Institute Reports
In 2003, the Serco Institute initiated a number of research projects, drawing on published data and on Serco’s wide range of public service contracts in 36 countries around the world. The first of these was published by the UK Confederation of British Industry in 2003, and in early 2005, the Institute published the first of its own reports, ‘Good People, Good Systems’, looking at the experience of managing public services in the private sector.
Forthcoming publications include research into contractual performance measurement, looking at trends over time and comparing developments in different market sectors; and analysis of procurement practices, drawing on Serco’s recent experience with complex bids, informed by insights from game theory and auction theory.
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Making Time: Freeing Up Front-Line Policing (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Sotiropoulos, Alexis 2007
The Serco Institute
Freeing up our front-line public servants from time-consuming administration is one of the keys to improving value-for-money. Nowhere is this more important than in the complex task of policing our communities and responding to crime. This report brings to light UK police forces’ achievements in shifting resources from the back-office to the front-line, increasing their visibility and providing greater public reassurance.
To Guide the Human Puppet: Behavioural Economics, Public Policy and Public Service Contracting (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Cumming, Lauren, 2008
Serco Institute
Institute Discussion Paper No. 3: Behavioural economics is the latest fashion in political circles. This paper critically analyses the application of behavioural economics to policy design and its relevance to public service contracting...
Customer Service in the Delivery of Public Services: International Experience (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
The Serco Institute; 2008
Efficiency Unit, Government of Hong Kong SAR
As the citizens of developed countries have become more demanding about the public services they receive, governments have become more attuned to they way they are delivered. This report surveys the use of customer service techniques by public service providers around the world. It looks at how user experience can be enhanced through personalisation, better feedback mechanisms and the implementation of improved technologies.
Competition and Contracting: Learning from Past Experience (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
The Serco Institute; 2008
Efficiency Unit, Government of Hong Kong SAR
Governments have often failed to learn from past mistakes when contracting-out their services. This review of almost 50 studies, spanning three decades, brings together a wide range of 'exemplary failures' under the main issues that affect outsourcing.
Public Sector Reform: An International Overview (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
The Serco Institute; 2007
Efficiency Unit, Government of Hong Kong SAR
This report examines recent international trends which have impacted on the formulation and delivery of public services. These have included innovations in public engagement, performance management regimes and private sector involvement. Governments have also benefited from becoming more customer focused yet outcome oriented.
Competitve Edge - The Evidence (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Sturgess, Gary L; Smith, Briony; May, Peter; Sotiropoulous, Alexis; 2007
The Serco Institute
This document is a companion to the Institute report, 'Competitive Edge - Does Contestability Work?'. It provides summaries of the most important of the source documents for that report - some 200 studies over 30 years from 12 different countries. The material is organised into five sections covering defence support, health services, prison management, refuse collection and municipal services.
Competitive Edge - Does Contestability Work? (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Sturgess, Gary L; Smith, Briony; May, Peter; Sotiropoulous, Alexis; 2007
The Serco Institute
This review of 200 government and academic studies spanning 30 years, 12 countries and five sectors, shows that opening up public service monopolies to competition and innovation can cut costs by 20% - and with no sustained evidence that these come at the expense of quality. Perhaps most significantly, experience shows that substantial savings are available to public and private sector providers alike: it is competition, or the threat of competition, which drives value-for-money improvements.
What Gets Measured (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Smith, Briony, 2007
The Serco Institute
A report examining one of the central tools of service contracting - the performance measurement regime. It summarises an extensive research project, involving more than 40 service contracts across the public sector. The aim of the study was to understand some of the developments taking place in contractual performance measurement and to compare different models in an attempt to understand what works, under what circumstances. The report challenges governments and industry to develop the science of performance measurement, offering a number of recommendations.
HMYOI Ashfield - the Health Service (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Mathias, Megan and Smith, Briony, 2007
The Serco Institute
A case study examining the health service provided in Ashfield Young Offenders Institution. The service has won national recognition for excellence in provision, a considerable achievement, made even more significant in the context of difficulties faced by Ashfield in the past. Drawing on interviews with fourteen stakeholders, the authors identify the key drivers in the Health Team's success.
