ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the learnings from the international evidence on privatization and on the policy implications of these. Human services, information technology outsourcing, refuse collection, history, and politics have something to teach people to get the best value balance from privatizing public sector services. The chapter looks at the question of a learning philosophy, and contrasts this against other philosophies operating inside reforming public agencies. It examines the broad meta-analytic findings from work on contracting out services and the policy implications of these to public sector services as a whole. The chapter explores the practices of private companies as well and also focuses on the meta-analytic findings of enterprise sales. It investigates some of the policy implications and suggests tentative directions for future privatization reforms. The theories underpin the thrust towards privatization, and it would be a sensible part of learning to discuss the extent to which the predictions of these theories appear to have been met, in retrospect.