Government, Markets, Quasi Markets, and Regulation - Assignment Example

Case-study report: Managing in Mixed economy Name Institution Case-study report: Managing in Mixed economy Case 1: Government, Markets, Quasi Markets, and Regulation 1.0 Introduction The United Kingdom public sector has greatly transformed in the recent past in terms of the management practices being embraced in the public sector. Many of the changes that take place has been as a result of increased competition, and high quality service provision in the private sector. The public sector seems to begin embracing key changes in the management of the public services, where management of public services is being focused on the private sector. The implementation of the new public management practices has sparked off concerns over the impacts that these changes will have to the public sector. This study will look into the issue of public service changes brought about by changes in the UK public sector management practices. 2.0 Evaluation of Case 1 Q1.Why have concerns been raised about the recent changes to public services, with respect to competition? Recent changes in UK public services have been focused on competition in the private sector. This has raised key concerns over the future of public service delivery, which has been different from that of the private sector. The private sector public service is geared towards implementing new management practices that replace the traditional public administration practices of public services. This change has raised a concern, first by the move to expose public services to competition, which became a challenge to the public service delivery. The changes involving exposing public service to competition, in the same way carried in the private sector raises key issues of cost, accessibility, and service to the people. Concerns have been raised on account that exposing public service to competition will degrade the quality of service offered to the public. Concerns have been raised that through exposing public service to competition, then the quality of service will depend on the standards that are in the market. Through exposing public service to competition, then the standard of quality of the service will be left in the hands of the market. This means that competition will drive which provider will offer the services, and the quality of the service will depend on the service provider who has outdone others in the competition. This risks public service quality to get down, especially in the context that the right provider wins in the competition (Moran, 2001). In addition, concerns have been raised that the recent changes to public service delivery practices due to competition in the market will have an impact on the cost and accessibility to public service. The UK Government often offers most of the public services, for the purposes of ensuring equal access to these services by the public. Concerns have been raised over the recent changes in public services, where public service delivery wants to be left in the hands of the competition. Concerns have been raised in relation to the issues of cost of the public services in the future. Exposing public service in the hands of competition means that the costs of delivery will depend on the best bidder. This means that the service providers will offer their services at competitive prices, a strategy that is not employed by the Government. When public service is offered within the framework of competition, then there is a risk that costs of the services may go up, leading to affordability problems (Jung, 2010). The other concern that has been raised in relation to the recent changes to public services, with respect to competition relates to the issues of potential mismanagement of public resources, and service delivery. The implementation of the new public management practices based on competition is argued to be a platform of mismanagement of public resources, by allowing the market to dictate the way public service is handled. Basing public service on the competition in the market will allow public service delivery to be left in the hands of the open markets. This is as opposed to the context where public service is left purely in the hands of the public sector, which is characterized by strict laws and controls on the delivery of these services. Q2.What may be the advantages and disadvantages of a public organisation outsourcing or contracting out most of it’s services? Are there alternatives? The 21st century has seen public organizations considering outsourcing or contracting most of its services from outside. The move to outsource or contract most of the services of a public organization has a number of advantages, and disadvantages. The first advantage of outsourcing for a public organization is that outsourcing brings on board additional  experts from the private sector. Outsourcing provides room for public organizations to bring on board additional experts who deal with the service. Outsourcing will attract many of the service providers interested in the given services, which allows public organizations to have access to the top experts in the market (Ferlie, Lynn & Pollitt, 2005). The second advantage of outsourcing/ contracting out services is the minimal costs as compared to hiring and training staff for the given assignment. Public organizations engage in huge costs in terms of the cost of hiring, and training staff. The option of outsourcing public services will significantly help public organization to minimize the costs that would otherwise have been committed to hiring and training of staff. This is because a the company that has provided the services will cater for the costs of hiring, and training of staff. The costs that was saved in terms of hiring and training can be used to do other purposes. This will lead to increased accountability on the expenditures, which use the tax-payer money (Hughes, 2012). Thirdly, outsourcing/contracting