Reintegration Failure and Outsourcing Upside: Organisation of Public Transport in Norway

Abstract

After two decades of public sector outsourcing, debates for reintegration of services back into the public sector have emerged. However, so far outsourcing remains prevalent and reintegration is sparsely utilised. An in-depth analysis of the reorganisation of public transport in a Norwegian county, Sør-Trøndelag, provides three key reasons as to why there is an ‘outsourcing upside’. Firstly, existing structures limit available alternatives for legislators, thereby making reintegration of public services back into public hands difficult. Secondly, under certain conditions competitive tendering may enhance political steering and thus make outsourcing politically desirable. Thirdly, the establishment of a quasi-autonomous agency allows the opportunity for economies of scale through cooperation with other counties and cities, thereby improving co-ordination in the public transport system.

Key Words:

• Agencification
• competitive tendering
• EU regulation
• local level
• public transport
• reintegration

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to the following people for their comments on earlier drafts of this article: Jarle Trondal, Morten Øgård, Eva Lieberherr, Ben Geys, three anonymous reviewers and the participants in the workshop ‘The Future of the Regulatory State: Adaptation, Transformation, or Demise?’ held in Oslo on 16 September 2011. I also wish to thank Oddgeir Osland and Frode Longva for our many years of invaluable cooperation and benefiting from their extensive knowledge of the public transport sector. Special thanks also go to the interviewees for their time, making it possible for me to write this article.

Notes

1. ‘Local’ includes the regional level.

2. Regarding such issues in the Netherlands, see Verkeersnet.nl (2010).

3. Christensen and Per Lægreid (2006) call this tendency ‘agencification’.

4. Whilst it may be difficult to steer operators and agencies, ‘regulatory’ steering may also be successful, depending upon, for example, the relationship between the authorities and the operators (Hansson 2013).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Merethe Dotterud Leiren

Merethe Dotterud Leiren is a senior research political scientist at the Institute of Transport Economics, Norway. Her article is one of a series of articles that forms part of her recent PhD at the University of Agder. She is particularly interested in European Union policy-making and how national and local authorities organise and implement policies related to pressures from the European Union.