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This article examines contracting‐out in practice in public health and water services in Ghana. Drawing on in‐depth interviews and discussions with knowledgeable officials, complemented by documentary analysis and secondary sources, the article provides insights into some of the institutional constraints and capacity issues that policy‐makers and implementers need to be aware of in seeking to introduce and implement contracting‐out policies in a developing country context. Though contracting‐out in Ghana’s health and water sectors has so far been used in the provision of support services, attempts to broaden its application to include the direct provision of core services raise a number of capacity questions related to regulatory frameworks, enforcement and monitoring mechanisms, development of management information systems and skills for contract management. The capacity and willingness of the private sector to take on direct provision of public services are also crucial.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the extent of, rationales for and outcomes of contracting out in the local road and park sectors in Norway. For understanding the use of contracting out in local governments, it highlights the relevance of the capability perspective in organisational literature as an alternative to the standard efficiency perspective.

The paper draws on four expert interviews and survey data gathered from park and road managers in Norwegian municipalities in 2015.

The study suggests that Norwegian municipalities primarily contract out park and road maintenance services when they do not have the capability to perform these services themselves. Cost concerns are also highlighted but of less importance. Moreover, lack of competition renders the use of contracting out as a potentially costly and less satisfying arrangement for organising service delivery.

While the scope is limited to one country, Norway, future research may benefit from the theoretical perspectives, which have been used.

Policy guidelines should support a flexible use of various arrangements for service provision.

The dominating view among proponents of marketisation in the public sector suggests that contracting out to private contractors is undertaken to enhance economic efficiency compared to keeping service production in-house. This study suggests that this is not always the case – even in “most likely” sectors such as park and road maintenance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent contracting out practices has led to perceived resource cuts in the Swedish park and road sectors.

E-survey sent to managers in park and technical departments in the municipalities. Response rate: 39.7 percent.

Decreased costs were found in 25 percent of the responding road departments, in 20 percent of park departments. 49 percent of the road departments responded “no change” or “increase” (48 percent parks). Findings indicate that tendering practices tend to be most commonly centered in Swedish municipalities situated in the three metropolitan regions (Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö with suburbs), while such practices are not as common in mid-sized and rural municipalities. In addition, contracting out practices correspond with higher per capita budgets, not with smaller.

The research implications are that contracting out tend to occur “where the resources are,” while poorer municipalities either have to contract even if it is more expensive, or, contracting out is combined with other provision models. The limitation of the data are that it based on managers’ perceptions, while hard data have been impossible to map.

The uniform assumption that contracting out saves public resources need to be conditioned with context, and initial resources at hand. Contracting out is one option among several possible strategies, especially for mid-sized and smaller municipalities with small budgets.

The rationalities of local government procurements are bounded by the local market situations and local the budget capacities.

This is the first study of manager’s perceptions in the Swedish park and road contexts.

This paper analyses the deregulation of the municipal audit market in Norway, in particular how organization of the service affected audit costs.

The paper uses multiple regression analysis of administrative as well as survey data of organizational structure and audit costs from 312 municipalities in Norway in 2012.

The introduction of contracting out in the municipal audit market in Norway in 2004 contributed to a reduction in audit fees eight years after the deregulation, compared to the situation four years before the deregulation. The type of audit, mixing inter-municipal co-operation and contracting private auditors, was related to lower costs.

The data does not include audit quality and are restricted to one country.

The municipalities that combined inter-municipal co-operation and contracting a private auditor achieved the lowest costs. Hence, neither pure in-house production (“make”) nor outsourcing (“buy”) but mixing several governance forms (hybrid organization) was related to low costs.

Contracting out is a core element of new public management (NPM) but has often been a contested tool in public policy. This paper provides empirical evidence on the effects of a reform of a professional service, which is relevant for many services in the public sector.

This paper contributes by filling some of the gaps in the public sector accounting and public management reform literature by studying the organization and costs of the municipal audit, specifically by including transaction costs, addressing plural governance forms in addition to pure in-house production, inter-organizational co-operation and market contracting and by studying long-term effects.

Traces the development of contracting out library and information services in the public sector. Looks at perceived benefits of contracting out, and notes some of the key issues and implications for service delivery and staffing. One feature of this is an attempt to follow the progress of the pilot projects nominated by the Department of National Heritage; hence surveys the literature describing these. Concludes that there is still little published guidance for library managers assessing contracting out as an option or actually going through the process, and that what is available relates to local authorities rather than government departments. Ends with a checklist of actions for successful contracting out.

Private provision of public services has always been a factor in local government. In 1736 Benjamin Franklin and a group of civic leaders founded a fire company in Philadelphia because such a service was needed and the city could not provide it. Local municipalities often cannot provide the labor, equipment, and expertise to build roads, to do data processing, or to run hospitals but rather arrange with someone else who has the expertise to perform these tasks. However, during the 1970s rapid inflation, shrinking tax bases, and “no growth” budgets made the public provision of even what is popularly perceived as essential government services seem more like a tight‐rope walk than responsible government.

In recent years, there is a steady increase of studies documenting the emergence of “contracting back-in” in many countries around the world, that is, governments bringing previously contracted services back in-house and once again relying on public employees to deliver these services. Through a survey of the academic discourse on contracting back-in, this manuscript describes the phenomenon of contracting back-in and discusses its implications for “bringing the state back in”.

The manuscript conducts a systematic review of existing literature on contracting back-in with a focus on the scope and rationale of contracting back-in.

The existing literature demonstrates that contracting back-in is often as common as contracting out and can be found in a variety of countries and across different service areas. Existing studies also suggest that contracting back-in is driven by a mix of managerial, political, and environmental factors. The rise of contracting back-in could imply a revival of the administrative state in public governance and a more dynamic, potentially more complicated, system of public service delivery.

The manuscript contributes to the special issue on “bringing the state back in” through the lens of government contracting. It adds a number of implications to the discussion on the emergence of the “new” administrative state and strategies to reinvent it.

Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.

This paper analyzes the perceptions of Bangladeshi civil servants towards public procurement and contracting practices in Bangladesh. The interview method was used in the study to analyze the perceptions of the Bangladeshi civil servants towards public procurement and contract-related issues in Bangladesh. The study reveals that civil servants of Bangladesh have diverse and varying perceptions towards public procurement and contracting practices in Bangladesh, even though they share some commonalities. The results of the survey demonstrate that a majority of the civil servants are in general familiar with public purchasing in Bangladesh. While earlier research depicted that almost all the civil servants in the US public agencies were found quite familiar with contracting and outsourcing, this study shows that less than a moderate percentage of the civil servants of Bangladesh is quite or pretty familiar with contracting and/or outsourcing.

Presents a discussion of the research survey carried out at the Faculty of Technology Management at the Eindhoven University of Technology concerning contractors’ maintenance. First, gives a brief introduction to the emerging contracting out phenomenon in The Netherlands. Then, provides an overview of several contract types that can be offered by contractors and the potential difficulties that have to be solved in establishing such contracts. Complements this with some first‐hand experiences gained in actual situations. Further discusses the importance of taking the initiative by the contractor in developing a contracting out market for maintenance. Finally, makes suggestions with respect to developing in‐depth research in this area.