Bringing Contracted Services Back in by Local Governments: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

In recent decades, local governments have contracted out a variety of public services to private for-profit organizations in pursuit of greater efficiency and effectiveness. Yet, involving the private sector in public service delivery may not lead to desired outcomes and meet expectations of various stakeholders, such as service users, community members, and government officials. As a result, governments sometimes opt to internalize the delivery of public services previously contracted out to private providers. Based on interviews with local government officials from New Jersey, located in the Northeastern United States, this study explores which services have been returned to local governments, the rationales behind those decisions, their resulting advantages and disadvantages, and what lessons public officials have learned from those experiences. Major findings of the study that provide new insights into the practice of bringing contracted public services back in government have been summarized in six propositions.

Keywords:

• bringing services back in
• contracting
• local governments

Notes

Notes

1 This percentage might not be accurate, as the ICMA survey was found to contain a high degree of inaccuracies and inconsistencies (Lamothe et al., 2018).

2 The interviewee described “secret shoppers” as follows: “They come in as a client and go to the front desk, and they say: ‘This is what I want to do, and this is what I want to sign up for.’ They test how responsive people are; how quickly they answer questions, whether they are pleasant or not; and whether they are able to address their needs.”

3 In that particular case, the actions of a private contractor led to the death of an animal, creating controversy among the public, and the service was brought back in-house to keep the situation under control.