Transparency and the performance of outsourced government services

The Office of the Information Commission Queensland / ANZSOG Occasional Paper series aims to objectively evaluate the available evidence about whether openness can be a far more powerful tool than secrecy in serving the public interest. Where transparency can be used as a tool, the series also identifies the practical application and the lessons learnt so far. Importantly, it seeks to articulate the case for transparency by showing how transparency can be used as a means to the end: effective policy implementation while minimising costs to the taxpayer.  The latest paper in the series is by Richard Mulgan of ANU, and examines transparency and the performance of outsourced government services. It discusses three aspects of outsourcing: value-for-money efficiency, effectiveness of performance, and publicity of performance information, and explores a number of lessons for both government and public sector managers on how to increase the extent of transparency, and thus the quality, of outsourced services

Accountability in a contemporary public sector

This paper, originally given as the Annual Research Lecture to the CPA Congress, Canberra, 16 November 2005, begins by sketching two general trends which have significantly reshaped the accountability landscape over the last thirty years or so. One is an accountability movement which sought to supplement traditional conventions of ministerial responsibility; the other is the managerialist movement, often known as the ‘New Public Management’. It then discusses in greater detail two more specific issues which are the subject of ongoing research, the impact of the new financial reporting framework and that of outsourcing on the accountability of public services

Outsourcing and public service values: The Australian experience

With the increasing use of private organisations to provide public services and the corresponding blurring of boundaries between the public and private sectors, can public servants be held to a distinct code of ethics or should public sector ethical standards be applied to private providers. This question is explored in the context of the Australian Commonwealth which has recently codified a set of public service values in legislation and where agencies are being asked to report on the extent to which they require contractors to comply with public service values. Practice is evolving, with most emphasis on values relating to direct service to the public. Public service values dealing with internal organisation and employment conditions, including the merit principle, are less likely to be extended to private contractors

Accountability issues in the new model of governance

This paper looks at the new approach to the provision of public services in which the functions of planning and funding public services are separated from the provision of such services. This approach is part of the world-wide movement of public sector reform inspired by the neo-liberal critique of the size of the public sector and the quality of government services. While governments and their agencies remain the main funders or purchasers of certain essential services (as they must if the services are to count as ‘public’ services), they do not have to deliver the services themselves. Instead, they increasingly rely on private sector providers, whether from the for-profit, commercial sector or from the nonprofit or ‘community’ sector. A large number of activities are now outsourced, ranging from cleaning and rubbish collection to the provision of policy advice and personnel services

The Moran Report: where have all the ministers gone?

The relationship between ministers and public servants has been a longstanding topic among students of Australian public administration. Recent debate has centred on issues of supposed politicisation and excessive responsiveness in the APS, caused, in part, by the weakened tenure of department heads (secretaries). The recent Moran report endorses changes to the appointment processes for secretaries which are presumably designed to strengthen secretaries' independence from their political masters, but it does not refer specifically to the relationship with ministers. The report also adopts a view of citizen-centred service and strategic leadership that appears to marginalise ministers. Its approach to public sector leadership is taken from international management theory which works well in a business context and in the US government system but is less well-suited to Westminster-style systems

Public sector reform in New Zealand - issues of public accountability

The new Zealand public reform process of the late 1980s and early 1990s was notable for its attempt to clarify public accountability through the specification of outputs, contractual agreements and the disaggregation of government departments into smaller, more sharply focused agencies. While the reforms achieved managerial improvements, the accountability regime was less successful because of the difficulties of specification and the continuing robustness of ministerial responsibility in the face of attempts to limit the political control and accountability

Democracy in Retreat? Assessing New Zealand's Political Experiments

This, the first Annual Stout Research Centre Lecture, was given in the Hunter Council Chamber of Victoria University of Wellington on 30 September 1998

Government accountability for outsourced services

The effect of outsourcing on government accountability for public services continues to be contested. Analysts point to an accountability deficit while governments insist that accountability is retained (and indeed improved). The existence of an accountability deficit is confirmed, using examples from the Commonwealth Job Network. The government claim, that accountability remains, is best interpreted as rhetorical, as a refusal to shift blame to private contractors, even though some channels of accountability may be weakened. The claim can be seen as evidence of an increasing incorporation of private contractors into the overall structure of government

Truth in government and the politicisation of public service advice

Recent controversies, eg over intelligence in Iraq, have raised problems about the politicisation of official advice, particularly the supposedly factual or objective elements of advice. Objectivity is a contested value and the lines are often hard to draw between bare fact, spin and misrepresentation. Public servants are held to higher standards of objectivity than politicians, a fact on which politicians trade when they seek to attribute assessments of evidence to their officials. The growing openness of government documentation is placing pressure on departmental officials who wish to be both loyal to their political masters and honest in their factual assessments. These issues are discussed with reference to recent Australian experience (and also with reference to the UK Hutton inquiry)

The accountability of community sector agencies: a comparative framework

Accountability in community sector organisations is analysed in comparison with the public and private for-profit sectors, according to a number of variables: who is accountable (collective and individual); for what they are accountable (legal compliance and financial reporting, general performance, treatment of individual clients); and to whom they are accountable (the public, ‘owners’, and ‘clients’). Accountability of individual members within organisations is also explored. ‘Accountability’ to personal values is misleadingly so named. The community sector has significantly less accountability