Developing new forms of partnership with the public services market

What is it about?

This article provides a conceptual framework for understanding the key differences between newly emerging ‘market’ relationships and more traditional forms of procurement by public sector organizations. It highlights how multiple relationships between service clients in the public sector and other stakeholders mean that service clients may often co-produce welfare changes in their communities in ways which professional and commercial providers cannot easily control and may not fully understand. It highlights the very different nature of collaborations which affect single commissioners and contractors (relational contracting), multiple commissioning bodies with a unified procurement policy (partnership procurement) and multiple commissioning bodies with diverse procurement policies empowered by a single purchasing body (distributed commissioning). The article suggests that traditional conceptions of the ‘market’ and of ‘market management’ are now outdated and need to be revised to take into account the potential of collaborative relationships between multiple stakeholders in the public domain.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

This paper examines some of the ways in which the public sector has sought to resolve the tensions between more market-based provision and more ‘public value-added’ from the provision of public services. It starts from the paradox that since the 1980s the UK public sector has been characterized by continued government emphasis on the need for contracting-out of services, but at the same time the growth in contracting-out has remained patchy, sporadic and contested. The key research questions addressed in the paper are, first, what types of market relationships have emerged from this new recognition of the need for joint working between public, private and voluntary sectors and, second, how have these new types of relationships altered the conception of the ‘market’ which faces public sector bodies? The case studies in the paper demonstrate that some local authorities have responded in extremely imaginative ways to the tensions between market-based provision and the search for greater ‘public added value’ and have, in some instances, developed new types of relational contracts and market relationships which are very different from those usually found in private sector markets. In particular, the paper highlights how multiple relationships between service clients in the public sector and other stakeholders mean that service users and other citizens may often co-produce welfare increases in their communities in ways which professional and commercial providers cannot easily control and may not fully understand.

Perspectives