Insourcing and outsourcing - quality public services and employment

ended

"Insourcing and outsourcing – quality public services and employment The aim of this project is to provide public service workers with information and training on the process of transferring between the private and public sectors with a view to promoting both the quality of public services and the quality of employment of public service workers. Over many years public sector workers have faced the prospect of transfer to the private sector as a result of privatisation and outsourcing. Public sector trade unions have taken steps to monitor and regulate this process and provide training and information to their members so that they able to protect, as far as possible, their pay and employment conditions. As reported in publications from the Transnational Institute (https://www.tni.org/en/futureispublic) and monitored in the database at the University of Glasgow (https://publicfutures.org/#/index), in recent years a reverse trend has been developing as many public authorities look to bring public services in-house for a wide range of reasons. These can include the need for more flexibility and control over service provision, to ensuring quality of service and because better value can be delivered through direct management and provision of services. This raises a number of challenges and opportunities for public service trade unions in relation to the lead up and implementation of any insourcing and what this will mean both for workers' jobs, pay and employment conditions and for the quality of service provided. EPSU and PSI are the European and global trade union federations representing public service workers and in this joint project they want to analyse current training provision in their member organisations and work with experts in trade union training and the development of online courses to produce entirely new training material that can be of long-term use and benefit for their local affiliates, their members and the many communities that they serve."