Public Service Reform: Learning Lessons from Five Countries
This report was produced by Kylie Barclay who was employed as a research and policy intern by SCVO through the Third Sector Internship Scotland programme. Her work involved looking at innovative examples of public service delivery in order to contribute to the current public service reform debate in Scotland. In this report, examples of public service delivery from a variety of countries around the world have been chosen to showcase the different ways of thinking about and carrying out public service delivery. Each example is consistent with at least one of the recommendations of the Christie Commission and in particular they cover ways of providing preventative services, empowering communities, integrating service provision and ways in which to increase the involvement of the third sector in public service delivery. Key Findings The five different case studies featured in this report focus on a number of different areas which are closely linked to the public service reform debate. Firstly, the Christie commission recommended that people and communities should be more involved in decisions around public service delivery, which suggests that a discussion around community empowerment is crucial to the public service reform debate. Both the Ubudehe and Porto Alegre case studies are examples of community empowerment and of giving people a real influence over their public services. The studies demonstrate that current efforts to do this in Scotland are somewhat lacking. In particular, one key issue that emerges when analysing the two case studies in relation to the Scottish context, is that a layer of democracy under local authority level would help facilitate community empowerment. Furthermore, it is demonstrated by both case studies that it is important to educate people how to become involved in government mechanisms. This is one particular area in which the importance of the third sector cannot be undervalued.
