In 2003, the Serco Institute initiated a number of research projects, drawing on published data and on Serco's wide range of public service contracts in 36 countries around the world. The first of these was published by the UK Confederation of British Industry in 2003, and in early 2005, the Institute published the first of its own reports, 'Good People, Good Systems', looking at the experience of managing public services in the private sector.

Recent publications include research into contractual performance measurement, looking at trends over time and comparing developments in different market sectors; a comprehensive review of academic and government literature on the financial savings from competition and contestability; and an analysis of the market for policing support services. 

(Please note: links on this page will open the page in a new browser window)

Integrated Commissioning for Open Public Services: Building a better model for the delivery of social value through diverse networks of local providers
Stephen Duckworth and Alexis Sotiropoulos, 2012

The Serco Institute

To tackle the challenge of decentralised public service delivery, government must adopt a new approach to managing increasingly long networks of local providers. This report examines the 'Service Integrator' delivery model through case-studies of its current application in welfare-to-work and offender management as well as drawing insights from parallel sectors such as construction whilst further areas of application are also discussion. In particular, it captures the skills and approach to designing and mapping networks of local providers, in addition to a proactive performance regime that supports continuous and sustainable improvement.

Something Old, Something New: Catch 22's work in Doncaster Prison and how Payment by Results is driving innovation and benefits for offenders
Chris Wright and Peter Jones, 2012

Catch 22/The Criminal Justice Alliance

A case study of the innovative offender management initiative at HMP/YOI Doncaster which is based on an intensive case management model and paid on the basis of reduced rates of recidivism. It also showcases a unique alliance between the private, voluntary & community sectors that has supported radical redesign in service delivery. This was originally published by the Criminal Justice Alliance as part of a collection of essays: Delivering Justice: The role of the public, private and voluntary sectors in prisons and probation

Frugal Innovation: Learning from social entrepreneurs in India
Shalabh K Singh, Ashish Gambhir, Alexis Sotiropoulos, Dr Stephen Duckworth, 2012 

The Serco Institute

Over the last 60 years, innovation and improvements in India's public services have frequently emerged in the absence of state intervention or involvement. Social enterprises have stepped in to address the challenges where the government has failed. As a consequence, radical new perspectives have developed that might not have emerged if governments had imposed top-down initiatives adopted from the West.

"Frugal Innovation" is the idiom applied to this sweeping revolution in public service design and delivery. The term is used in India and other developing economies to describe innovation that minimises costs by creating frugal solutions to deliver improved or previously non-existent public services. Frugal innovation has given more people access to a wider range of services.

This paper provides insights into how solutions developed from the bottom-up in some of the most challenging public service environments can better meet the needs of citizens. It investigates a range of new perspectives applied to services by over 40 social enterprises in India. It challenges the notion that uniformity in delivering public services driven by a top-down centralist ideology translates into good value for money.

Glasgow Access LLP - Case Study
Alexis Sotiropoulos and Dr Stephen Duckworth OBE, 2011 
The Serco Institute
In 2008 Glasgow City Council established a ground-breaking joint venture company with Serco Group plc to consolidate its strategically important ICT and property management services. In so doing, it created a powerful vehicle for innovation and securing greater value for taxpayers' money. The £265m contract guarantees savings of around 20% whilst maintaining high quality standards. Carefully designed governance structures also enshrine democratic accountability alongside a drive for continuous service improvement.

Designing Public Service Markets: The Custodial Sector as a Case Study (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Sturgess, Gary and Smith, Briony, 2006
Serco Institute
'As they seek to engage the private and not-for-profit sectors in the delivery of public services, governments around the world find themselves grappling with complex questions of market design...' This report uses the Custodial Sector as a case study to explore some of these questions.

Redeeming Vouchers in Public Services
Gary Sturgess and Ivana Bodroza, 2011 
The Serco Institute
Institute Discussion Paper No.4. Public service vouchers exist wherever state funding follows user choice. They are common tools of public administration in both pro-market and social democratic countries. This paper presents the key issues in designing voucher programmes through analysis of recent experience around the world. It provides a broad policy architecture and examines how vouchers affect market design, gaming and regulation.

Payment by Outcome: A Commissioner's Toolkit

Sturgess, Gary L and Cumming, Lauren M. with Dicker, James; Sotiropoulos, Alexis and Sultan, Nadiya; 2011
2020 Public Services Trust
Payment-by-outcome is a form of performance management where the providers of public services are remunerated according to the outcomes they achieve rather than their effort. This report continues the work begun in Better Outcomes (below) and explores the tools that a payment-by-outcome approach brings to  public performance management. It draws on insights from the relevant academic and public policy literature as well the lessons from selected case studies. 

The main case studies are examined in greater depth through four additional working papers which cover sectors where payment-by-outcome has already been implemented, notably welfare to work but also, in a parallel context, pharmaceutical pricing, as well as areas where it may prove promising, such as long-term condition and offender management.

Better Outcomes
Cumming, Lauren M; Dick, Alastair; Filkin, Lord Geoffrey and Sturgess, Gary L 2010
2020 Public Services Trust
Prompted by the recent economic downturn government has begun to re-think the ways it delivers services at the central and local levels whilst still encouraging and rewarding innovation. This report describes a new approach to realising public service outcomes - outcome commissioning- which involves specifying outcomes to public, private and voluntary sector providers and paying them based on their results not for inputs. Better Outcomes analyses the challenges to implementing this approach and provides a tentative framework for commissioners, providers and policymakers to consider solutions.

Payment on Performance - The Use of Competition and Contracting in Improving Public Services
Sturgess, Gary L; 2009
The Serco Institute
A submission made by the Institute to the Western Australian Economic Audit Committee on the development of public service markets. It looks specifically at services that are are directly commissioned by government (rather than fully privatised services or voucher models) and draws mainly on UK examples, both from the practical experience of Serco Group and the Institute's independent research.

Making Time: Freeing Up Front-Line Policing (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)   
Sotiropoulos, Alexis 2008                
The Serco Institute

Freeing up our front-line public servants from time-consuming administration is one of the keys to improving value-for-money. Nowhere is this more important than in the complex task of policing our communities and responding to crime.  This report brings to light UK police forces' achievements in shifting resources from the back-office to the front-line, increasing their visibility and providing greater public reassurance.

To Guide the Human Puppet: Behavioural Economics, Public Policy and Public Service Contracting (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Cumming, Lauren, 2008
Serco Institute
Institute Discussion Paper No. 3: Behavioural economics is the latest fashion in political circles. This paper critically analyses the application of behavioural economics to policy design and its relevance to public service contracting...

Customer Service in the Delivery of Public Services: International Experience (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
The Serco Institute; 2008
Efficiency Unit, Government of Hong Kong SAR
As the citizens of developed countries have become more demanding about the public services they receive, governments have become more attuned to they way they are delivered. This report surveys the use of customer service techniques by public service providers around the world. It looks at how user experience can be enhanced through personalisation, better feedback mechanisms and the implementation of improved technologies. 

Competition and Contracting: Learning from Past Experience (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
The Serco Institute; 2008 
Efficiency Unit, Government of Hong Kong SAR
Governments have often failed to learn from past mistakes when contracting-out their services. This review of almost 50 studies, spanning three decades, brings together a wide range of 'exemplary failures' under the main issues that affect outsourcing.

Public Sector Reform: An International Overview (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
The Serco Institute; 2007
Efficiency Unit, Government of Hong Kong SAR
This report examines recent international trends which have impacted on the formulation and delivery of public services. These have included innovations in public engagement, performance management regimes and private sector involvement. Governments have also benefited from becoming more customer focused yet outcome oriented.

Competitive Edge - The Evidence (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)   
Sturgess, Gary L; Smith, Briony; May, Peter; Sotiropoulous, Alexis; 2007                
The Serco Institute
This document is a companion to the Institute report, 'Competitive Edge - Does Contestability Work?'. It provides summaries of the most important of the source documents for that report - some 200 studies over 30 years from 12 different countries. The material is organised into five sections covering defence support, health services, prison management, refuse collection and municipal services.

Competitive Edge - Does Contestability Work? (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)   
Sturgess, Gary L; Smith, Briony; May, Peter; Sotiropoulous, Alexis; 2007                
The Serco Institute
This review of 200 government and academic studies spanning 30 years, 12 countries and five sectors, shows that opening up public service monopolies to competition and innovation can cut costs by 20% - and with no sustained evidence that these come at the expense of quality. Perhaps most significantly, experience shows that substantial savings are available to public and private sector providers alike: it is competition, or the threat of competition, which drives value-for-money improvements.

What Gets Measured (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)   
Smith, Briony, 2007                
The Serco Institute
A report examining one of the central tools of service contracting - the performance measurement regime. It summarises an extensive research project, involving more than 40 service contracts across the public sector. The aim of the study was to understand some of the developments taking place in contractual performance measurement and to compare different models in an attempt to understand what works, under what circumstances. The report challenges governments and industry to develop the science of performance measurement, offering a number of recommendations.

HMYOI Ashfield - the Health Service (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)    
Mathias, Megan and Smith, Briony, 2007 
The Serco Institute     
A case study examining the health service provided in Ashfield Young Offenders Institution. The service has won national recognition for excellence in provision, a considerable achievement, made even more significant in the context of difficulties faced by Ashfield in the past. Drawing on interviews with fourteen stakeholders, the authors identify the key drivers in the Health Team's success.

