The Interplay between accountability and management control patterns in public sector outsourcing

This paper aims to examine the dynamic relationship between informal controls and formal control in the context of public sector outsourcing and explores whether informal controls have a role to play in public sector outsourcing and what implications this has for the role of trust and accountability of the public service. This paper uses two case studies to examine these questions and concludes that while it is necessary for formal controls to dominate the selection stages of outsourcing for accountability and transparency reasons, informal or looser controls can play an important role in the implementation of the outsourcing relationship.