source: Brian Brown and Sally Baker, Responsible Citizens: Individuals, health and policy under neoliberalism, Anthem Press
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-Jun
An official taskforce said that the number of public sector mutuals had increased six-fold since 2010, and that they were improving services as predicted. It recommended actions to make mutuals a mainstream option for public service delivery.
Source: Mutuals Taskforce, Public Service Mutuals: The Next Steps, Cabinet Office
Links: Report | Cabinet Office press release | Guardian report | Public Finance report | Third Sector report
Date: 2012-Jun
A think-tank report examined the long-term trends that would shape the health of the public finances over the following two decades and beyond, including the impact of demographic, economic, and social trends on government revenue and expenditure. It called on politicians to start a public debate about the scale of the challenge posed by increasing demand on public services accompanied by restrictions on future tax revenues.
Source: Rick Muir, The Long View: Public services and public spending in 2030, Institute for Public Policy Research
Links: Report | CBI press release | Public Finance report
Date: 2012-Jun
An audit report was published on assurance for major government projects, such as the introduction of large information technology systems. It said that the changes that government had made to the central assurance system for such projects – in particular, the launch of the Major Projects Authority – had resulted in some significant improvements. However, the system was not yet 'built to last'. Processes needed to be formalized, and the Authority, HM Treasury, and departments needed to co-operate more if these improvements were to continue. Transparent reporting of project data would also create a more effective and enduring system.
Source: Assurance for Major Projects, HC 1698 (Session 2010-2012), National Audit Office, TSO
Links: Report | NAO press release | Public Finance report
Date: 2012-May
An article examined how citizen participation in local public services had been conceived and enacted under successive New Labour governments during the period 1997-2010. The emphasis on public participation was central to the ethos of New Labour: this accounted for the persistence of the participation agenda even in the face of scant empirical evidence that specific engagement and empowerment initiatives were successful. Significantly, there was no single New Labour participation narrative. There were instead several distinct strands, drawing variously from the party's received traditions of state welfarism, corporatist central-local relations, municipal socialism, Blairite managerialism, and, lastly, mutual co-operativism.
Source: John Fenwick and Janice McMillan, 'Public participation and public service modernization: learning from New Labor?', International Journal of Public Administration, Volume 35 Issue 6
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-May
A report identified five 'rarely acknowledged' areas for urgent public sector reform. It suggested that the government could improve its financial and business management to:
• Save up to £8.5 billion per year by bringing public sector fraud prevention and detection rates in line with the private sector.
• Save up to £10.2 billion per year by improving cash management in government. This included reducing levels of aged and written-off debt and improving working capital management.
• Reform areas of spending under pressure from demographic change, such as welfare and health, and examine further asset sales, including infrastructure, to achieve budget surpluses in the next parliament.
• Target a public sector productivity growth rate of at least 0.3 per cent in 2012-13 by improving flexibility and accelerating reform of the workforce and capital spending. The government needed to press ahead with reducing the public sector headcount and transferring workers to mutuals: but also to ensure that this was sustainable, with improvements to skills and capability.
Increase the proportion of locally raised council spending year on year, and improve financial management skills at the local level to support the localization of services.
Source: The State of the State 2012, Reform/Deloitte LLP
Links: Report | Deloitte press release | Public Finance report
Date: 2012-May
A report by a committee of MPs called for an end to the routine use of the private finance initiative to pay for public infrastructure, saying that private sector profit rates were sometimes 'difficult to justify'. They said that the PFI model was 'unsustainable and inappropriate'.
Source: Equity Investment in Privately Financed Projects, Eighty-first Report (Session 2010-12), HC 1846, House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | ICAEW press release | Public Finance report
Date: 2012-May
A new book examined key debates concerning public services reform over the previous decade. It provided a detailed and critical analysis of the restructuring of public services, the emergence of more managerially organized public services, and trade union responses to those developments.
Source: Peter Fairbrother (ed.), Managerialism, Public Sector Reform and Industrial Relations: The state at work, Routledge
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-May
A report examined private finance initiative (PFI) deals reached during the period 1996-2010. The first five years had been the most costly for the taxpayer for every pound generated in private investment, and the period 2001-2005 had been the least costly: but costs had started rising again since then, possibly because the financial crisis had raised the cost of private capital. There was little divergence in the cost to the taxpayer between larger and smaller PFI deals.
