The contemporary understanding of public sector risk management entails a broadening of the traditional bureaucratic approach to risk beyond the boundaries of purely financial risks. However, evidence suggests that in reality public sector risk management does not always match the rhetoric. This...

There has been much discussion centred on the decline of the specific housing grants in England, Scotland and Wales, and the implications for rent levels set by local housing authorities. In this paper it is argued that rent incentives provided by the Block Grant have been largely ignored. Data...

Purpose -Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are characterised by contracts which are necessarily incomplete due to the complexity of their contractual specifications for the contracted services combined with the long-term legal obligations they create. This creates high transaction costs...

"This paper examines recent policies to enhance the scope for choice by the users of local government services in England. It questions whether they can offset the progressively increasing restriction of local democratic choices that have resulted from the trend towards increasing centralisation...

This article considers the possibilities for widespread use of municipal bonds to finance public sector infrastructure, with particular reference to Scotland. Provided the various control measures recommended in this article are in place, there can be few objections either in principle or...

This paper analyses the partnership-based outsourcing model of service transformation in USA local government, focusing on the city of Sandy Springs which became widely known for its large-scale 'turnkey' outsourcing of provision of its services in the mid-2000s. This city has been referred to...

Recent changes in service environments have changed the preconditions of their production and consumption. These changes include unbundling services from production processes, growth of the information-rich economy and society, the search for creativity in service production and consumption and...