5 - Contracts and Partnerships
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
[Public–private partnerships] do not emerge as a matter of whim or fancy. They are institutions rooted in a specific political and temporal milieu. At particular moments they seem to offer the solution to public policy problems.
– Chris Skelcher (2005, 349)On October 1, 2010, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center announced that it had received a $13.3 million grant from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to support a program for foster children, one of only six grants awarded. Other grants were provided to either government agencies or academic institutions. The executive director of the center announced the grant as follows: “This landmark grant will fund the development of a much-needed, model program to protect the health and well-being of [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, and questioning] foster youth – a program that will save lives, save taxpayer dollars, and could be replicated in cities around the country” (St. John, 2010). Reductions in governance tasks performed through grants and contracts – a phenomenon known as contracting back in – are also common. In an effort to cut $100 billion from the Department of Defense budget, the Pentagon announced in 2009 that it would begin insourcing many previously contracted positions. Under the plan, the Pentagon would eliminate thirty-three thousand contractors and hire an additional thirty-nine thousand Department of Defense employees. However, the Pentagon abandoned the plan in summer 2010, with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates remarking, “As we were reducing contractors, we weren't seeing the savings we had hoped from insourcing” (Brodsky, 2010).
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- The Political Economy of Public Sector Governance , pp. 123 - 145Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012