Public services
Encyclopedia
Public services is a term usually used to mean services provided by government
to its citizens, either directly (through the public sector
) or by financing private provision of services. The term is associated with a social consensus (usually expressed through democratic elections) that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income
. Even where public services are neither publicly provided nor publicly financed, for social and political reasons they are usually subject to regulation
going beyond that applying to most economic sectors. Public service is also a course that can be studied at a college and/or university.
reasons their universal provision should be guaranteed. They may be associated with fundamental human rights
(such as the right to water). An example of a service which is not generally considered an essential public service is hairdressing. The Volunteer Fire Dept. and Ambulance Corps. are institutions with the mission of servicing the community. A service is helping others with a specific need or want. Here, service ranges from a doctor curing an illness, to a repair person, to a food pantry. All of these services are essential to people's lives.
In modern, developed countries the term public services often includes:
(being non-rivalrous and non-excludable), but most are merit good
s, that is, services which may (according to prevailing social norms) be under-provided by the market
. In most cases public services are services, i.e. they do not involve manufacturing of goods such as nut
s and bolts
. They may be provided by local or national monopolies, especially in sectors which are natural monopolies
.
They may involve outputs that are hard to attribute to specific individual effort and/or hard to measure in terms of key characteristics such as quality. They often require high levels of training and education. They may attract people with a public service ethos who wish to give something to the wider public or community through their work.
The contemporary public services employee now typically earns more in salary/benefits than their private sector counterpart, though this is due as much (or more) to downward pressure on the social wage in the private sector as it is to upward pressure on salaries and benefits in the public sector.
and water
services. Later, other services such as electricity
and healthcare began to be provided by governments. In most developed countries such services are still provided by local or national government, the biggest exceptions being the U.S.
and the UK
, where private provision is more significant. Nonetheless, such privately-provided public services are often strongly regulated, for example (in the US) by Public Utility Commissions.
In developing countries public services tend to be much less well developed. Water services, for example, may only be available to the wealthy middle class
. For political reasons the service is often subsidised, which reduces the finance available for expansion to poor
er communities.
and expanded education under the funding and guidance of the state.
, is to establish a corporation, but keep ownership or voting power essentially in the hands of the government. For example, the Finnish state
owned 49% of Kemira
, the rest being owned by private investors. A 49% share doesn't make it a "government enterprise", but it means that all other investors together would have to oppose the state's opinion in order to overturn the state's decisions in the shareholder's meeting. Regulated corporation can also acquire permits on the agreement that they fulfill certain public service duties. When a private corporation runs a natural monopoly
, then the corporation is typically heavily regulated, to prevent abuse of monopoly power. Lastly, the government can buy the service on the free market. In many countries, medication
is provided in this manner: the government reimburses part of the price of the medication. Also, bus traffic, electricity, healthcare and waste management are privatized in this way. One recent innovation, used in the UK increasingly as well as Australia and Canada is public-private partnership
s. This involves giving a long lease to private consortia in return for partly funding infrastructure.
ETUC named its petition "for high quality public services" but explains "Public services are known as Services of general interest (SGI) and Services of general economic interest (SGEIs) in European Union terminology."
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
to its citizens, either directly (through the public sector
Public sector
The public sector, sometimes referred to as the state sector, is a part of the state that deals with either the production, delivery and allocation of goods and services by and for the government or its citizens, whether national, regional or local/municipal.Examples of public sector activity range...
) or by financing private provision of services. The term is associated with a social consensus (usually expressed through democratic elections) that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income
Income
Income is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...
. Even where public services are neither publicly provided nor publicly financed, for social and political reasons they are usually subject to regulation
Regulation
Regulation is administrative legislation that constitutes or constrains rights and allocates responsibilities. It can be distinguished from primary legislation on the one hand and judge-made law on the other...
going beyond that applying to most economic sectors. Public service is also a course that can be studied at a college and/or university.
Sectors
Public services tend to be those considered as so essential to modern life that for moralMoral
A moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim...
reasons their universal provision should be guaranteed. They may be associated with fundamental human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
(such as the right to water). An example of a service which is not generally considered an essential public service is hairdressing. The Volunteer Fire Dept. and Ambulance Corps. are institutions with the mission of servicing the community. A service is helping others with a specific need or want. Here, service ranges from a doctor curing an illness, to a repair person, to a food pantry. All of these services are essential to people's lives.
In modern, developed countries the term public services often includes:
- BroadcastingBroadcastingBroadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via any audio visual medium. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof...
- EducationEducationEducation in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
- ElectricityElectricityElectricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
- Environmental protectionEnvironmental protectionEnvironmental protection is a practice of protecting the environment, on individual, organizational or governmental level, for the benefit of the natural environment and humans. Due to the pressures of population and our technology the biophysical environment is being degraded, sometimes permanently...
