Public service spin-outs in the UK: towards a theoretical understanding of the spin-out process

Since the election of the Labour government in 1997 and its vision of the ‘Third Way’, the UK government has been keen to support social enterprise and to utilise the third sector in welfare delivery. Over the past few years the policy environment in the UK has sought to encourage public sector workers to ‘spin-out’ the services that they deliver into social enterprises. The research reported in this paper draws on semi-structured interviews with eleven representatives across four local authorities (LA) in the UK that are spinning out a public service into a social enterprise. The services being spun out operate across four different sectors, which allows the research to identify the common experiences and barriers in spinning out. The analysis is underpinned by a theoretical model of public/third sector collaboration by Takahashi and Smutny’s (2002), later adapted by Cornforth et al (2013). We present an alternative version of this framework based on public sector spin outs. In doing so, the research identified that there are significant barriers facing public services that seek to spin-out as social enterprises and the challenges that this brings to LAs in relation to managing the process. Issues around the sustainability of the ‘business case’ of the spin-outs proved to be the main problem, along with the difficulties of maintaining service provision during the transition phas

Public service mutuals: partnerships, collaboration and service-user outcomes

The provision of public services in England has undergone numerous reforms and a process of marketisation over the last few decades. This marketisation of public services has been led by a desire to create more cost-efficient services that are also responsive to service-user’s needs and is being driven by government through funding and legislation. In doing so, the government have encouraged the transfer of Local Authority staff into new provider and employee-owned mutual organisations (also known as ‘spin-outs’). This paper builds upon prior research that developed a theoretical overview of organisational change in the spin-out process, which was grounded in both policy-formulation and partnership theory. The research reported in this paper refines and develops this model, focusing in particular on the ‘outcome’ phase of the spin-out process. It draws on semi-structured interviews with senior managers at four spin-out organisations in order to develop a deeper theoretical understanding of what the outcomes are for spin-out staff and their service-users. In addition, it draws on survey data gathered from 66 spin-outs that allows the research to refine the partnership model by highlighting the differing importance of partners at different periods of the spin-out process. The research is ongoing but early analysis of the data reveals that service management and local authority senior managers and elected officials are the main arbiters of power at the start of the spin-out process, but that this importance reduces over time as the spin-out becomes more independent and service staff and users develop more strategic input. The data also suggests that outcomes for service beneficiaries improve following the spin-out process. The results are discussed in relation to our model of ‘organisational change in the spin-out process’ and the prior literature on partnerships, collaborations and policy-formulation

The effect of blade aerodynamic modelling on the prediction of high-frequency rotor airloads

Interactions between the blades and vortical structures within the wake of a helicopter rotor are a significant source of impulsive loading and noise, particularly in descending flight. Brown's Vorticity Transport Model has been used to investigate the influence of the fidelity of the local blade aerodynamic model on the accuracy with which the high-frequency airloads associated with blade-vortex interactions can be predicted. The Vorticity Transport Model yields a very accurate representation of the structure of the wake, and allows significant flexibility in the way that the blade loading, and hence the source of vorticity into the wake, can be represented. Two models for the local blade aerodynamics are compared. The first is a simple lifting-line model and the second is a somewhat more sophisticated lifting-chord model based on unsteady thin aerofoil theory. A marked improvement in accuracy of the predicted high-frequency airloads of the HART II rotor is obtained when the lifting-chord model for the blade aerodynamics is used instead of the lifting-line type approach. Errors in the amplitude and phase of the loading peaks are reduced and the quality of the prediction is affected to a lesser extent by the computational resolution of the wake. Indeed, the lifting-line model increasingly overpredicts the amplitude of the lift response to blade-vortex interactions as the computational grid is refined, exposing clearly the fundamental deficiencies in this commonly-used approach particularly when modelling the aerodynamic response of the blade to interactions with vortices that are much smaller than its chord. In comparison, the airloads that are predicted using the lifting-chord model are relatively insensitive to the resolution of the computation, and there are fundamental reasons to believe that properly converged numerical solutions may be attainable using this approach

Measuring International Inequality Aversion. WP254. September 2008

I measure the rate of aversion to inequality in consumption as expressed in the development aid given by rich countries to poor ones between 1965 and 2005. Over time, OECD countries have become less concerned about international inequity. Even for a fairly leaky bucket, the consumption rate of inequity aversion is less than the rate of risk aversion, which implies that the pure rate of inequity aversion is negative. That is, rich countries would prefer to see greater inequality between rich and poor countries

Towards the estimation of the economic value of the outputs of Scottish higher education institutions : Next Steps Summary Report

This paper represents a summary of the 'Next Steps Project' which piloted the practical application of a new methodological approach applying welfare economic principles to estimate the value of non-market outputs of higher education institutions. 3 areas of non-market activity of Scottish higher education institutions were studied, namely community engagement, cultural outreach and public policy advisory activity. The aim of the study was to use real world higher education data to test the new methodological framework's potential to identify areas of high value and where metrics could be devised to support public resource allocation decisions

The impact of higher education institutions on the UK economy

This study presents an up-to-date analysis of the impact of UK higher education institutions on the economy of the United Kingdom during the academic and financial year 1999/2000. It examines the role of higher education as a conventional industry and the economic activity generated in the UK as a result of higher education activity.The UK higher education institutions (HEIs) included in this study are the 170 institutions returned to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) in the academic and financial year 1999/2000. The higher education sector is defined as comprising the UK HEIs plus all overseas students and overseas visitors to UK HEIs in the study year.Key economic aspects of UK higher education institutions, in terms of income, expenditure and employment, are examined together with the secondary or 'knock-on' effects of UKHEI activity and that of the expenditure of overseas students and overseas visitors attracted to the UK by HEIs. The study additionally highlights the skills profile of employment generated by UK HEIs and by overseas student and visitor expenditure. The overall impact of the higher education sector on the economy was estimated using aspecially constructed type 11 UK input-output model, with data derived from the 1998 UK input-output tables together with 1998 Labour Force Survey data

Defining and identifying the knowledge economy in Scotland: a regional perspective on a global phenomenon

The development and growth of a knowledge economy has become a key policy aim forgovernments in all advanced economies. This is based on recognition that technologicalchange, the swift growth of global communications, and the ease of mobility of capital across national borders has dramatically changed the patterns of international trade and investment. The economic fate of individual nations is now inseparably integrated into the ebb and flow of the global economy. When companies can quickly move capital to those geographical locations which offer the best return, a country's long term prosperity is now heavily dependent on its abilityto retain the essential factors of production that are least mobile. This has led to apremium being placed on the knowledge and skills embodied in a country's labourforce, as it has become a widely accepted view that a country which possesses a high level of knowledge and skills in its workforce will have a competitive advantage overothers with a lower domestic skill base. Knowledge and skills are thought to be thebasis for the development of a knowledge economy

Antisymmetric tensor contribution to the muon g-2

We investigate the Kalb-Ramond antisymmetric tensor field as solution to the muon $g-2$ problem. In particular we calculate the lowest-order Kalb-Ramond contribution to the muon anomalous magnetic moment and find that we can fit the new experimental value for the anomaly by adjusting the coupling without affecting the electron anomalous magnetic moment results.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur