Contracting out public services | COSP

Should public authorities provide public services themselves or pay private entities to provide them? The issue of how to best provide public services remains a fiercely contested debate. The private sector is becoming more and more involved, and the number of contractual agreements between the public and private sectors continues to increase.

This seminar aims to question the State's and the market's roles in providing public services and evaluate the economic appropriateness of choosing a particular organisation or contractual structure. In light of contract theory, participants will be given the tools to help them make optimal organisational choices by considering the specificities of different public services.

This seminar's objective is to provide participants with the scientific bases with which to make decisions about the provision of public services. Academic research has produced lots of new knowledge that has not been considered in practice. The seminar will feature a vigorous dialogue between scientific research and the provision of public services in practice.

The provision of public services should not be made in response to a purely political rationale; there should be some sort of economic reasoning at play that enables actors to recognise the arbitrages at work and consequently improve the management of public affairs.

This seminar for specialists and executives can be combined with two other seminars proposed by IDHEAP to lead to the award of a Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Administrative Practices from the University of Lausanne.

• Identify the different possible means of providing public services along the continuum from fully public to fully private provision;
• Explain the economic reasons and reasoning that should lead a public entity to select one means of provision rather than another;
• Identify and analyse the characteristics of different public services that might assist in selecting the optimal organisational model for them.

•    Professionals working in the public or private sectors who wish to add to their knowledge and understanding of contracting out in those economic domains;
•    Political and administrative leaders;
•    The managers of public entities, parapublic entities or subsidised public entities;
•    Representatives of political parties, interest groups and not-for-profit organisations.
 

• French is the main teaching language for this program
• More information available on the corresponding pages