This report presents the OECD Best Practice Guidelines for Contracting Out Government Services and accompanying case studies.

Managing Public Expenditure presents a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of all aspects of public expenditure management from the preparation of the budget to the execution, control and audit stages.

Winner of the 2014 Academy of Management Public-Nonprofit (PNP) Division Best Book Award Many public services today are delivered by external service providers such as private firms and voluntary organizations. These new ways of working – including contracting, partnering, client co-production, inter-governmental collaboration and volunteering – pose challenges for public management. This major new text assesses the ways in which public sector organizations can improve their services and outcomes by making full use of the alternative ways of getting things done.

Can the Australian state be restructured to empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and ensure that their distinct voices are heard in the processes of government? This book provides an answer to that question for Australia and provides guidance for all states that claim jurisdiction and authority over the traditional lands of Indigenous peoples. By engaging directly with Indigenous peoples' nuanced and complex aspirations, this book presents a viable model for structural reform. It does so by adopting a distinctive and innovative approach: drawing on Indigenous scholarship globally it presents a coherent and compelling account of Indigenous peoples' political aspirations through the concept of sovereignty. It then articulates those themes into a set of criteria legible to Australia's system of governance. This original perspective produces a culturally informed metric to assess institutional mechanisms and processes designed to empower Indigenous peoples. Reflecting the Uluru Statement from the Heart's call for a First Nations Voice, the book applies the criteria to one specific institutional mechanism – Indigenous representative bodies. It analyses in detail the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and the Swedish Sámi Parliament, a representative body for the Indigenous people of Sweden. In examining the Sámi Parliament the book draws on a rich source of primary and secondary untranslated Swedish-language sources, resulting in the most comprehensive English language exploration of this unique institution. Highlighting the opportunities and challenges of Indigenous representative bodies, the book concludes by presenting a novel and informed model for structural reform in Australia that meets Indigenous aspirations.

This book presents the proceedings of a conference on Labour Market Policies and the Public Employment Service.

Since the 1980s, waves of neoliberal ‘economic reform’ have transformed Australia. Privatisation, deregulation, marketisation and the contracting out of government services: for three decades now, there has been widespread agreement among policymakers on the desirability of these strategies. But the benefits of economic reform are increasingly being questioned. Alongside growing voter disenchantment, new voices of dissent argue that instead of efficiency and improved services, economic reform has led to unaccountable oligopolies, increased prices, reduced productivity and degradation of the public good. In Wrong Way, Australia’s leading economists and public intellectuals do a cost–benefit analysis of economic reform across key areas. Have these reforms been worthwhile for the Australian community and its economy? Have they given us a better society, as promised? ‘Has privatisation led to more productivity-enhancing competition? Has deregulation increased economic welfare in energy, finance, health, education and labour markets? Does the lived experience of Australians measure up to the promise of economic reform? The authors answer these questions with conclusions that are both compelling and disturbing.’——Emeritus professor Roy Green, University of Technology Sydney Damien Cahill & Phillip Toner on Economic Reform Stephen Duckett on Private Health Insurance Elizabeth Hill & Matt Wade on Early Childhood Education And Care Phillip Toner on Vocational Education And Training Jane Andrew & Max Baker on Prisons Bob Davidson on Aged Care Paul Davies on Public Sector Engineering Sue Olney & Wilma Gallet on Employment Services John Quiggin on Electricity Jim Stanford on Labour Markets Evan Jones on Banking Peter Phibbs & Nicole Gurran on Housing Lee Ridge on The NBN Ben Spies-Butcher & Gareth Bryant on Universities Michael Beggs on Monetary Policy And Unemployment John Quiggin on Productivity Peter Brain on Orthodox Economic Models Patricia Ranald on Free Trade David Richardson on Foreign Investment Frank Stilwell on Inequality

This book describes the nature of these changes and identifies the accountability gaps which have inevitably opened up in the absence of a written constitution or a considered Administrative Procedure Act.