Contracting Public Services: the Management of Compulsory Competitive Tendering In Two County Councils

Trevor Colling, Research Fellow in the Industrial Relations Research Unit at the University of Warwick, discusses the experience of two local authorities, one Labour- and the other Conservative-controlled, in managing compulsory competitive tendering. Both authorities were faced with the task of making radical changes in employment practices to compete against the private sector. Yet the pace and extent of change differed markedly reflecting not just the political complexion of the two authorities, but a range of factors. Employee as well as employer responses were crucially important in each case.