The Third Sector’s Provision of Public Services: Implications for Mission and Employment Conditions

Ian Cunningham

Chapter 8 in Working for the State, 2011, pp 147-165 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract This chapter is concerned with the expansion of outsourcing public services to third sector organisations under successive Conservative and Labour administrations, investigating the implications for voluntary sector independence and employment conditions. Drawing on research in the sub-sector of social services provision, it will report on findings from a qualitative study of eighteen Scottish-based organisations, presenting data that examine issues including financial dependency, vulnerability to competition and shifts in policy, enhanced audit and how these impact on human resources (HR) policies and practices and terms and conditions of employment. In doing so, it highlights how changes to working conditions and terms and conditions of employment have potentially detrimental effects on employee morale and the missions of voluntary organisations. Moreover, it warns that these tensions in employment relationships in the sector will become more pronounced in an era of government rhetoric that heralds greater voluntary sector activity in public services through the ‘Big Society’, at the same time as fiscal retrenchment in the public sector takes hold.

Keywords: Public Service; Sickness Absence; Voluntary Organisation; Voluntary Sector; Organisational Mission (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-34798-4_8

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DOI: 10.1057/9780230347984_8

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