out our services in public organizations have the advantage of having a ‘team-based approach’. Outsourcing is always a team-based approach in dealing with service delivery, because the company that will be offered the tender will come with a refined team. Through the team-based approach, then better outcomes are achieved from service delivery. The objective of public organization is to ensure that best service is provided to the public, at a cost that is affordable. This is exactly what outsourcing does to public organizations, for it is a team based approach to service delivery. The result is that better and affordable services are availed to the public (Flynn, 2012). On the contrary, outsourcing of services in public organizations has a few setbacks. The first challenge is that of trust, where companies that provide the services may fail to deliver to the expected standards. In this context, there is always a challenge of trust, and the risk to failed projects in the event that the company that won the contract fails to deliver to the expected standards of work. This may be a challenge to solve in the public organizations, considering that the funds that will have been lost are sourced from the public kitty. It may lead to many problems since public funds have to be accounted for by the public who generate the money (Richards & Smith, 2002). The second disadvantage of outsourcing is the challenge of unemployment, especially in the context where such a system is introduced. Public organizations employ a large number of people who carry out a number of roles. Outsourcing means that employees who previously carried out the roles that will be outsourced will lose their jobs. This has been a challenge for public organizations, considering that public organizations have employed many people who depend on the jobs they are doing for their living. The challenge of balancing the benefits that will come from outsourcing, and the adverse impacts of outsourcing has been a challenge affecting many of public organizations that look forward to taking on the outsourcing option (Bovaird & Loffler, 2009). Public organizations do not have many alternatives when it comes to the delivery of public services; it is either they provide the service by themselves or outsource service providers to offer the services on their behalf. The challenge has been that both alternatives have key benefits and setbacks. This puts pressure on the leadership of public organizations to make clear choices on choices that would serve best the public, and their interests as an organization (Needham, 2008). Q3.Markets require choice; what issues may this raise, for example in Health care? Indeed, markets require choice if they have to serve the interest of the people. However, the issue of choice brings challenge when it comes to essential services, such as, healthcare. This is because allowing essential services, such as, healthcare in free markets, where the healthcare providers have a choice on the nature of service to offer comes with many challenges. In many of the open markets, the service providers as well as consumers have a choice on things to supply and to consume. This gives the consumers increased freedom to select from the available choices, the choices that best suits their need (Propper, 2010). In healthcare, the issue of choice in the markets raise key issues because this is a sensitive, and essential public service sector. Healthcare deals with the provision of quality and affordable healthcare services to patients, and the people in need. This puts pressure on the services providers to take on a standard approach in terms of quality service required by the public. Full implementation of the issues of choice in the delivery of health care services is a challenge. First, issue of choice brings out the issue of inequality in the society. For instance, if there is free choice for providers to offer healthcare services according to affordability raises a challenge. For instance, if the there is much choice among healthcare insurance service providers to rate their services according to the ability of the payer; this leaves a challenge to the poor who cannot afford the service (Greener, 2008). In addition, free choice in the management of the healthcare services to the public may compromise the quality of health care service delivery in the society. Having a market where healthcare service provision is more liberalized to give the providers a choice on the service to offer, and the consumers a choice on the service to seek may be risky for the people. Such a context may lead to a situation where the market is full of health care malpractices that may affect the health of the public. This is the reason why the issue of choice in the market as related to the delivery of sensitive and essential services, such as, healthcare must be done in a careful manner. Case 2: Governance – Managing partnerships and Networks 1.0 Introduction The recent past has seen the public sector governance take on new approaches to boost its performance. One of the key changes that have been brought up is that of promoting working in partnerships to achieve the objectives stated before. The strategy of working in partnerships has began to take root as a public organization take on the need to work and partner with others Through working in partnerships, major changes and reforms have been realized. Working in partnerships is critical in allowing public organizations to work towards the delivery of its purposes, and duty. This is because of a number of things that working in partnerships does to public sector organizations. The introduction of working in partnership has enabled the public sector organizations to take have a better organizational capacity than before. Through better working in partnership programs, then organizations are in a position to network with other organizations, which leads to improved organizational capacity to deliver services to the public. In this context, working in partnership provides a platform for the organization to developing the effectiveness of the organization. Through working in partnership, then the capacity of an organization to deliver services to the people is increased. 