Will Water Float? Competition and Private Provision in Urban Water Supply (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)   
Sturgess, Gary L. 2007                
The Serco Institute
A history of the patterns of private/public ownership and competition and monopoly in urban water supply since the seventeenth century.  This paper was published as a chapter of the CEDA/Serco report, 'Water that Works: Sustainable Water Management in the Commercial Sector' which is summarised in the Australia section of the resource centre.

Built to Serve: The Benefits of Service-Led PPPs (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Smith, Briony, 2007
The Serco Institute
This report proposes that physical infrastructure should not be the starting point in a PPP that is concerned with the delivery of effective services. The infrastructure is merely part of the service solution, and for that reason, it should be designed with the service in mind. Drawing insights from interviews with operational experts across a range of sectors, the report explores what happens when service providers are directly involved in the design and construction process for public infrastructure projects.

To Gladden the Heart of Miss Nightingale: Contracting for Complexity (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Sturgess, Gary L., 2006
Serco Institute
Institute Discussion Paper No. 2: Competition and contracting are powerful drivers of organisational change. We would be unsuprised to learn that business leaders agree with this statement, but contrary to what might be expected, the critics do not disagree with it either...

Designing Public Service Markets: The Custodial Sector as a Case Study (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Sturgess, Gary and Smith, Briony, 2006
Serco Institute
'As they seek to engage the private and not-for-profit sectors in the delivery of public services, governments around the world find themselves grappling with complex questions of market design...' This report uses the Custodial Sector as a case study to explore some of these questions.

Education Walsall Case Study (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Cranley, Gerald and Mathias, Megan, 2006
Serco Institute
How does a private company achieve what the national education inspectorate Ofsted has stated to be one of the fastest ever improvements of education services? This case study provides insights into the ongoing turnaround story in Walsall education services. It is the first in a planned series exploring the context and causes of successful delivery of Serco Group plc contracts.

Good People, Good Systems - What public service managers say: main report 
Good People, Good Systems - What public service managers say: detailed survey results 
(Please note: these links will open the page in a new browser window)

Mathias, Megan and Reddington, Emma, 2006
The Serco Institute
The report and detailed results of a Serco Institute survey that investigates the experience of former public service managers from across the world now working for an international public service company.

A fair field and no favours: competitive neutrality in UK public service markets (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Sturgess, Gary, L., 2005
The Serco Institute & CBI
Serco Institute Policy Study No. 1. As the UK Government moves to establish a 'mixed economy' of public, private and voluntary sector public service providers, it is vital that there is a level playing field between the various sectors. With this study, undertaken by the Serco Institute, on behalf of the CBI, and published by the CBI as a submission to Government, all three sectors come together to raise competitive neutrality as an issue.                                      

Bound for Botany Bay: Contracting for Quality in Public Services (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Sturgess, Gary, L., 2005
The Serco Institute Discussion Paper 1
The convict fleets which transported prisoners to Botany Bay in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, were mostly delivered under contract. This paper contrasts the First Fleet which was highly successful, with the Second Fleet, where 40% of the prisoners died, using these two contacts as a case study in contracting for quality.

Practical Partnering - Making the most of complex relationships (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Foster, Dilys, Serco Government Services and Sturgess, Gary, L., The Serco Institute, 2005
PPP Bulletin Issue 2, City & Financial Publishing
Effective collaboration has become a necessity for the successful delivery of many of the complex contracts now being entered into by public and private sector organisations alike. Dilys Foster set out to try and find out why some such arrangements work really well, whilst others fail - sometimes spectacularly. In "Practical Partnering", she sums up her findings and proposes a few critical factors for success. In particular she notes that in order to succeed, partnership arrangements must provide benefit for all partners - and all partners must share the responsibility of ensuring this is achieved.               

Good people, good systems (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Good people, good systems: Executive Summary (Please note: this link will open the page in a new browser window)
Reddington, Emma, 2004
The Serco Institute
In this groundbreaking study, Emma Reddington interviewed former public servants who are now managing the delivery of front-line public services in the private sector. They explain that they are still the same people as when they were employed by government, with the same public service ethos. But they have more managerial autonomy and greater personal accountability.

Competition: A Catalyst for Change in the Prison Service: A Decade of Improvement
Sturgess, Gary, 2003
Confederation of British Industry
In 2003, the Serco Institute studied competition and contracting in the UK prisons sector, on behalf of the Confederation of British Industry. Drawing exclusively on government and independent academic research, this study looks at the value-for-money and service quality outcomes. It also undertakes a preliminary analysis of the conditions that facilitated this success.
ISBN: 0-85201-571-2
UK

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