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Public Service Provision (public + service_provision)
Selected AbstractsThe Organization of Public Service ProvisionJOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMIC THEORY, Issue 3 2004William Jack This paper addresses the question of how the responsibility for the delivery of social services, including health, education, and welfare programs, should be divided between state and central governments. We combine a random voting model and the incomplete contracts paradigm to formalize the trade-off between central and state responsibility for service delivery, and find that authority should rest with the party for whom the marginal impact of the service on re-election chances is greater. This in turn means that, other things equal, states with lower than average health, education, or welfare status should be given responsibility for service delivery, while authority in states with above average indicators should reside with the central government. Also, we show that there is no presumption that states that are given authority for service delivery should necessarily be granted expanded tax authority. [source] Community-Based Day Services for Adults With Intellectual Disabilities in the United Kingdom: A Review and DiscussionJOURNAL OF POLICY AND PRACTICE IN INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES, Issue 4 2007Murray K. Simpson Abstract, Recent policy statements about services for adults with intellectual disabilities in the UK have pushed for a reoriented day services model. However, there is comparatively little research into new models of day service provision. Drawing on the findings of an evaluation of a "dispersed" or "center-less" service, the author discusses the potential contribution such services might play. These findings showed that services based on accessing mainstream community amenities and facilities, rather than scheduled attendance at special day services centers, are popular with service users, staff, and parents. However, such conclusions can mask longer-term and deeper tensions and problems. One notable feature is a failure to articulate clearly specific objectives for individuals and for the service. This elasticity and multiplicity of aims is what allows different constituent parties to appear to concur in their evaluations when in fact they have altogether different registers of success. These and a number of other questions are raised and need to be addressed before any further expansion of dispersed services is considered, such as their contribution to social inclusion and potential longer-term implications,running out of new activities, boredom, and so forth. More significant is the question of the symbolic role day services centers played as a physical and fiscal commitment to public service provision. There are reasons to suspect that an increased shift toward dispersed services may lead to a declining commitment by local authorities to provide for others than those persons with severe or complex disabilities. [source] Does Public Service Motivation Adapt?KYKLOS INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, Issue 2 2010Yannis Georgellis SUMMARY Theoretical arguments highlight the importance of Public Service Motivation (PSM) in underpinning employment relationships in the public sector, mainly based on the presumption that many aspects of public service provision are non-contractible. Consequently, hiring workers who are public service, or pro-socially, motivated helps to overcome incentive problems and to increase organizational efficiency, thus reducing the need for high-powered incentives. However, such an argument would be undermined should workers' pro-social or intrinsic motivation dissipates rapidly with job tenure. Based on longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), we explore patterns of overall and domain satisfaction measures for workers who made the transition from private to public sector employment. We are particularly interested in finding out whether any possible boost in satisfaction with the nature of the work itself, our proxy for pro-social or Public Service Motivation (PSM), associated with accepting public sector employment dissipates following the transition into public sector employment. Our results reject the hypothesis of a rapid and complete adaptation of PSM back to baseline or pre-transition levels. Interestingly, this is not the case for public to private or for within-sector transitions, which result in a short-lived increase in intrinsic motivation. This is welcome evidence for the advocates of the benefits of having pro-socially or intrinsically motivated people working in the public sector. [source] Growth at the fringe: The influence of political fragmentation in United States metropolitan areas,PAPERS IN REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 4 2003John I. Carruthers Land use governance; land use regulation; political fragmentation; urban sprawl Abstract. Urban sprawl has evolved into an exceptionally complex public policy problem in the United States over the course of recent decades. One factor that has made it particularly difficult to deal with is its relationship to the fragmented structure of the American system of land use governance. Acting on behalf of their residents, local governments enact land use regulations to secure lifestyle preferences for low density, suburban living environments while at the same time ensuring a high quality of public service provision. This article examines the effect of this process on metropolitan spatial structure through a series of econometric models designed to test the following hypothesis: that fragmentation promotes sprawl by increasing the proportion of growth that occurs at the unincorporated urban fringe. The estimation results reveal substantive evidence that municipal fragmentation and several related factors , including special districts, infrastructure investments, and white flight processes , have a significant and enduring effect on the growth of outlying areas. [source] SIMILAR PROBLEMS, DIFFERENT SOLUTIONS: COMPARING REFUSE COLLECTION IN THE NETHERLANDS AND SPAINPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 2 2010GERMĄ BEL Because of differences in institutional arrangements, public service markets, and national traditions regarding government intervention, local public service provision can vary greatly. In this paper we compare the procedures adopted by the local governments of The Netherlands and Spain in arranging for the provision of solid waste collection. We find that Spain faces a problem of consolidation, opting more frequently to implement policies of privatization and cooperation, at the expense of competition. By contrast, The Netherlands, which has larger municipalities on average, resorts somewhat less to privatization and cooperation, and more to competition. Both options,cooperation and competition,have their merits when striving to strike a balance between transaction costs and scale economies. The choices made in organizational reform seem to be related to several factors, among which the nature of the political system and the size of municipalities appear to be relevant. [source] The effectiveness of NGO self-regulation: theory and evidence from AfricaPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & DEVELOPMENT, Issue 2 2008Mary Kay Gugerty Abstract Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) play an increasingly important role in public service provision and policy making in sub-Saharan Africa, stimulating demand for new forms of regulatory oversight. In response, a number of initiatives in NGO self-regulation have emerged. Using cross-national data on 20 African countries, the article shows that self-regulation in Africa falls into three types: national-level guilds, NGO-led clubs and voluntary codes of conduct. Each displays significant weaknesses from a regulatory policy perspective. National guilds have a broad scope, but require high administrative oversight capacity on the part of NGOs. Voluntary clubs have stronger standards but typically have much weaker coverage. Voluntary codes are the most common form of self-regulation, but have the weakest regulatory strength. This article argues that the weakness of current attempts to improve the accountability and regulatory environment of NGOs stems in part from a mismatch between the goals of regulation and the institutional incentives embedded in the structure of most self-regulatory regimes. The article uses the logic of collective action to illustrate the nature of this mismatch and the tradeoffs between the potential breadth and strength of various forms of NGO self-regulation using three detailed case studies. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Demanding Service or Servicing Demand?THE MODERN LAW REVIEW, Issue 2 2008Charities, Regulation, the Policy Process Charities in the Victorian era were characterised by the notions of service and pressure, acting as a shield and a sword for social change. Charities continue to pursue such policies, but do so at the behest of state agendas on public service provision and civic engagement. This article examines the regulatory and policy challenges of the service and pressure dynamic, focusing upon the provision of public services by charities, considering the decision of the Charity Commission in the cases of Trafford and Wigan, and the hurdles faced by charities wishing to pursue a political agenda alongside the state's concern with protecting against terrorism. The article concludes by considering the arbitrary choice made within the regulatory framework between acceptable and unacceptable political conduct and the focus upon good governance in charities and the issues which arise under section 6(3)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998. [source] | |||||||||||||