Abstract
The introduction of competitive tendering is part of the approach of those who look to the market to provide new ways of delivering local authority services. In theory it would be possible to have competitive tendering for almost every service that the local authority provides, from the collection of the community charge to the provision of education.1
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Notes and references
See two pamphlets produced by the Conservative Party think-tank, the Centre for Policy Studies: Nicholas Ridley, The Local Right (1988), and
S. Lawlor, Away with LEAs (1988).
For a study of the development of competitive tendering, see K. Ascher, The Politics of Privatisation: Contracting Out Public Services (Macmillan, 1987).
M. Forsyth, Reservicing Britain (Adam Smith Institute, 1980), and Reservicing Health (Adam Smith Institute, 1982).
See Institute of Personnel Management and Incomes Data Services Public Sector Unit, Competitive Tendering in the Public Service (1986) pp. 13–14.
HM Treasury, Using Private Enterprise in Government: Report of a Multi-Departmental Review of Competitive Tendering and Contracting for Services in Government Departments (HMSO, 1986) p. 15.
HM Treasury, Using Private Enterprise in Government: Report of a Multi-Department Review of Competitive Tendering and Contracting-out for Services in Government Departments (HMSO, 1986) p. 34.
P. Dunleavy, ‘Explaining the Privatisation Boom: Public Choice versus Radical Approaches’, Public Administration, 64 (Spring 1986) pp. 13–34; and P. Dunleavy, ‘Budgets, Bureaucrats and the Growth of the State’, British Journal of Political Science, vol. 15 (1985).
HM Treasury, Using Private Enterprise in Government (HMSO, 1986).
National Audit Office, Competitive Tendering for Support Services in the National Health Services (HMSO, 1987).
Department of the Environment, Competition in the Provision of Local Authority Services (1985).
Department of the Environment, Education Reform Act: Local Management of Schools, Circular 7/88 (September 1988).
Audit Commission, Competitiveness and Contracting Out of Local Authorities’ Services, Occasional Paper 3 (HMSO, 1987) p. 2.
Audit Commission, Securing Further Improvements in Refuse Collection (HMSO, 1984).
The major text on the theory of contestable markets is W. J. Baumol, J. Panzer and R. Willig, Contestable Markets (New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982). For a more accessible discussion, see G. Davies and J. Davies, ‘The Revolution in Monopoly Theory’, Lloyd’s Bank Review, July 1984.
O. E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies (New York, Free Press, 1975), and The Economic Institutions of Capitalism (New York, Free Press, 1985).
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© 1989 Kieron Walsh
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Walsh, K. (1989). Competition and Service in Local Government. In: Stewart, J., Stoker, G. (eds) The Future of Local Government. Government Beyond the Centre. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20179-2_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20179-2_3
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