Date: Wednesday 9th June 2010

Ever since the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering for local authority services in the 1980s, the number of public services delivered by private and voluntary sector partners has been growing. Eager to cut costs, improve delivery and manage risks, both local and central government public sector bodies have turned to contractors for a vast range of services, outsourcing everything from desktop IT to jobseeker support work; call centres to back office functions.

Most recently, external providers have been crucial in developing online services and – with varying degrees of success – in providing major public IT programmes. But the parlous state of the public finances, allied to a fresh political mandate for the coalition government, is set to force a step change in the use of outsourcing. As Sir Andrew Foster, the chairman of the 2020 Public Services Commission, told a recent Civil Service World conference, in the 1980s and 1990s local authorities came under intense pressure from central government to outsource services and improve efficiency; in the years to come, those pressures will be brought to bear on central government public sector bodies. The key issues here for senior civil servants, then, are where and how to proceed with outsourcing in order to realise the government’s objectives.

Download the write-up of the discussion (PDF).

Last updated 694 days ago by Civil Service Live