Winter 2011 issue 13

Editorial

Winter 11 cover (PDF, 38kB)This issue of Research in Public Policy focuses on the coalition government’s Open Public Services White Paper, published in July 2011, which sets out the government’s agenda for public service reform, based on five principles of choice, decentralisation, diversity, fairness and accountability.

The White Paper raises important questions about what is the best way to organise and deliver public services – such as whether and how competition can deliver better public services, what are the potential benefits, risks and barriers to the involvement of private and not-for-profit organisations, how to enable informed consumer choice and how to ensure accountability in a pluralised and fragmented model of public service delivery.

Here we bring together a set of articles from CMPO members and researchers at the London School of Economics, the Social Market Foundation, the Third Sector Research Centre and the Institute for Government, which provide valuable research evidence on these issues.

Helen Simpson and Sarah Smith

Research in Public Policy Winter 2011

 

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Download the complete publication Research in Public Policy: Issue 13 (PDF, 703kB)

Articles

• Delivering better public services (PDF, 78kB)
• Delivering Britain’s public services through ‘quasi-markets’: what we have achieved so far (PDF, 66kB)
• The White Paper, competition and the NHS (PDF, 56kB)
• Open public services: how do the White Paper’s five principles apply to schools? (PDF, 66kB)
• Information, information, information: transparency and open public services (PDF, 90kB)
• Will the Work Programme work? (PDF, 120kB)
• Open public services and the third sector: what’s the evidence? (PDF, 75kB)
• Private delivery of public services: the struggle for legitimacy (PDF, 70kB)
• Open and accountable public services? (PDF, 50kB)
• The challenges of ‘turning Britain’s pyramid of power on its head’ (PDF, 78kB)