Will Water Float? Competition and Private Provision in Urban Water Supply (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Sturgess, Gary L. 2007
The Serco Institute
A history of the patterns of private/public ownership and competition and monopoly in urban water supply since the seventeenth century. This paper was published as a chapter of the CEDA/Serco report, 'Water that Works: Sustainable Water Management in the Commercial Sector' which is summarised in the Australia section of the resource centre.
Built to Serve: The Benefits of Service-Led PPPs (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Smith, Briony, 2007
The Serco Institute
This report proposes that physical infrastructure should not be the starting point in a PPP that is concerned with the delivery of effective services. The infrastructure is merely part of the service solution, and for that reason, it should be designed with the service in mind. Drawing insights from interviews with operational experts across a range of sectors, the report explores what happens when service providers are directly involved in the design and construction process for public infrastructure projects.
To Gladden the Heart of Miss Nightingale: Contracting for Complexity (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Sturgess, Gary L., 2006
Serco Institute
Institute Discussion Paper No. 2: Competition and contracting are powerful drivers of organisational change. We would be unsuprised to learn that business leaders agree with this statement, but contrary to what might be expected, the critics do not disagree with it either...
Designing Public Service Markets: The Custodial Sector as a Case Study (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Sturgess, Gary and Smith, Briony, 2006
Serco Institute
'As they seek to engage the private and not-for-profit sectors in the delivery of public services, governments around the world find themselves grappling with complex questions of market design...' This report uses the Custodial Sector as a case study to explore some of these questions.
Education Walsall Case Study (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Cranley, Gerald and Mathias, Megan, 2006
Serco Institute
How does a private company achieve what the national education inspectorate Ofsted has stated to be one of the fastest ever improvements of education services? This case study provides insights into the ongoing turnaround story in Walsall education services. It is the first in a planned series exploring the context and causes of successful delivery of Serco Group plc contracts.
Good People, Good Systems - What public service managers say: main report
Good People, Good Systems - What public service managers say: detailed survey results
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Mathias, Megan and Reddington, Emma, 2006
The Serco Institute
The report and detailed results of a Serco Institute survey that investigates the experience of former public service managers from across the world now working for an international public service company.
A fair field and no favours: competitive neutrality in UK public service markets (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Sturgess, Gary, L., 2005
The Serco Institute & CBI
Serco Institute Policy Study No. 1. As the UK Government moves to establish a 'mixed economy' of public, private and voluntary sector public service providers, it is vital that there is a level playing field between the various sectors. With this study, undertaken by the Serco Institute, on behalf of the CBI, and published by the CBI as a submission to Government, all three sectors come together to raise competitive neutrality as an issue.
Bound for Botany Bay: Contracting for Quality in Public Services (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Sturgess, Gary, L., 2005
The Serco Institute Discussion Paper 1
The convict fleets which transported prisoners to Botany Bay in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, were mostly delivered under contract. This paper contrasts the First Fleet which was highly successful, with the Second Fleet, where 40% of the prisoners died, using these two contacts as a case study in contracting for quality.
Practical Partnering - Making the most of complex relationships (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Foster, Dilys, Serco Government Services and Sturgess, Gary, L., The Serco Institute, 2005
PPP Bulletin Issue 2, City & Financial Publishing
Effective collaboration has become a necessity for the successful delivery of many of the complex contracts now being entered into by public and private sector organisations alike. Dilys Foster set out to try and find out why some such arrangements work really well, whilst others fail - sometimes spectacularly. In "Practical Partnering", she sums up her findings and proposes a few critical factors for success. In particular she notes that in order to succeed, partnership arrangements must provide benefit for all partners - and all partners must share the responsibility of ensuring this is achieved.
Good people, good systems (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Good people, good systems: Executive Summary (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Reddington, Emma, 2004
The Serco Institute
In this groundbreaking study, Emma Reddington interviewed former public servants who are now managing the delivery of front-line public services in the private sector. They explain that they are still the same people as when they were employed by government, with the same public service ethos. But they have more managerial autonomy and greater personal accountability.