False economies, part 1: Decoding efficiency | LANDMARK REPORT

Translating jargon into the truth about public service delivery

CPD’s public service Research Director Christopher Stone contends that if we don’t want services to run down, we need to ‘look both ways’ before outsourcing and consider results as well as resources, when measuring success.

The next landmark report from the Centre for Policy Development’s public service program, False economies tackles the topical issue of efficiency in public service. Politicians most often address this issue with promises of sweeping cuts, but what do they actually mean when they say ‘efficiency’?

Released 3 April, the first instalment of the new report Decoding efficiency translates the jargon, and exposes errors that can actually lead to waste resulting from so-called ‘efficiency’ reforms.

‘Our public service suffers the plight of the anorexic: no matter how thin it gets there are voices saying it’s too fat. Do we really want a size zero government?’

Arguments for reform often revolve around the presumption that the private sector is necessarily more efficient and effective than the public. Is this always true? Decoding efficiency outlines six ways in which market models can ‘mess up’. It explains three different economic definitions of efficiency, and then illustrates how mere equations simply cannot fully account for success or failure in service delivery.

Especially in an election year, every Australian needs to understand this because it is their money, being spent on them, their families and the things that matter to them. ‘It’s not the size of your public sector that counts, it’s the way you use it.’

Download Decoding efficiencyDecoding Efficiency