The Barnett Government has just released the final report of its Economic Audit Committee which was established soon after the Liberal National Government came to power. The Report "Putting the Public First: Partnering with the Community and Business to Deliver Outcomes" is available here and a summary here.
This will be a significant document for the not for profit, non-government sector in Western Australia and it will be interesting to see the sector's response over coming months. The Report proposes a radical process of privatization and outsourcing of public services to the private and not for profit sector, and the introduction of market and business practices to the delivery of public and human services. The Report has a vision to make NGO's more business like and run as social enterprises.
On the surface this will be attractive to many NGO's, particularly the larger corporate NGO's, who have long argued that they should provide more services on behalf of government, and see plenty of opportunities in the new landscape.
But there is much to be concerned about in this Report and it should be a cause for great concern, particularly among the medium sized and smaller community based NGO's who make up the bulk of human service providers in WA. A longer analysis of the Report will appear on this blog in 2010.
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