A couple of additional points have occurred to me.
Firstly, it is interesting that so far the discussion about
outsourcing child protection services seems to assume the outsourcing of all
the service to one supplier. The discussion of outsourcing in commercial
organisations, on the other hand, usually focuses on activities that firms undertake and seeks to determine which of
those activities are most suitable for outsourcing.
For example, Willcocks, Petherbridge and Olson [1] argue
that activities that are ‘necessary evils’ (such things as administration,
facilities management and payroll) are often good candidates for outsourcing.
They also believe that ‘qualifiers’ (activities that are essential for business
operations but which do not differentiate one firm from another, such as
airline maintenance) can be candidates for outsourcing but only where cost and
quality criteria are very closely met. On the other hand those activities that
they call ‘order winners’ (activities that are absolutely essential to a firm’s
success and which differentiate it from other firms) should NOT be outsourced.
Outsourcing the whole service is in effect withdrawing from
the market. It is simply admitting that someone else is better placed to
provide the service. It seems to me that any firm seeking to win an outsourcing
contract of that nature needs to be able to demonstrate very well that it is
the better option on all counts, which is not easy to do, even where existing
services are deemed to be failing.
The second thought concerns contracts. Even for simple
activities of the ‘necessary evil’ variety, outsourcing contracts can be fiendishly
complicated. The problems arise from trying to anticipate what will happen in
future circumstances that are often difficult to specify in tight legal terms.
Unforeseen circumstances often result in two firms arguing, and not uncommonly
resorting to law, about issues that have arisen but which are not clearly set
out in the contract.
If that can happen with relatively simple activities, such
as payroll or IT maintenance, it takes little imagination to see what disaster
might occur in child protection when a highly complex and unforeseen
circumstance comes about. While the two parties argue it is likely that a
child, or several, will suffer as a result.
And how do local authorities that have outsourced child
protection ever get to grips with how they monitor the implementation of a
contract concerning such a complex service that is meeting a highly variable
range of complex needs. The thought is breathtaking.
The more I think about it, the less well thought out this
proposal from Mr Gove and Mr Timpson is. I think they will need to do a lot
more thinking if they are to convince many people that there is merit in this
idea.
[1] Leslie Willcocks, Peter Petherbridge, Nancy A. Olson
Making IT Count: Strategy, Delivery, Infrastructure Butterworth-Heinemann,
2002
