Collaborative cost-cutting: productive efficiency as an interdependency between public organizations

ABSTRACT

Collaboration between public sector organizations is typically understood as a response to complexity. Agencies collaborate in order to address complex, cross-cutting policy needs that cannot be met individually. However, when organizational size is a constraining factor in public service efficiency, collaboration can also reduce costs by capturing scale economies unavailable to organizations of sub-optimal size. Using organization theory, the article conceptualizes these two different triggers for public sector collaboration, and builds a framework for tracing their wider impact upon the formation, operation, and outcome of inter-agency partnerships. The framework is illustrated, and its implications for future research are explored.

KEYWORDS:

• Efficiency
• organization theory
• shared services

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In compiling this illustration, we analysed internal partnership documentation from the period 2011–2015, including The Strategic Case, Business Case, nine-month report to Hampshire Council Audit Committee; six-month and one-year reports to Hampshire Fire Service; and Note to Cabinet (Oxfordshire County Council). Unless otherwise stated, all quotations in this section are sourced from these documents.

Additional information

Funding

Part of this research was funded by the Leverhulme Trust, Grant No. ECF/2014-069

Notes on contributors

Thomas Elston

Thomas Elston is Associate Professor in Public Administration at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, UK.

Muiris MacCarthaigh

Muiris MacCarthaigh is Senior Lecturer in Politics and Public Administration at the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, Queens University Belfast, UK.

Koen Verhoest

Koen Verhoest is Research Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Antwerp, Belgium.