- Fire service
- GasGasGas is one of the three classical states of matter . Near absolute zero, a substance exists as a solid. As heat is added to this substance it melts into a liquid at its melting point , boils into a gas at its boiling point, and if heated high enough would enter a plasma state in which the electrons...
- Health careHealth careHealth care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers...
- MilitaryMilitaryA military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...
- PolicePoliceThe police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
service
- Public information and archiving, such as libraries
- Public transportation
- Social housing
- Social services
- Telecommunications
- Town planning
- Waste managementWaste managementWaste management is the collection, transport, processing or disposal,managing and monitoring of waste materials. The term usually relates to materials produced by human activity, and the process is generally undertaken to reduce their effect on health, the environment or aesthetics...
- Water servicesWater supply networkA water supply system or water supply network is a system of engineered hydrologic and hydraulic components which provide water supply. A water supply system typically includes:# A drainage basin ;...
Characteristics
A public service may sometimes have the characteristics of a public goodPublic good
In economics, a public good is a good that is non-rival and non-excludable. Non-rivalry means that consumption of the good by one individual does not reduce availability of the good for consumption by others; and non-excludability means that no one can be effectively excluded from using the good...
(being non-rivalrous and non-excludable), but most are merit good
Merit good
The concept of a merit good introduced in economics by Richard Musgrave is a commodity which is judged that an individual or society should have on the basis of some concept of need, rather than ability and willingness to pay...
s, that is, services which may (according to prevailing social norms) be under-provided by the market
Market
A market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...
. In most cases public services are services, i.e. they do not involve manufacturing of goods such as nut
Nut (hardware)
A nut is a type of hardware fastener with a threaded hole. Nuts are almost always used opposite a mating bolt to fasten a stack of parts together. The two partners are kept together by a combination of their threads' friction, a slight stretch of the bolt, and compression of the parts...
s and bolts
Screw
A screw, or bolt, is a type of fastener characterized by a helical ridge, known as an external thread or just thread, wrapped around a cylinder. Some screw threads are designed to mate with a complementary thread, known as an internal thread, often in the form of a nut or an object that has the...
. They may be provided by local or national monopolies, especially in sectors which are natural monopolies
Natural monopoly
A monopoly describes a situation where all sales in a market are undertaken by a single firm. A natural monopoly by contrast is a condition on the cost-technology of an industry whereby it is most efficient for production to be concentrated in a single form...
.
They may involve outputs that are hard to attribute to specific individual effort and/or hard to measure in terms of key characteristics such as quality. They often require high levels of training and education. They may attract people with a public service ethos who wish to give something to the wider public or community through their work.
The contemporary public services employee now typically earns more in salary/benefits than their private sector counterpart, though this is due as much (or more) to downward pressure on the social wage in the private sector as it is to upward pressure on salaries and benefits in the public sector.
History
Historically, the widespread provision of public services in developed countries usually began in the late nineteenth century, often with the municipal development of gasGas
Gas is one of the three classical states of matter . Near absolute zero, a substance exists as a solid. As heat is added to this substance it melts into a liquid at its melting point , boils into a gas at its boiling point, and if heated high enough would enter a plasma state in which the electrons...
and water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
services. Later, other services such as electricity
Electricity
Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
and healthcare began to be provided by governments. In most developed countries such services are still provided by local or national government, the biggest exceptions being the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, where private provision is more significant. Nonetheless, such privately-provided public services are often strongly regulated, for example (in the US) by Public Utility Commissions.
In developing countries public services tend to be much less well developed. Water services, for example, may only be available to the wealthy middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
. For political reasons the service is often subsidised, which reduces the finance available for expansion to poor
Poor
Poor is an adjective related to a state of poverty, low quality or pity.People with the surname Poor:* Charles Henry Poor, a US Navy officer* Charles Lane Poor, an astronomer* Edward Erie Poor, a vice president of the National Park Bank...
er communities.
Nationalization
Nationalization really took off following the World Wars of the first half of the twentieth century. Across Europe, because of the extreme demands on industries and the economy, central planning was required to ensure that the maximum degree of efficient production was obtained. Many public services, especially electricity, gas and public transport were products of this era. Following the second world war, many countries also began to implement universal health careUniversal health care
Universal health care is a term referring to organized health care systems built around the principle of universal coverage for all members of society, combining mechanisms for health financing and service provision.-History:...
and expanded education under the funding and guidance of the state.
Privatization
There are several ways to privatise public services. A free-market corporation may be established and sold to private investors, relinquishing government control altogether. This essentially ends the public service and makes it a private service. Another option, used in the Nordic countriesNordic countries
The Nordic countries make up a region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic which consists of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and their associated territories, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland...