2.0 Evaluation of Case 2 Q1. Why is partnership working considered to be essential now?- what are the political, social and economic reasons? Partnership working is considered as essential now due to a number of political, social, and economic benefits that come with it. First, partnership working is considered as an essential now due to the fact that they lead to a better understanding of the communities need in relation to the services offered by the organization. Partnership working leads to mutual benefit among the partners, through the mutual corporation that is practiced during the season. Through partnership working, the needs of the communities are linked to the capacity of the organization s that provides services. The result of such a working relationship is an improvement of service delivery to the communities, and the public. Secondly, partnership working has also been considered as essential now because it allows the parties that have partnered to develop bigger goals. Through partnership working, then the organizations in partnership to collaborate leading to improve performance in service delivery to the people. The purpose of organizations, especially public service organizations is to boost the quality of service delivery to the people. Through partnership working, organizations are in a position to combine their efforts leading to better service delivery to the people. In other words, it allows the partners working together to share their common goals, and purposes and drive this into a bigger plan (Darlin, Powell & Glendinning, 2004). Thirdly, partnership working is also considered as essential now, for it leads to the creation of synergy, a force that is a need for effective delivery of service to the people. Through partnership working, synergy is developed where the partners will bring together their strengths, and work on their weaknesses. Synergy is an important element to effective service delivery, for it allows for costs to be minimized; while outputs to be maximized. Partnership working promotes the creation of synergy needed for effective delivery of services to the people. Synergy will work best for the partners, as well as, the people served by the organizations. This has made many of the organizations, especially public sector organizations to consider using this working partnership approach to improve the quality of their service to the public. In addition, working in partnerships has become essential now for it allows the partners to take on new approaches to arrive at their objectives. Through partnerships, the different partners get in a position to deliberate on best approaches to achieve their objectives. Through working in partnerships, better methods of service delivery to the public is achieved, by allowing the partners to share information on the best approaches to promote service delivery to the people. Through developing a new method of engagements on the assignments of the partners, then partners do better in reaching out to the serve the people. Public sector organizations always do better when they engage in partnership working, for this engagement often leads to the development of new approaches of work (Rhodes, 1997). Partnership working has also become an essential now, due to the impacts it has on the public, especially when organizations partner with communities on specific assignments. In the event where organizations partner with communities in running a number of activities, then this improves service delivery to the given communities. In many of such contexts, such a partnership often leads to improved communication with the public, by allowing communities to participate in the development of public service programs community leaders get in a position to express the needs that they have, and the best ways that such needs can be fulfilled. Through the partnership between organizations and communities, better programs are often developed leading to effective implementation of these programs. On the same note, partnerships working in the context where public organizations and communities often leads to increased public satisfaction out of the programs developed through the partnerships. This is because through the partnerships, members of the community are in a position to boost their level of participation in the design, and implementation of such programs. Partnership working between organizations and communities allows for increased community participation in the various projects targeting the members of the community. Participation has been proven as a key component of successful project implementation for organizations whose programs target the community (Snyder, 2004). Economically, partnership working provides increased capacity for organizations that partner for benchmarking of services within the partnership framework. This is because through partnership, the partners get to have a chance to try new innovative ideas that boost the outcomes of their work. When many organizations are involved in partnership working, then the output of their work goes up, leading to a better economic state of these organizations, and the wider economy. In other words, the economy gets in a position to grow and expand as new innovative ideas are brought into practice (Sullivan & Skelcher, 2002). Socially, partnership working allows social networks to be developed among the partners. The process of partnership working involves will often lead to the development of social networks, for through collaborating then people/ staff from the parties that have come together are in a position to interact. The partnership working allows people who work through the joint ventures to connect with each other leading to better social relations