What a waste : outsourcing and how it goes wrong / Andrew Bowman, Ismail Ertürk, Peter Folkman, Julie Froud, Colin Haslam, Sukhdev Johal, Adam Leaver, Michael Moran, Nick Tsitsianis, Karel Williams.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bowman, Andrew, author.

Contributor:

John Lammey Stewart Memorial Library Fund.

Series:

Manchester capitalism

The Manchester capitalism book series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Municipal services--Contracting out.

Social service--Contracting out.

County services--Contracting out.

Contracting out.

Great Britain.

Contracting out--Great Britain.

County services--Contracting out--Great Britain.

County services.

Public contracts--Great Britain.

Public contracts.

Social service--Contracting out--Great Britain.

Social service.

Municipal services--Contracting out--Great Britain.

Municipal services.

Physical Description:

x, 104 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Manchester, UK : Manchester University Press, [2015]

Summary:

Outsourcing - contracting out public services to private business interests - is an unacknowledged revolution in the British economy. The outsourcing revolution has happened quietly but is creating powerful new corporate interests, transforming the organisation of government at all levels, and simultaneously enriching a new business elite and creating numerous fiascos in the delivery of public services. What links the brutal treatment of asylum-seeking detainees, the disciplining of welfare benefit claimants, the huge profits effortlessly earned by the privatised rail companies, and the fiasco of the management of security at the 2012 Olympics? In a word: outsourcing. What a waste documents how outsourcing has penetrated every part of the public sector. It argues that the many service delivery fiascos perpetrated by the outsourcers are not simply the product of individual incompetence, nor the product of the inability of public authorities to write failsafe contracts. Fiascos and profiteering are inherent to the operation of the giant outsourcing conglomerates which have become our new governing institutions. The high returns from mundane contracts do not produce stable firms because the conglomerates' constant need to expand drives them into acquisition and bidding for contracts in areas beyond their competence, leading to recurrent failures. This book, by the renowned research team at the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change in Manchester, is the first to combine 'follow the money' research with accessibility for the engaged citizen, and the first to balance critique with practical suggestions for policy reform. Book jacket.

Contents:

Outsourcing : organised money and disabled government

Outsourcing, blame-shifting and major fiascos

Unjustifiable profit-taking on mundane contracts

Undisciplined outsourcing conglomerates

Outsourcing specialists and the gaming of limited liability.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 94-104).

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the John Lammey Stewart Memorial Library Fund.

ISBN:

0719099536

9780719099533

9780719099526

0719099528

OCLC:

903674891

Publisher Number:

99978163166