Voluntary Organizations and Public Service Delivery

Ian Cunningham, Philip James

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136814242
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Nonprofit Organizations & Charities
• Index: Business

Voluntary Organizations and Public Sector Delivery examines how aspects of voluntary sector employment are affected by its engagement with the growing trend to the market-based outsourcing in the delivery of public services within industrialized countries. The volume draws together a team of well-recognized academic contributors from the UK, Canada, Australia and the United States to explore how the process of outsourcing is impacting the internal and external labor markets of voluntary organizations, and the implications for the policy objectives underlying the externalization of the delivery of public services to them.

These themes of change in employment are covered in depth in the UK with dedicated chapters exploring, workforce patterns and skill needs, HR policies and practices, recruitment and selection, graduate recruitment, unionization, pay and conditions and psychological contracts in organizations. The book also contains a significant international comparative dimension with individual chapter analysis of employment issues in Australia, Canada and the United States, as well as an Anglo-German comparison.

Part I

Introduction

1

Outsourcing and Voluntary Sector Employment

Understanding the Connections

Ian Cunningham and Philip James

INTRODUCTION

The outsourcing of the delivery of public services has formed a significant element of government policy in Britain with regard to public sector reform over the last three decades. Commencing under the post-1979 Conservative governments, it continued to be pursued enthusiastically by Labour Governments during the period from 1997, while also being adopted more widely internationally, most notably in Anglo-Saxon countries.

This focus on outsourcing has come to encompass a considerable emphasis, again both domestically and internationally, on the use of voluntary sector organisations to deliver services, particularly, but not exclusively, in the broad area of social care (Banting, 2000; Evans, Richmond, and Sheilds, 2005). An emphasis which has reflected the alleged virtues of such organisations, relative to their public sector counterparts, and a perception that their usage in this way is more politically acceptable than the transference of service provision to private, for-profit, ones (Davies, 2007).

Inevitably, this policy of outsourcing to the voluntary sector has attracted much debate. Its desirability in terms of both the efficiency and quality of service delivery has, for example, received a good deal of attention, as has the nature of the market-based relations that it has served to generate (Cunningham, 2008). The same is true of the implications it has for the independence of voluntary organisations and hence their capacity to act as lobbyists and advocates and as a source of innovative ideas and practices (Wainwright, Clark, Griffith, Jochum, and Wilding, 2006; Charities Commission, 2007).

At the same time, however, what is also apparent is that relatively little systematic attention has been paid in these debates to the implications that outsourcing has for the employment policies and practices of voluntary organisations and the work experiences of those working in them. This lack of attention can be viewed as both surprising and problematic given the labour-intensive nature of public service work since this feature means that the capacity of organisations, whether public, private, or voluntary, to deliver services effectively is intimately connected to such factors as their ability to recruit and retain staff with appropriate skills and qualifications and the degree to which they are able to provide terms and conditions and employment relationships more generally, that support adequate levels of staff commitment, satisfaction, and motivation.

The present volume is therefore centrally concerned with addressing this lack of attention to the employment implications of the current policy thrust toward the outsourcing of the delivery of public services to voluntary organisations. More specifically, it centres attention on the following two key issues:

a) How the process of outsourcing is affecting the internal and external labour markets of voluntary organisations; and

b) The way in which employers, employees, and their representatives in the voluntary sector are dealing with, and responding to, the employment-related challenges posed by the sector’s growing involvement in market-based outsourcing.

ORIGINS AND STRUCTURE OF THE VOLUME

As a first stage in the production of the volume, a range of potential contributors were invited to contribute papers to a colloquium held at the University of Strathclyde in April 2008. This invitation received a positive response, and a number of the contributions which follow are, in fact, revised versions of the papers given at this event, namely those by the editors, Short, Clarke and Wilding, Davies, Parry and Kelliher, and Hurrell and Greer and their colleagues.

The Strathclyde colloquium served to reinforce the value of producing an edited volume. It was, however, felt that the nature and operation of employer recruitment processes and policies merited greater attention given available evidence indicating that voluntary organisations are often facing difficulties in obtaining the staff they need. Therefore a chapter by Scholarios and Burt was commissioned to address this issue. In addition, on reflection, it was felt that the comparative element introduced by the contribution by Greer et al. via an Anglo-German comparison should be strengthened as a means of better locating British developments in a wider international context and thereby shedding greater light on how far they reflect, or differ from, those occurring in other countries. To this end, further contributions were invited from US (Smith), Canadian (Baines), and Australian (McDonald and Charlesworth) scholars.

Taken together, the contributions so assembled are seen to provide, as intended, a rich and varied collection of analyses that differ widely in their foci and modes of analysis, and which go a long way toward addressing the lack of attention that has hitherto been paid to the employment consequences of the current trend to outsource the delivery of public services to voluntary sector organisations. Although inevitably they can be seen to contain lines of analysis that overlap to a greater or lesser extent, these contributions do for the most part focus on one of the following three themes: policy and labour market contexts, employment policies and practices in the voluntary sector, and work experiences in an era of outsourcing. As a result, at the collective level, the contributions provide analyses that encompass the consideration of macro-level labour and policy issues; ‘middle ground’ explorations of developments relating to how organisations recruit, manage, and develop their human resources; and more micro-based examinations of how such developments have impacted voluntary sector staff.

