Privatising Public Prisons: Labour Law and the Public Procurement Process

ISBN-13: 9781849466547 / Angielski / Twarda / 2015 / 256 str.

Amy Ludlow

Opis

Successive UK governments have pursued ambitious programs of private sector competition in public services that they promise will deliver cheaper, higher quality services, but not at the expense of public sector workers. The public procurement rules (most significantly Directive 2004/18/EC) often provide the legal framework within which the government must deliver on its promises. This book goes behind the operation of these UK rules and explores their interaction with the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE); regulations that were intended to offer workers protection when their employer is restructuring the business. The practical effectiveness of both sources of regulation is critiqued from a social protection perspective by reference to empirical findings from a case study of the competitive tendering exercise, for the management of HM Prison in Birmingham, that was held by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) between 2009 and 2011. Overall, the book challenges the government's portrayal of competition policies as self-evident sources of improvement for public services. It highlights the damage that can be caused by competitive processes to social capital, as well as the organizational, cultural, and employment strengths of a public service. Its main conclusions are that prison privatization processes are driven by procedure rather than aims and outcomes, and that the complexity of the public procurement rules, coupled with inadequate commissioning expertise and organizational planning, result (in Birmingham's case, at least) in the production of contracts that lack aspiration and are insufficiently focused upon improvement or social sustainability. In sum, the book casts doubt upon the desirability and suitability of using competition as a policy mechanism to improve public services.