Best value and direct services

Twenty years of compulsory competitive tendering (CTT) for direct services has had a significant effect on in-house organizations and the managers responsible for them. The competitive environment has forced change in those organizations, as the pressures of CCT have put considerable emphasis on price and productivity. Managers have emerged from this who are equipped to compete for undertaking services successfully against the private sector. Direct Labour Organizations (DLO) have generally held their own with regard to the provision of local authority activities and at the same time, over the last few years have adopted management techniques to improve their performance. The side effect of CCT has been to cause fragmentation of services, which has not allowed creative arrangements for the amalgamation of services to be progressed. Furthermore, for some services, contracting and contract management is viewed as having been wasteful of resources. It is suggested, however, that the experiences of direct services provision has placed them in a strong position to provide best value for authorities, particularly in terms of the integration of services. DSOs should therefore be given an opportunity to be updated, fine-tuned and restructured as a viable option in consideration of best value, particularly as ‘what matters is what works best’.