“We are opening public services (to competition) because we believe that giving people more control over the public services they receive, and opening up the delivery of those services to new providers, will lead to better public services for all.”
- from the UK’s Open Public Services White Paper

QUEEN’S PARK – Ontario can learn from both the United Kingdom and the United States when it comes to creating competition for government contracts, Ontario PC Economic Development and Innovation Critic Monte McNaughton said today.

“Under David Cameron, the UK in particular has really blazed a trail on reform to public service delivery,” McNaughton said, citing a 2011 British government White Paper detailing a plan to open every public service except national security, front-line policing and the judiciary to providers from the private and voluntary sectors.

“Ontario under Dalton McGuinty urgently needs to reduce the size and cost of government. This is one way to do it – and in the process, improve the quality of public services through better hours, more products delivered and more responsive service.”

In addition to the UK, McNaughton noted that several U.S. jurisdictions have moved successfully to introduce private sector competitive pressures to public sector service delivery by allowing unions from both to compete for government contracts, and businesses as well:

• Florida used competitive sourcing and other alternative methods more than 130 times between 1999 and 2007, saving more than $500 million
• The City of Phoenix, Arizona saved more than $25 million over 10 years by developing a competitive bidding process
• Indianapolis saw average cost savings of 25 per cent through the life of a managed competition program in the 1990s
• Virginia’s Commonweath Competition Council has identified 205 commercial activities being performed by 37,000 state employees that could be provided through competitive outsourcing. The program is estimated to be saving at least $40 million a year.

McNaughton urged Premier McGuinty to finally confront his jobs and spending crisis by embracing 21st Century ideas for reducing the size and cost of government.

“Let’s drive private sector incentives into the public sector, resulting in innovation and new approaches to government services,” McNaughton said. “But if Dalton McGuinty won’t do it, an Ontario PC government under Tim Hudak will.”