Public Services Outsourcing
Given 35 years of both private and public sector experience, I am very cautious of embracing outsourcing as a panacea for reducing costs and increasing performance in public services. As experience has shown,
when governments outsource public works to the private sector in key areas of infrastructure such as public transport, electricity and other public utilities, the results are almost standard. Performance decreases and costs increase. Basically this is due to the difference in culture - Private enterprises id financially driven to make a profit, whereas, the public sector in the main is a normative based environment whose business is to provide a certain level of service in return for taxes imposed. Once the two areas are mixed, the result generally ends up the same - Reduced services for the public as the private operator plays catch-up in service standards, increased costs, and infrastructure.