The use of contracts is vital to market transactions. The introduction of market reforms in health care in the UK and other developed countries twenty years ago meant greater use of contracts. In the UK, health care contracting was widely researched in the 1990s. Yet, despite the changing policy...

This article examines from a regulatory perspective the legal position of citizens in respect of contracted out human services. It argues that the inadequate protection of individual interests and the public interest here is a reflection of increasingly complex relationships between the state...

This book charts the significant increase in Britain over the last 25 years in the deployment of contract as a regulatory mechanism across a broad spectrum of social relationships. Since Labour came to power in 1997 the trend has accelerated, the use of contract spreading beyond the sphere of...