Two New Contract Types for Operation of Government-Owned Facilities

With the ongoing emphasis or thrust, if you will, within the Government being placed on contracting out, under 0MB Circular A-7b, the types of contractual instruments employed become more of a focus for our attention than ever before. Consequently, the contracting structure used by the Government in the management of Government-owned, Contractor-operated facilities (GOCO) needs to be re-examined in this light. Objectives to be considered are lowering costs, increasing flexibility, and maintaining ease of transition between the various phases of the contracting process. New contract types must be designed and utilized to meet changing conditions and requirements. Federal Acquisition Regulations need to be revised to accommodate new contracting techniques. The use of the Cost Plus Award Fee contracts with subjective evaluation at GOCO-type facilities needs to be reviewed. The use of Fixed Price contracts will be discussed, and the pros and cons of their use in this environment will be discussed by the author in depth. Two new contract types which the author has devised will then be presented. Future contract types will evolve as needs arise. The first contract type proposed is the Cost Plus Award Fee (Objective) contract. This contract provides for development of objective criteria that are definitive and not subjective in nature. The second type of contract is the Fixed Price Award Incentive contract which lends itself well for application as a management contract in GOCO operations. This contract type provides wider latitude in the management of the operations of a COCO or maintenance-type operation when the volume and type of work cannot be definitively specified during the initial phases of the process. This type of contract precludes the Government from active involvement in many adjustments to the cost/profit/fee base during a contract performance period

Evaluating Performance Contracting as a Tool for Evaluating State-Owned Enterprises in Two Developing Countries: A Look at the Performance Dimensions

This paper is concerned about the performance evaluation aspect of performance contracting (PC), particularly, the performance dimensions used in performance contract system for evaluating the performance of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). The paper draws on evidence from the Ghanaian and Kenyan SOE sectors. The performance indicators under each broad performance dimension of the performance contract system were reviewed. This was achieved using data collected from multiple secondary sources including policy documents, government reports and publications. The findings of the paper revealed a number of insights into the evaluation of performance contracting as a tool for evaluating SOEs. Keywords: performance evaluation system, performance contracting, State-owned enterprises, performance dimensions, Ghana, Keny

Using Strategic Information Systems to Improve Contracted Services and Assess Privatization Options

Government officials are looking to contracting out and privatization as means to create a public sector that works better and costs less. This new approach to public service delivery is evident in the welfare to work reforms of the 1990s, low- and moderate-income housing construction and management, homeless services, economic development and job training, and the charter school movement. Contracted services require a whole new set of skills for government workers, including contract design, negotiation, monitoring, and evaluation. Sophisticated information systems are crucial to performance management and evaluation systems that are essential to effective contract management. This chapter explores the theory and practice of performance measurement and information technology (IT) in the context of outsourcing public service delivery. It discusses the use of government strategic planning and information-based performance management to plan and manage private contractors performing public tasks. While information systems are critical to the management of in-house organizational units, we believe they are even more important in managing the work of contractors

Policy Principles for Social Impact Bonds

SIBs as currently designed are not sustainable for the nonprofit sector unless they include the delivery organization in contract negotiation, program and evaluation design, ensure full cost recovery and include revenue sharing for the nonprofit.In addition, participants in programs need to be treated with respect and good faith. They cannot be harmed by their participation in a SIB program or left without needed supports. Government needs to do more than pay a premium for testing a program model. They need to commit to incorporating successful programs and the participants into their service systems at the end of the SIB. If these design features are present in social impact bonds, this financing method may have a place in the spectrum of program financing

Evaluation under contract: government pressure and the production of policy research

Do governments lean on researchers who evaluate their policies to try to get them to produce politically useful results? Do researchers buckle under such pressure? This article, based on a survey of 205 academics who have recently completed commissioned research for government, looks at the degree to which British government departments seek to produce research that is designed to provide ‘political ammunition’, above all making them ‘look good’ or minimizing criticism of their policies. Looking at different stages in the research process – from deciding which policies to evaluate, shaping the nature and conduct of inquiry, and writing the results – the article finds evidence of government sponsors making significant efforts to produce politically congenial results. For the most part, researchers appear to resist these efforts, though the evidence base (researchers' own accounts of their work) suggests that this conclusion be treated with some caution

Cuba's Economic 'Reforms': Waiting for Fidel on the Eve of the Twenty-First Century.