POLICY AND LABOUR MARKET CONTEXTS

Three of the chapters, those by Davies, Clark and Wilding, and Short, can be identified as being centrally concerned with the provision of such contextual analysis.

In the first of these chapters, Davies initially examines the nature and dimensions of outsourcing to the voluntary sector, as well as the way in which these have changed. In doing so he highlights how the evolution of outsourcing has resulted in a situation in which more than 70 percent of UK social care is now provided by voluntary, or to a much lesser extent private, providers. Davies then demonstrates how this profound shift in the role that such providers play has been intimately connected to policy developments under post-1997 Labour Governments, which saw them attempt, in his words, to 'graft a neo-liberal programme of public service reform on to a social democratic tradition.' He further shows how this attempt was informed by both ‘technocratic’ rationales, encompassing the propounding of a series of alleged superior attributes of voluntary sector providers, alongside a more general endorsement of the role that a combination of market choice and discipline could play in improving service delivery, and a ‘marketing’ rationale concerning the greater acceptability of outsourcing to the public and the Labour Party. At the same time, however, Davies notes that there is little hard evidence to support the alleged attributes of such providers or to show that their greater usage has improved service outcomes. He also, somewhat ironically, draws attention to growing concerns about the potential for these attributes, such as closeness to clients and innovativeness, to be undermined by a contracting marketplace that reduces the independence of voluntary organisations, both by increasing their dependence on contract income from public sector funders and by encompassing a tendency to marginalise smaller organisations.

Against the background of this growth in the role of the voluntary sector in delivering public services, the chapter by Clark and Wilding examines trends in the size, scope, sectoral and organisational location, and characteristics of the UK voluntary sector workforce, as well as the skills gaps and shortages that exist within it. Their data shows that the size of this workforce has increased significantly in recent years, rising by nearly a quarter in ten years, and reveals that nearly 40 percent of staff work part-time, 10 percent are on temporary contracts, nearly a third are employed in workplaces with fewer than ten employees, more than two-thirds are women, and more than half are employed in social work activities. Clark and Wilding further indicate that the sector experiences significant recruitment problems and skill shortages, problems and shortages, which, it is argued, 'continue to inhibit the sector’s ability to deliver public services,' and that are seen to be linked, at one level to insufficient training and development activity, and at a more general level to short-term funding mechanisms that fail to address the 'core costs associated with being a good employer.' The authors’ chapter ends by drawing attention to the risk that an approach centred on voluntary organisations demonstrating their ability to deliver services more efficiently and cheaply will, in the forthcoming ‘era of austerity,’ create a risk of a ‘race to the bottom’ in terms of cost and quality.

Last, in terms of setting the policy and labour market context, Short in his chapter sheds light on the extent to which trade unions have a presence and exert an influence over the labour market positions of voluntary sector workers and hence the employment policies and practices of voluntary sector organisations. Short focuses particularly on the case of the union he works for, UNISON. His analysis commences by drawing attention to how UNISON’s membership has increased both rapidly and significantly in the sector against the background of the growth of employment in it. He also, however, notes that overall union membership density is estimated to stand at around only 25 percent, and that much of the growth in membership that has occurred stems not from ‘organic growth’ but from the transfer of members out of the public sector. In addition, unions are further noted to face a variety of challenges in seeking to improve this situation. These challenges include employer opposition to union recognition, the problems of accessing potential members in a workforce that is often based in small organisations or work units, the difficulty of obtaining sufficient numbers of workplace stewards in the absence of adequate employer-provided facility time and/or difficulties in utilising it, and the consequent need for full-time union organisers to often devote a significant amount of their time to individual representation rather than organising activities. In the case of UNISON, however, Short argues that it has developed a number of initiatives that are beginning to better address these challenges and thereby improve recruitment and member participation and commitment. These initiatives include the launching of campaigns focused on occupational issues and professional concerns, rather than narrower workplace ones, the employment of a growing number of organisers, the creation of national branches in some larger charities, the development of learning partnerships with employers, and the launching of ‘virtual branches.'

EMPLOYMENT POLICIES AND PRACTICES

Another three chapters in the volume, those of Parry and Kelliher, Hurrell et al., and Burt and Scholarios, focus attention on the employment policies and practices of voluntary sector organisations and how these have been changing.

The chapter by Parry and Kelliher focuses on how government has acted to shape the development of human resource management within voluntary sector substance misuse providers. Drawing on evidence from a series of empirical studies, Parry and Kelliher show that new legislation and other government policies had, both directly and indirectly, prompted such providers to introduce a number of reforms to their existing human resource arrangements. Workforce standards and skills agendas, for example, were found to have not only led to a greater focus on staff development, but also encouraged employers to improve their record keeping and to develop job descriptions and specifications. Meanwhile, organisational growth, arising from both increased funding and the winning of additional contracts, and the need for enhanced levels of professionalism in order to improve competitiveness and work in partnership with the statutory sector, were also found to have led indirectly to the adoption of a more professional approach to human resource management in general and the establishment of more coherent policies and practices, often on the basis of mimicking those used by public sector organisations. Indeed, Parry and Kelliher argue that this process of reform, and the role of government in prompting it, serves to cast doubt on whether it is any longer valid to see the voluntary sector as lacking a sophisticated approach to human resource management.

