Outsourcing, Privatisation
Fighting privatisation and defending public services
Across Europe the quantity and quality of our public services and the pay and conditions of our members are under threat from privatisation. EPSU is committed to fighting privatisation in any of its forms whether contracting-out and sub-contracting, public-private partnerships or various processes of commercialisation or marketisation. This briefing on privatisation was produced for the EPSU Congress in 2019 and covers the main work done over the last Congress period and the priorities for the current period.
Public and private sector efficiency is an important report that provides a comprehensive overview of academic research that challenges the idea that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector. The future is public is the latest update on insourcing highlighting the trends to bring privatised services back under public ownership and control.
UK: the benefits of outsourcing – where's the evidence?
The university sector in the UK, and some universities in particular, are under pressure to cut costs and to outsource services - the Working Lives Research Institute (WLRI) at London Metropolitan University has produced a very useful overview of the evidence on outsourcing.
Finland: Many municipalities plan to recall work that has been outsourced
Many municipalities and joint authorities are disappointed with the results of outsourcing. And the dissatisfaction is so great that up to a fifth of these public organizations plan to take back outsourced work so that it can be done once again by their own personnel.
EPSU briefing "10 facts about public-private partnerships (PPPs)"
a briefing from the Public Services Internal Research Unit (PSIRU) on the problems that PPPs can cause. We hope that this is useful to you in the upcoming discussions on the European Commission’s (EC) legislative proposal regarding concessions, expected soon. This is likely to cover many forms of PPPs.
Portugal: unions convince Lisbon city council to reject outsourcing
In 2010 Lisbon city council decided to restructure its services to try to reduce its levels of spending. It published plans which included proposals for reducing the number of departments, transferring some work to the smaller district councils in the city and for contracting-out some services.