Privatization and the Contracting-Out of Public Services

Catalog description

Governments, through elected officials, make decisions concerning which services should be provided by the public and the private sectors. This course provides students with both the economic and social basis for making judgments about the potential effectiveness of privatizing services in different policy areas, such as education and health care. The course provides general guidelines as to the nature of the services that are most appropriately provided by the private sector. When the public sector is determined to be the appropriate provider of a service, then government must determine whether to provide these services itself or contract-out for the service. The course also examines the principles and practices in the government contracting-out process--the decision whether to contract-out a government service, the preparation of the Request For Proposals, the evaluation of the submitted proposals for the selection of the contractor, the preparation of the contract document, and the monitoring of the selected contractors. Understanding the issues of privatization and the contracting-out of public services enables students to be more effective managers and responsive to citizens.