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Wendy desperately asked, "In other words, is it possible for public sector
organisations to REALLY change?"

One context in which public sector organizations really change and really fast
is when they face competition. When government entities face the prospect of
privatization or outsourcing, they respond. In one US city, garbage collection
was divided into three areas and two private firms were awarded two areas and
the government operation was left with one. At the end of each year,
performance is compared and released to the public. No one private company is
allowed to win both private sector bids and if the government sector
performance falls, it will be privatized as well. As expected, costs fell,
performance and responsiveness improved and the government unit REALLY changed
itself.

Australia's road works could easily be put out for bid and responsible private
firms such as Brown & Root could build and maintain the infrastructure. Such
firms do this private sector service for governments in Africa and the Middle
East. Consider a dose of competition to get the lead out.

Prof. John L. Naman

Good discussion about the public sector performance. My problem is when we
expect public sector
companies to behave like the private sector. I wonder, since many of us work
for public
sector organizations (i.e., our universities), do we expect them to operate
like private companies
(i.e., proprietary schools)? We should expect our schools to be more
efficient, but
must consider that the mission and model of the public sector are different
from those of the private sector.

clive muir

In a message dated 2/18/00 1:10:44 AM Pacific Standard Time,
naman@IMAP.PITT.EDU writes:
> Wendy desperately asked, "In other words, is it possible for public sector
> organisations to REALLY change?" One context in which public sector
organizations
> really change and really fast is when they face competition. When
government entities
> face the prospect of privatization or outsourcing, they respond...