Source: Performance of PFI 1996-2010: Lessons learned, Association for Consultancy and Engineering
Links: Report | ACE press release | Telegraph report
Date: 2012-May
A new book examined the impacts of liberalization and privatization of public services in Europe on employment, labour relations, and working conditions. It looked at the ways in which liberalization had contributed to increasing private and foreign ownership of public services, the pressure on wages caused by decentralization of labour relations, and the way in which decreasing employment numbers and increasing workloads had improved productivity partly at the cost of service quality.
Source: Christoph Hermann and Jorg Flecker (eds.), Privatization of Public Services: Impacts for Employment, Working Conditions, and Service Quality in Europe, Routledge
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-May
An article examined participatory forums, in which lay citizens or users of public services contributed to the governance of public services. It highlighted both their potential to generate novel outputs that influenced service provision – but also the way in which such forums, and their lack of imposed rules and norms of deliberation, could themselves work to exclude certain participants and discourses.
Source: Graham Martin, 'Public deliberation in action: emotion, inclusion and exclusion in participatory decision making', Critical Social Policy, Volume 32 Issue 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-May
A think-tank report said that the private finance initiative (PFI) should be abolished and replaced with a new model of public sector procurement. PFI had been one of the costliest experiments in public policy-making ever attempted, leading to £200 billion of public debt.
Source: Jesse Norman MP, After PFI, Centre for Policy Studies
Links: Report
Date: 2012-May
A paper examined the recent trend towards re-municipalizing public services in Europe, after many years when privatization, contracting-out, and outsourcing had been the dominant trends. It highlighted some of the key issues for trade unions faced by re-municipalization.
Source: David Hall, Re-Municipalising Municipal Services in Europe, Public Services International Research Unit
Links: Paper
Date: 2012-May
Researchers examined issues involved in decommissioning in public services. Decommissioning was more often prompted by short-term crisis – a sudden change in financial circumstance or in response to poor performance – than by a search for ways to deliver more effective public outcomes. But truly transformational public innovation required creative decommissioning – actively challenging incumbent service models and mindsets, and investing in new approaches. As public resources became increasingly precious, creative decommissioning would become a critical capability for public services.
Source: Laura Bunt and Charlie Leadbeater, The Art of Exit: Decommissioning in public services, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts
Links: Report
Date: 2012-Apr
A new book provided an empirical study of the idea (first advanced by Albert Hirschman) that making it easier for people to opt out of publicly provided services, such as health or education, would reduce 'voice', taking the richest and most articulate consumers away and leading to the deterioration of public services.
Source: Keith Dowding and Peter John, Exits, Voices and Social Investment: Citizens' reaction to public services, Cambridge University Press
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-Apr
A new book examined the effects of liberalization and privatization on employment, labour relations, and working conditions in public services throughout Europe. Liberalization had contributed to increasing private and foreign ownership of public services; the decentralization of labour relations had amplified pressure on wages; and decreasing employment numbers and increasing workloads had improved productivity partly at the cost of service quality.
Source: Christoph Hermann and Jorg Flecker, Privatization of Public Services: Impacts for employment, working conditions, and service quality in Europe, Routledge
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-Apr
A report examined the experiences of a wide range of countries in the use of private finance in public service provision. A chapter on the United Kingdom said that private finance could deliver considerable benefits for the provision of public infrastructure in appropriate conditions: but that it could be difficult to establish with confidence any value for money in the investment appraisal. Making private finance the only option for public procurement could lead to 'rampant strategic misrepresentation' and, hence, the private funding of inappropriate projects with inevitable consequences later on. Private finance could only ever be one of a number of procurement options for public infrastructure.
Source: Graham Winch, Masamitsu Onishi, and Sandra Schmidt (eds.), Taking Stock of PPP and PFI Around the World, Research Report 126, Association of Chartered Certified Accountants
Links: Report | Telegraph report
Date: 2012-Apr
A report examined the impact of a 'relentless' reform agenda on professionals delivering core public services. The drive for higher-quality services came at a time when the funding available to support improvements was being urgently and radically reduced. Public service professionals were being challenged by changes to structure, process, and funding: but managers responsible for delivering rapid change were hampered by 'confused and inconsistent' messages. The report recommended that training for public sector professionals be overhauled, in order to maintain motivation in the wake of major government cuts.
