Governance and Competition: The Role of Non-profit Organisations in the Delivery of Public Services

The movement away from a unified public service towards the development of quasi-markets based on the involvement of private firms and non-profit organisations can be viewed as the most radical change to state-society relations since the advent of the modern welfare state. While there is a growing literature on the value this contracting regime has for governments, we know almost nothing about its impact upon the service delivery styles and mission of non-profit agencies. This study used focus groups and survey data from agencies involved in the Australian Job Network and its predecessor Working Nation . The results show that this contracting regime produced a convergence of service delivery strategies among different types of agency, higher caseloads, reduced attention to the needs of individual job-seekers and greater 'creaming' of the easiest clients at the expense of those more disadvantaged.