among the parties. Indeed, through partnership working, people are in a position to interact and exchange through the different activities leading to the development of better social networks among the people. Politically, working partnerships have been embraced in the political areas, where political persons have taken on partnerships to accomplish specific objectives. For instance, politicians have used the ‘working partnership’ approaches in promoting effective service delivery to the communities they serve. Partnership working has made communities be served in a better and effective ways and improved the effectiveness of politicians in serving the communities. Q2. Partnerships are often complex; what difficulties does this cause and how can they be managed successfully? Indeed, partnerships are often complex leading to a number of difficulties that are accompanied to partnership arrangement. The first difficulty that is often accompanied in partnerships is dealing with a contractual agreement issues in the event that the different parties are not contributing to the partnership in equal measure. It is often a difficult task to develop partnership agreements in the event that different partners involved in the partnership are contributing to the partnership, not in equal measure. In such context, it is often a challenge to design an agreement that would suit both parties, and avoid foreseeable conflicts that may results from lack of understanding from either party (Balloch, 2001). This challenge can be managed successfully by taking on a number of strategies that would lead to an understanding of both parties. For instance, each of the partnership may recommend the need to share the returns based on the percentage of inputs pumped into the deal. In addition, another arrangement may involve overlooking the contribution levels that each of the parties has brought into the business, where each party will equally participate in the functioning of the partnership, and in sharing the output from the activities of the partnership. Thirdly, the parties involved in the partnership may opt to use percentages as agreed through a negotiation table on the way of operation of a partnership (Audit Commission, 2006). The second difficulty that is in partnerships, especially in the ones that involve more than two parties is that when one party pulls out, the partnership ceases to exist. This makes it very complex to run a partnership, because of the high risk of the collapse of a partnership in the event that a major partner pulls out of the partnership. This can be a big risk in the event that a major partner in terms of share contribution pulls out of the partnership, and wants a refund of the contribution made to the partnership. A sudden termination of the partnership may harm other partners who are in the partnership who were not ready for the change (Coulson, 2005). This challenge can be managed well through drafting clear policies, and agreements on how to deal with this risk. For instance, the partners may agree on the period of notice that each partner is given to indicate an intention to pull out of the partnership. Such a provision will minimize cases where partners can pull out of the partnership without prior notice. It will boost the preparedness of the partners in dealing with the cases of member pull out. Secondly, this problem can be solved by providing a grace period, where a partner is not allowed to take the shares even after pulling out to allow for preparations for the same to be made (Mackintosh, 1992). On the management of partners, I feel that partnerships can be managed successfully though allowing the processes of management to be inclusive (Miles & Trott, 2011). It would be necessary to promote inclusiveness of partners in taking certain decisions, allowing the different views to be tolerated. In addition, the management process should be very transparent to allow all the parties involved in partnership to understand from time to another all the changes in the partnership, and the progress arrived by the partnership. 3.0 Conclusion On public management practices, it sis clear that UK public service has greatly changed due to the policy change allowing public service to fall in the hands of the competition. Serious concerns have been raised about the recent changes to public services, as regards competition, where public service has been exposed to competition. It is evident that exposure of public service to competition leads to concerns over safety, costs, affordability, and quality of the public service to the public. Concerns have been raised that such changes may water down public service provision by pushing the costs higher, and leaving quality in the hands of the market. On working partnerships and networking, it is evident that working partnerships have become essential in the current times. This comes amidst the move by a number of organizations to engage in working partnerships to boost their performance. The study has made clear that working partnerships work best in serving the community interests by creating synergy out of the partnership leading to better service to the people. The study has also indicated that partnerships are often a complex entity due to the related issues and difficulties that may arise from time to another. It is evident on the need for specific strategies to be employed in addressing the common problems that face partnerships. References Audit Commission (2006). Governing Partnerships, London: Audit Commission Balloch S (2001). Partnership Working: policy and practice. London: Policy Press. Bovaird, T and Loffler, E. (2009) Public Management and Governance, second Edition. London: Routledge Coulson, A (2005). 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London: Universal-Publishers. Young, T. (2010) ‘Citizens, co-producers, customers, clients, captives? A critical review of consumerism and public services’ Public Management Review, Vol. 12 No.3. Read More