‘The government should shift to a rights-based approach to outsourcing’

There is much talk at the moment about public control – especially from the incoming Prime Minister – but not yet much focus on the wide array of everyday public services that are outsourced. 

The extent of this outsourcing is vast: around a third of total government spending goes to external bodies to deliver services, often in the private sector. Large parts of core state services are outsourced, from adult social care to immigration detention centres, homelessness assessments and prisons.

These services have a huge impact on people’s fundamental rights. The state cannot outsource its legal obligations when it hands a contract to a private provider; yet JUSTICE research has revealed that state bodies are increasingly struggling to oversee the protection of these rights.

We found shocking examples of rights breaches, from the private prison provider who was humiliatingly strip-searching female prisoners, to the assessment service writing reports on the vulnerability of homeless individuals without even speaking to them.

READ MORE: ‘Labour’s quiet in–sourcing revolution – and where Burnham could take it’

All these examples had the same common theme: the contracts lacked protections for the rights of the public and the state was failing to properly monitor what was going on. A short-term focus on cost saving had often replaced a proper assessment of value for taxpayer money. 

A few weeks ago, however, the Government made an important statement of intent. They announced plans to end ‘outsourcing by default’, introduce a public interest test to assess if services could be delivered more effectively in-house, and look to rebuild the state’s competence to deliver services in house.

This is a welcome shift away from the ‘hands off’ approach to offloading responsibility for difficult problems, and chimes with the direction of travel Andy Burnham has hinted at.

However, many services will remain outsourced. To ensure these public services work for ordinary people, the new government should shift to a rights-based approach to outsourcing: ensuring that public services, however they are provided, are delivered in a way that is lawful and recognises the rights of the public. Greater use of the voluntary and social enterprise sectors delivering proper expertise and innovation could help with this.

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As well as protecting ordinary people, this approach would set us up well for the future. A rights-based approach to procurement would deliver value for money by putting the people who use public services at the centre of their design and implementation, whilst reducing the costs to the state of legal challenges and failures (the Brook House public inquiry into mistreatment in outsourced detention cost tens of millions of public money, for example). 

The new government should take a series of practical steps now to ensure such services are properly controlled and focused on the rights of those who use them.

First, we must start doing rights impact assessments for newly outsourced services which would identify services – such as prisons and benefit assessments – where rights are most at risk. This should align with the government’s concept of ‘people focused services’ which needs more flesh on its bones.

Where risks are higher, we need to hardwire rights safeguards and independent accountability into contracts from the start to avoid the state setting itself up for trouble. A new procurement policy on individual rights should build on Northern Ireland’s human rights procurement policy.

Second, more transparency is essential. We found key prison contracts, for example, which were not even published and, of those that were, many had the key performance measures redacted. As a first step on this, it is time for Labour to make good on its commitment to reform Freedom of Information law to properly cover private companies holding public sector contracts. The Information Commissioner’s Office has set out clear recommendations for how this should be done, and there is no need to delay further. 

However welcome, ending ‘outsourcing by default’ cannot just be announced; services will only improve with practical action. Where it does decide to continue outsourcing service delivery, the government must insist, and ensure, that providers respect peoples’ rights. It would help repair trust in the state, better protect us all, and help ensure public money is well spent. The new government should seize this opportunity.

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