Source: Tony Brown and Ben Higham (with John Elliott and Christine O Hanlon), Professional Culture Conflicts: Change issues in public service delivery, University of East Anglia
Links: Report | UEA press release | Community Care report
Date: 2012-Apr
A series of 73 essays examined likely trends over the next 10 years in government, the economy, and public services – and set out the types of policy responses that would be required.
Source: Nick Seddon (ed.), The Next Ten Years, Reform
Links: Report | Reform press release
Date: 2012-Mar
A report provided a synthesis of academic research from the United Kingdom, United States of America, and Scandinavia since 1980 on the question of whether the middle classes enjoyed advantages over less affluent social groups in relation to public service provision. It showed that there was indeed evidence of middle class advantage, with the evidence most secure with respect to the UK – especially over schooling, health, and land use planning. There was insufficient evidence to identify the scale or import of additional benefit. Middle class advantage accrued as a result of the interplay between the attitudes and activities of service users, service providers, and the broader policy and social context.
Source: Annette Hastings and Peter Matthews, Connectivity and Conflict in Periods of Austerity: What do we know about middle class political activism and its effects on public services?, Connected Communities Programme (Arts and Humanities Research Council)
Links: Report | Summary | Methodology note | Causality note
Date: 2012-Mar
A report examined new ways for European policy-makers and institutions to make social security systems (broadly defined) more sustainable in the face of long-term demographic trends and increased global competition. It investigated ways to achieve short- and long-term financial viability, as well as the key mechanisms that helped to achieve social cohesion, such as greater emphasis on social rights and social dialogue. It considered the main policy issues in sustaining programmes such as healthcare, social assistance and family benefits, pensions, unemployment and work incapacity benefits, and long-term care.
Source: Wouter van Ginneken, Sustaining European Social Security Systems in a Globalised Economy, Council of Europe
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-Mar
The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 was given Royal assent. The Act required public authorities to have regard to economic, social, and environmental well-being when awarding public services contracts.
Source: Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, TSO
Links: Act | Explanatory notes | Guardian report
Date: 2012-Mar
The coalition government publishes a progress report on the implementation of its White Paper (July 2011) on the reform of public services. It set out how a 'right to choose' public services could be enshrined in law; and it announced an independent review to establish how choice could be extended to the most disadvantaged groups in society.
Source: Open Public Services 2012, Cabinet Office
Links: Report | Cabinet Office press release | IOG press release | LGA press release | Public Finance report
Date: 2012-Mar
A new book offered a defence of the concept and practice of public service. It questioned the 'ill-conceived assumptions' behind the endless programmes of reform imposed by successive governments, often on the basis of advice from people with no direct experience of working in the public sector.
Source: Jenny Manson (ed.), Public Service on the Brink, Imprint Academic
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-Mar
A report examined the future role of arms-length bodies (or 'quangos') in public service delivery. It said that quangos could play an important role in public service delivery: but there was a clear need for continuing reform of quangos, and a concern about their democratic accountability.
Source: Laurie Thraves, The Future of Arm's Length Bodies, Local Government Information Unit
Links: Report
Date: 2012-Mar
A think-tank report expressed 'extreme concern' at the number of new private finance initiative (PFI) contracts being tendered during a period of austerity, and at the poor deals made on behalf of future taxpayers. The case for the use of the PFI on economic grounds was 'highly questionable'. Meanwhile, PFI payments threatened to place an unfair and growing liability on future generations.
Source: David Parker, The Private Finance Initiative and Intergenerational Equity, Intergenerational Foundation
Links: Report | Intergenerational Foundation press release | Telegraph report
Date: 2012-Feb
An article examined new public-private 'partnership' forms of privatization and their implications for employment and work, using a government department (National Savings and Investments) as a case study. It looked some of the initiatives introduced and problems encountered – including the creation of a multi-tier workforce, and the insourcing, outsourcing, and (first-ever) offshoring of United Kingdom government work.