The chapter by Hurrell et al. concentrates more narrowly on the recruitment policies and practices of voluntary organisations and more specifically on those relating to the recruitment of graduates. The authors start by observing that whereas outsourcing has, by increasing the need for voluntary sector employers to be more business-like, served to generate an increased demand for graduates, employers continue to confront difficulties in recruiting them, notwithstanding the increasing supply. The authors then go on to explore why this is the case. Drawing on secondary evidence, they conclude that these difficulties do not straightforwardly stem from the lower pay on offer because there are grounds for believing that many 'purist' graduates seek employment that aligns with their own values. Rather, they conclude that the difficulties arise from ’systems' and 'administrative' failures. The former are seen to encompass misconceptions among graduates about the job opportunities available in the sector that reflect the failure of employers in the sector to communicate them, via such means as engaging with graduates, students, and university careers personnel. The latter failings, in contrast, are argued to be attributable to a funding deficit, encompassing both inadequate and uncertain funding, that acts to limit the capacity of voluntary sector organisations to fill needed graduate positions, while also damaging the sustainability and viability of intermediary bodies that could help to address the recruitment problems.

Burt and Scholarios’s chapter, as already mentioned, focuses attention on the recruitment policies and processes of voluntary organisations more generally and the imperatives acting to shape them. Drawing on the findings of four comparative case studies, as well as available secondary evidence, the analysis reveals that such processes seem to embody both marked similarities and differences. The authors further point to the fact that these similarities and differences reflect the influence of a range of imperatives, arising in part from the engagement of such organisations in the delivery of public services, which serve to shape recruitment needs and the way that they are addressed. As a result, their analysis highlights how the recruitment policies and processes are intimately and dynamically connected to, although not straightforwardly determined by, the specific labour and ‘product’ market contexts confronting organisations.

WORK EXPERIENCES IN AN ERA OF OUTSOURCING

The remaining six chapters of the volume, the largest proportion, all concentrate centrally on examining how outsourcing has impacted the working lives of those employed in the voluntary sector. Two chapters, those by Cunningham and James, and by Cunningham, explore this issue from a domestic, British perspective. A third chapter, that by Greer and his colleagues, does so through the lens of an Anglo-German perspective. The remaining three chapters concentrate on developments in Canada, the United States, and Australia, respectively.

In their chapter, Cunningham and James draw on existing and new empirical evidence to examine how far market-based contracting, and its financial implications, has prompted organisations to reform work processes and arrangements, and the pay and other rewards offered to staff. In doing so, they focus particular attention on whether the recent, post-1997 policy context of outsourcing, and particularly the emphasis placed within it on full-cost recovery and the establishment of longer-term contractual relations, has acted to challenge the previously observed tendency for the transfer of public service work to be associated with the creation of lower levels of worker security, including with respect to pay and other conditions of employment, job roles, and vulnerability to redundancy. The findings they report point to a relatively limited uptake of either full-cost recovery or longer-term commissioning and, against this backdrop more generally provide little support for the thesis that current outsourcing is having a more benign impact on voluntary sector workers. They further suggest that in the present economic environment this situation is unlikely to change.

Cunningham, in his own chapter, effectively builds on the chapter written with James by exploring the experiences of workers transferred from one voluntary organisation to another as a result of re-tendering exercises and, in particular, examines how such transfers impact their psychological contracts. His findings reveal a significant degree of resilience in such contracts, notwithstanding the provision by employers of flawed and incomplete information regarding employment rights, and against the backloth of staff continuing to exhibit high levels of commitment to their client groups and even the new employer. In seeking to explain these findings, Cunningham argues that they are attributable to the roles played by a number of moderating factors, such as the protection offered to terms and conditions through the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations, management actions to maintain service quality and alleviate staff concerns, and, to a lesser extent, union activity, which have served to protect key elements of worker psychological contracts. Cunningham, nevertheless, concludes that the data obtained raises concerns regarding the sustainability of this stability in psychological contracts should successive re-tendering exercises impact pay, working practices, and service quality.

The Anglo-German comparative study provided by Greer and his colleagues focuses on employment in outsourced welfare-to-work. Their analysis both highlights the potential for outsourcing to impact negatively on wages, job security, and employee well-being and draws attention to the way in which outsourcing has supported, in both Germany and Britain, the emergence of a huge diversity in terms and conditions, in part as a result of employment moving away from the coverage of public sector collective bargaining arrangements. The analysis also, however, suggests that a...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Tables
• Introduction
• Policy and Labour Market Contexts
• Employment Policies and Practices
• Work Experiences in an Era of Outsourcing
• Conclusions
• List of Contributors
• Index