, is to establish a corporation, but keep ownership or voting power essentially in the hands of the government. For example, the Finnish state
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
owned 49% of Kemira
Kemira
Kemira Oyj is a chemical industry group that consists of three main segments. Kemira is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland.Kemira’s main shareholder is Oras Invest Oy and its owners, members of the Paasikivi family. Its former main owner, the State of Finland, sold the largest part of its holding...
, the rest being owned by private investors. A 49% share doesn't make it a "government enterprise", but it means that all other investors together would have to oppose the state's opinion in order to overturn the state's decisions in the shareholder's meeting. Regulated corporation can also acquire permits on the agreement that they fulfill certain public service duties. When a private corporation runs a natural monopoly
Natural monopoly
A monopoly describes a situation where all sales in a market are undertaken by a single firm. A natural monopoly by contrast is a condition on the cost-technology of an industry whereby it is most efficient for production to be concentrated in a single form...
, then the corporation is typically heavily regulated, to prevent abuse of monopoly power. Lastly, the government can buy the service on the free market. In many countries, medication
Medication
A pharmaceutical drug, also referred to as medicine, medication or medicament, can be loosely defined as any chemical substance intended for use in the medical diagnosis, cure, treatment, or prevention of disease.- Classification :...
is provided in this manner: the government reimburses part of the price of the medication. Also, bus traffic, electricity, healthcare and waste management are privatized in this way. One recent innovation, used in the UK increasingly as well as Australia and Canada is public-private partnership
Public-private partnership
Public–private partnership describes a government service or private business venture which is funded and operated through a partnership of government and one or more private sector companies...
s. This involves giving a long lease to private consortia in return for partly funding infrastructure.
Public services versus Services of General Interest
At the European level, some countries use the name service of general interest, while other prefer public services. It has been a discussion, for instance during the writing of the european constitution (the word services of general interest has been used).ETUC named its petition "for high quality public services" but explains "Public services are known as Services of general interest (SGI) and Services of general economic interest (SGEIs) in European Union terminology."
See also
- Public valuePublic valuePublic value is the equivalent of shareholder value in public management. Public value can be instituted as an organising principle in a public sector organisation, providing a focus in the context of which individual employees are free to pursue and propose new ideas about how to improve the...
– the equivalent of shareholder valueShareholder valueShareholder value is a business term, sometimes phrased as shareholder value maximization or as the shareholder value model, which implies that the ultimate measure of a company's success is the extent to which it enriches shareholders...
in public managementPublic managementPublic management is a term that considers that government and non-profit administration resembles private-sector management in some important ways. As such, there are management tools appropriate in public and in private domains, tools that maximize efficiency and effectiveness... - Public goodPublic goodIn economics, a public good is a good that is non-rival and non-excludable. Non-rivalry means that consumption of the good by one individual does not reduce availability of the good for consumption by others; and non-excludability means that no one can be effectively excluded from using the good...
– a good whose availability is not reduced (non-rivaledRivalry (economics)In economics, rivalry is a characteristic of a good. A good can be placed along a continuum ranging from rivalrous to non-rival. The same characteristic is sometimes referred to as subtractable or non-subtractable . A rival good is a good whose consumption by one consumer prevents simultaneous...
) due to the consumption by others; and that no one can be effectively excluded (non-excludable) from using the good - CEEP European Centre of Enterprises with Public Participation and of Enterprises of General Economic Interest
- Customer serviceCustomer serviceCustomer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.According to Turban et al. , “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer...
- European Community regulationEuropean Community regulationEuropean Union regulation refers to the body of European Union law involved in the regulation of state support to commercial industries, and of certain industry sectors and public services. The industries currently subject to regulation and liberalisation are, for the time being, postal services,...
- InfrastructureInfrastructureInfrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...
- New Public ManagementNew Public ManagementNew public management is a management philosophy used by governments since the 1980s to modernise the public sector. New public management is a broad and very complex term used to describe the wave of public sector reforms throughout the world since the 1980s...
- PrivatizationPrivatizationPrivatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...
- Public administrationPublic administrationPublic Administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal.....
- Public ownership
- Public policyPublic policyPublic policy as government action is generally the principled guide to action taken by the administrative or executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. In general, the foundation is the pertinent national and...
- Public service broadcasting
- Service
- VÖWG Austrian Association for Public and Social Economy
- Welfare stateWelfare stateA welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...
External links
- Municipal Services Project
- Public Services International
- Public Services International Research Unit
- publicservice.co.uk – Public Service News
- Daniel Chavez (ed), Beyond the Market: The Future of Public Services, TNI Public Services Yearbook 2005/6, Transnational InstituteTransnational InstituteTransnational Institute is an international think tank for progressive politics. It was established in 1973 in Amsterdam and serves as a network for scholars and activists...
/ Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU), February 2006 - European Centre of Enterprises with Public Participation and of Enterprises of General Economic Interest