Varieties of collaboration in public service delivery

Figures & data

Table 1. Collaboration in alternative arrangements for public service delivery.

Arrangement	Common definition	Collaborative potential
Consultative in-house servicedelivery	Direct provision of services by the public agencies but enhanced via participation and dialog with stakeholders, users, and the public	Might involve consensus-oriented decision making and lead to actual injection of citizens’ priorities in the design and delivery of public services
Contracting-out	Reduction of state involvement in the provision of public services through contractual arrangements with, usually, non-governmental organizations, primarily businesses	Might involve participation of multiple actors in negotiations over not just operational and price details, but also over basic service design issues
Commissioning	Public services are designed and delivered by business, civil society or public actors competing on an open market, while government agencies ensure strategic alignment of commissioned action with clients’ expectations and desired policy outcomes	Even though the engagement of non-governmental organizations and individual (or groups of) citizens in the co-management, commissioning and co-production of public service in practice might end up with competition, asymmetric dependence or even co-option, these three service delivery arrangements are ideal-typically based on collaboration. In their most intensive and advocated forms, co-management, commissioning and co-production are characterized by negotiative interaction and joint contribution of multiple stakeholders to provision of public services and their outcomes
Co-management	Civil society organizations are mandated with the production of public services and are doing it in partnership with other public and business organizations
Co-production	In the interaction with employees of organizations that provide services, citizens actively contribute to service they personally receive
Third party certification	Civil society groups and firms (typically in sectors such as forestry, fisheries and agriculture) contribute to quality control by determining standards for goods and service delivery and by monitoring and enforcing, however loosely, production, distribution, and consumption activities	Relationship between business and civil society organizations involved in third party certification is essentially collaborative, as both actors are interdependently yet autonomously engaged in a joint production and enforcement of standards

Table 2. Collaboration on the dimensions and levels of policy and governance capacity.

Resource level Skill dimension	Individual capabilities	Organizational capabilities	System capabilities
Analytical competences	Policy analytical capacity Domain knowledge andanalytical skills as a base for effective negotiation and administration of contracts	Organizational information capacities Alignment of budget and other policy inputs with outputs and outcomes	Knowledge system capacity Institutions and opportunities for knowledge generation, mobilization and use
Managerial competences	Managerial expertisecapacity Motivation and ability ofservice providers to engage in creation of knowledge and quality in partnership with citizens and civil society	Administrative resourcecapacity ‎ Standard operating processes promoting trust, reciprocity, and social capital among partners	Accountability and responsibility system capacity Clear and transparent regulations and adjudicative mechanism ensuring trust and system-level legitimacy of participating actors
Political competences	Required by all collaborative arrangements for public service
	Political acumen‎ capacity Judgment about when and how to include other actors in the service delivery process	Organizational politicalcapacity Framing conditions for joint action and empowering public managers to facilitate collaboration	Political-economic system capacity Government enjoys legitimacy and societal trust

Source: Authors own elaboration based on Howlett and Ramesh (2016), Wu et al. (2010), and Tiernan and Wanna (2006).

Howlett, M., and M. Ramesh. 2016. “Achilles’ Heels of Governance: Critical Capacity Deficits and Their Role in Governance Failures.” Regulation and Governance 10 (4): 301–313. doi: 10.1111/rego.12091.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Wu, X., M. Ramesh, M. Howlett, and S. Fritzen. 2010. The Public Policy Primer: Managing Public Policy. London: Routledge.

 Google Scholar

Tiernan, A., and J. Wanna. 2006. “Competence, Capacity, Capability: Towards Conceptual Clarity in the Discourse of Declining Policy Skills.” Paper presented at the Govnet International Conference, Australian National University. Canberra: ANU.

 Google Scholar