In this paper we provide a brief summary and evaluation of the main economic changes or 'reforms' undertaken by the Cuban government during the 1990's. The thrust of our argument is that the regime does not seem to be interested in reforms that lead to a transition to a market economy or even in the more limited goal of introducing widespread market mechanisms subservient to the needs of the communist party as in China. Instead, their policies seem directed at generating mechanisms for the appropriation of foreign exchange by members of the nomenclature while keeping most citizens deprived of independent access to wealth creation activities. We develop our argument by looking separately at 'reforms' in two type of markets: those in which transactions are self-enforcing and those which depend on the contract enforcement mechanisms or services usually associated with market augmenting government to enforce transactions.Cuba, Reforms, Transition, Markets, Self-enforcing Transactions, Market Augmenting Government

Policy Analysis in the Health-Services Market: Accounting for Quality and Quantity

We provide a theoretical and empirical framework for evaluating the effects of policy reforms on physician labor supply. We argue that any policy evaluation must account for both the quality and the quantity of services provided. The introduction of quality into the analysis has implications for both the theoretical and empirical analysis of labor supply, and consequently policy evaluation. In particular, endogenous quality choices introduce non-linearities into the budget constraint since the marginal return to an hour of work depends on the quality of services provided. We illustrate by considering a particular example: the recent reform in compensation contracts for specialist physicians in the province of Quebec (Canada). Prior to 1999, most Quebec specialist physicians were paid fee-for-service contracts; they received a piece rate for each clinical service provided. In 1999, the government introduced a mixed remuneration system, under which physicians received a base (half-daily or daily) wage, independent of services provided, and a reduced fee-for-service. Moreover, the government allowed physicians to choose their contract. We derive theoretical results for the effect of the reform on the quantity and quality of services supplied by analyzing "local" prices and virtual income. We propose discretizing the choice set as an empirical approach to policy evaluation in the presence of non-linear budget constraints.Health production, Quality of health services, Discretized models

Policy Analysis in the health-services market: accounting for quality and quantity

We provide a theoretical and empirical framework for evaluating the eects of policy reforms on physician labor supply. We argue that any policy evaluation must account for both the quality and the quantity of services provided. The introduction of quality into the analysis has implications for both the theoretical and empirical analysis of labor supply, and consequently policy evaluation. In particular, endogenous quality choices introduce non- linearities into the budget constraint since the marginal return to an hour of work depends on the quality of services provided. We illustrate by considering a particular example: the recent reform in compensation contracts for specialist physicians in the province of Quebec (Canada). Prior to 1999, most Quebec specialist physicians were paid fee-for-service con- tracts; they received a piece rate for each clinical service provided. In 1999, the government introduced a mixed remuneration system, under which physicians received a base (half-daily or daily) wage, independent of services provided, and a reduced fee-for-service. Moreover, the government allowed physicians to choose their contract. We derive theoretical results for the eect of the reform on the quantity and quality of services supplied by analyzing "local" prices and virtual income. We propose discretizing the choice set as an empirical approach to policy evaluation in the presence of non-linear budget constraints.Health production, Quality of health services, Discretized models

NR4A2 Mutations Can Cause Intellectual Disability and Language Impairment With Persistent Dystonia-Parkinsonism

Dystonia; Parkinson's disease/Parkinsonism; Genetic linkageMalaltia de Parkinson/Parkinsonisme; Vinculació genètica; DistoniaEnfermedad de Parkinson/Parkinsonismo; Enlace genético; DistoníaThis work was supported by the Health Institute Carlos III—General Subdirectorate for Research Evaluation and Promotion (PI16/01575, PI18/01898, PI18/00147, PI19/01576), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (SAF2007-60700), the Ministry of Economy, Innovation, Science and Business of the Government of Andalucía (CVI-02526, CTS-7685), the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of the Government of Andalucía (PI-0459-2018, PE-0210-2018, PE-0186-2019) and by the Valencian Government (PROMETEO/2018/135), within the framework of the National Research and Development Plan co-funded with European Regional Development Funds. Part of the equipment employed in this study was funded by the Valencian Government and co-financed with European Regional Development Funds (OP ERDF of Valencian Community 2014-2020). I. Hinarejos has a PFIS-PhD fellowship (FI19/00072), S. Jesús has a contract “Acción B Clínicos-Investigadores” (Action B Clinicians-Researchers) contract (B-0007-2019) funded by the Ministry of Health and Family of the Government of Andalucía, and D. Macías-García has a Río Hortega contract (CM18/00142) funded by the Health Institute Carlos III

Identifying criteria for evaluating Cloud Services in the Colombian public sector

The Colombian e-government strategy, defined by the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications (MinTIC), advises Colombian public entities to evaluate the possibility of adopting cloud services instead of acquiring and implementing technology infrastructures. In addition, the MinTIC defined the government\u27s reference framework for enterprise architecture, which establishes a set of guidelines to ensure the quality of IT services. Public institutions should comply with these directives even when they contract services with external providers. In this context, this article aims at identifying evaluation criteria to enable Colombian state institutions to assess the convenience of adopting cloud services in compliance with the MinTIC’s guidelines. To this end, we review the research literature in the field and analyze the e-government guidelines to extract evaluation criteria. As a result, 48 criteria were found and classified in six evaluation categories