Outsourcing the Delivery of Government Services - Opportunities and Challenges for Government and the Private and Third Sectors

29 April 2010

Whatever the outcome of the General Election, the one certainty is that there will be significant cuts in public sector budgets that will necessitate a radical rethink about the way that government services are delivered. Increasingly, government departments, agencies, non-departmental public bodies and local authorities are likely to look to how their services can be delivered via innovative outsourcing partnerships with the private and third sectors. Meanwhile, the Shareholder Executive, which now has responsibility for delivering the Asset Management Stream of the Operational Efficiency Programme, is exploring the possibility of establishing public service companies that would be vehicles for outsourced services, just like the major private outsourcing companies, except that the public sector would own a big share of them alongside the private sector.

This one day conference will examine which service areas can and should be outsourced; the potential value that the private and third sectors can bring to the running of public services; the different outsourcing models for service delivery that are already being tried out at the central and local government level; and the lessons to be learnt from those initiatives and whether they can be applied elsewhere in government.

Among the more specific topics to be discussed will include:

  • Where are the boundaries between core and non-core government services -   what should/must government deliver itself?
  • Creating new government-owned outsourcing companies
  • What can suppliers do to help government embrace outsourcing?
  • Achieving value for money from outsourcing service delivery - the NAO's perspective
  • The advantages that the private sector can bring to the running of public services and where outsourcing works best
  • The private and voluntary welfare to work contractor model: can this approach be applied elsewhere in government?
  • Outsourcing delivery in the health service - lessons from the last decade
  • Improving the life chances of children
  • The use of social impact bonds for offender rehabilitation services: can the use of these bonds be replicated in other service delivery areas?
  • The role of the voluntary and third sectors in the provision of service delivery
  •  The "do's" and "dont's" of best practice outsourcing


City & Financial Conferences has brought together a speaker line up of exceptional quality from the public, private and third sectors, including three keynote addresses from: Kevin Craven, Chairman of the Business Services Association and Managing Director of Balfour Beatty Workplace, Mark Boyle, Director of the Shareholder Executive, and Keith Davis, Director of the NAO Cross-Government Team.


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