Source: Andrew Smith, '"Monday will never be the same again": the transformation of employment and work in a public-private partnership', Work, Employment and Society, Volume 26 Number 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-Feb
A new book examined the shifting balance between state and societal intervention in people's lives. The post-war decades of prosperity and increased public expenditure on the comprehensive provision of public welfare services to all citizens had gone into reverse from the 1970s. The capacity to satisfy the demand for socially protective public services had declined, along with the will to impose the redistributive taxation to pay for them.
Source: James Connelly and Jack Hayward (eds.), The Withering of the Welfare State: Regression, Palgrave Macmillan
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-Feb
A think-tank report said that public spending cuts were 'working' in many areas, leading to genuine change in public services in line with the coalition government's policy goals. But the 'big reverses' lay in those services with protected budgets, notably health. The authors called for real-terms cuts in the National Health Service, schools, and other protected budget areas – along with a full-scale review of the health and education workforces, with a view to 'transforming their flexibility'.
Source: Dale Bassett, Thomas Cawston, Andrew Haldenby, Tara Majumdar, Patrick Nolan, Nick Seddon, Will Tanner, and Kimberley Trewhitt, 2012 Reform Scorecard, Reform
Links: Report | Summary | Public Finance report
Date: 2012-Feb
An article examined the way in which the role of the state had evolved within different aspects of welfare activity since 1979, and the possible impacts of the coalition government's plans for changing that role through reform and fiscal retrenchment. Experience suggested that the coalition government's initial ambitions for radically transforming the overall structure of public-private boundaries might be hard to realize.
Source: John Hills, 'The changing architecture of the UK welfare state', Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Volume 27 Number 4
Links: Abstract
Date: 2012-Feb
An audit report expressed concern that the public sector was paying more than it should for equity investment in public sector infrastructure projects via the private finance initiative.
Source: Equity Investment in Privately Financed Projects, HC 1792 (Session 2010-2012), National Audit Office, TSO
Links: Report | NAO press release | Telegraph report
Date: 2012-Feb
A report by a committee of MPs said that it welcomed the coalition government's announcement that in the spring of 2012 it would publish an outline programme setting out priority areas for cross-Civil Service reform.
Source: Change in Government: The Agenda for Leadership – Further Report, with the government responses to the Committee s Eleventh, Thirteenth and Fifteenth Reports, Eighteenth Report (Session 2010-12), HC 1746, House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report
Notes: MPs report (September 2011)
Date: 2012-Jan
A paper examined the balance between private and public sectors in welfare activity over the period 1979-2007 across five different sectors: education, health, housing, income maintenance and social security, and personal social services. There had been a gradual increase in the proportion of welfare activity that was privately financed, controlled, and delivered.
Source: Daniel Edmiston, The Shifting Balance of Private and Public Welfare Activity in the United Kingdom, 1979 to 2007, CASEpaper 155, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (London School of Economics)
Links: Paper
Date: 2012-Jan
A report by a committee of MPs said that the coalition government had not done enough to address concerns that the private finance initiative was being used to keep the cost of major infrastructure projects off its balance sheet.
Source: Private Finance Initiative: Government, OBR and NAO Responses to the Seventeenth Report from the Committee, Twenty-fifth Report (Session 2010-12), HC 1725, House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | Public Finance report | Telegraph report
Date: 2012-Jan
A new book examined the specific features of place and technological change in the management of public services. It adopted a comparative international approach to the same services in different states, including Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Finland, and the United Kingdom.
Source: Christopher Pollitt, New Perspectives on Public Services: Place and technology, Oxford University Press
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-Jan
A report by a committee of MPs said that the coalition government's information technology procurement strategy was still deficient (following a previous report) in respect of independent benchmarking of contracts, transparency of data, understanding of the risks of legacy systems, and clarity over how to address the information technology skills gap.
Source: Government and IT – 'A Recipe for Rip-Offs': Time for a new approach: Further Report, with the Government Response to the Committee's Twelfth Report, Twentieth Report (Session 2010-12), HC 1724, House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | Cabinet Office press release
Notes: MPs report (July 2011)
Date: 2012-Jan
A new book examined partnership working in public services delivery, focusing on the role of 'boundary spanners' – the agents who were key to making partnerships work effectively.
Source: Paul Williams, Collaboration in Public Policy and Practice: Perspectives on boundary spanners, Policy Press
Links: Summary
Date: 2012-Jan