According to the National Union of Industrial and Commercial Public Services (UNSPIC), there are 20 levers that will be especially relevant in order to meet citizens’ expectations concerning public services.
The following is a summary of these 20 levers.
LEVER 1
Provide for a regular evaluation of the performance and an audit of the SPIPs managed in public management, as is done for private management, at regular intervals (duration to be defined according to sector). Depending on the circumstances, this audit may be carried out with the help of public or private project management assistance.
LEVER 2
Organize a discussion, on a regular basis and supported by objective analyses, on the relevance of public management, as is done at the time of the reopening of contracts with private operators.
LEVER 3
In the event of a change in management method, provide for an objective impact study carried out by an external actor to compare the advantages/disadvantages of each management method and their results.
LEVER 4
Promote, in industrial and commercial public services, tools to measure full costs, in an approach of measurement of overall performance, transparency and comparability between management methods.
LEVER 5
As part of the modernization of public authorities, clarify the services which, by their nature, are delegable to private operators.
LEVER 6
Extend to public operators (regulated authorities, SPL, etc.) the reporting obligations (e.g. delegatee’s report) and transparency obligations (e.g. HATVP declaration, etc.), to which private operators are subject.
LEVER 7
Systematically provide for a contract or agreement between the organizing authority of the service and the operator, regardless of the management method. The dissociation of the functions of organizing authority (the public authority) and manager makes it possible to avoid confusion of roles, to reaffirm the political role of the public authority, to define the missions and the sharing of risks.
LEVER 8
For the management of contracts with operators, reaffirm the role of public authorities by setting up effective governance, decision-making, control and coordination bodies.
LEVER 9
To provide the best levers for improvement and pool good practices, make the most of feedback from operators in various territories, including internationally.
LEVER 10
In order to promote better-looking offers, consider the social, societal and environmental externalities of public services in the selection criteria for tenders. These criteria must be multiple and reflect the overall political expectations of the service.
LEVER 11
Contractualise the relevant performance objectives in relation to the overall objectives of the service and considering environmental and social considerations, as part of the conditions of performance of the service.
LEVER 12
Backing part of operators’ remuneration on the achievement of performance criteria to encourage them to “do better than what is provided for in the contract”, to promote the transition to new, more virtuous models, which remunerate, for example, performance rather than volumes.
LEVER 13
To stimulate competition and innovation in the event of high costs of tenders and complex projects, provide for compensation to be paid to candidates who have submitted a complete and compliant tender. Indeed, responding to a consultation can be technically complex and costly for bidders. These costs incurred upstream, and without certainty of being “amortized” by obtaining the public contract, can be a brake on healthy competition, but also a brake on innovative proposals.
LEVER 14
Promote the professions in tension among young people and in policies to return to work for the unemployed. Several sectors have recruitment difficulties in certain professions (e.g. bus driver, collective catering staff, refrigeration technicians and heating engineers in energy services), while they recruit on sustainable jobs that cannot be relocated to the heart of the territories. Some professions suffer from a problem of attractiveness that requires the implementation of communication actions.
LEVER 15
Adapt training schemes to make them more local, faster and remunerated. The attractiveness of professions also depends on the attractiveness of training. An effort must be made to promote paid training, which quickly leads to opportunities in the employment areas where the trainees are located.
LEVER 16
Allow local authorities to choose qualified AMOs when needed.
Attention must be paid to the choice of advice to support the community: the ability to mobilize feedback to promote benchmarking; the mobilization of techno-economic assessment tools; the ability to formulate innovative and tailor-made proposals for the service; less emphasis on price (a good AMO has a cost).
LEVER 17
Strengthen the continuous training of agents in charge of awarding and monitoring contracts by training them more in negotiation techniques while promoting the acquisition of economic skills and the understanding of the notion of plural/global performance.
LEVER 18
Encourage contractors to use public procurement tools that boost operators’ innovation and creativity (functional specifications, variants, sourcing, competitive dialogue, etc.) by promoting good practices.
LEVER 19
Use non-public procurement tools (calls for projects, social impact contracts) to involve the private sector in projects of social and environmental utility.
LEVER 20
Involve users in the governance of the public service, in particular by extending the scope of competence of the Advisory Commission on Local Public Services (CCSPL) to all management methods (delegated management, governance and SPL).
References
Union Nationale des Services Publics Industriels et Commerciaux. (2022). Associons le meilleur du public et du privé. UNSPIC.