A public service or service of general (economic) interest is any service intended to address specific needs pertaining to the aggregate members of a community.[1][2] Public services are available to people within a government jurisdiction as provided directly through public sector agencies or via public financing to private businesses or voluntary organizations (or even as provided by family households, though terminology may differ depending on context). Other public services are undertaken on behalf of a government's residents or in the interest of its citizens. The term is associated with a social consensus (usually expressed through democratic elections) that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income, physical ability or mental acuity. Examples of such services include the fire brigade, police, air force, and paramedics (see also public service broadcasting).
Even where public services are neither publicly provided nor publicly financed, they are usually subject to regulation going beyond that applying to most economic sectors for social and political reasons. Public policy,[3] when made in the public's interest and with its motivations, is a type of public service.
Public services can be constructed, coordinated and operated in many ways or forms. They include government agencies, independent state-funded institutes, government-coordinated organizations, civil society, militaries and volunteers.
Government employees
Government agencies are not profit-oriented and their employees are often motivated differently.[5] Studies of their work have found contrasting results including both higher levels of effort[5] and fewer hours of work.[6] A survey in the UK found that private sector hiring managers do not credit government experience as much as private sector experience.[7] Public workers tend to make less in wages when adjusting for education, although that difference is reduced when benefits and hours are included.[8] Public servants have other intangible benefits such as increased job security and high wages.[8]
Need satisfaction and sustainability
A study concluded that public services are associated with higher human need satisfaction and lower energy requirements while contemporary forms of economic growth are linked with the opposite. Authors find that the contemporary economic system is structurally misaligned with goals of sustainable development and that to date no nation can provide decent living standards at sustainable levels of energy and resource use. They provide analysis about factors in social provisioning and assess that improving beneficial provisioning-factors and infrastructure would allow for sustainable forms of sufficient need satisfaction.[9][10]
Characteristics
A public service may sometimes have the characteristics of a public good (being non-rivalrous and non-excludable), but most are 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. They may be provided by local or national monopolies, especially in sectors that are natural monopolies.
They may involve outputs that are hard to attribute to specific individual effort 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 process of assessing the needs of the people of an area, and then designing and securing an appropriate public service to meet those needs, is often referred to in the UK as commissioning.[11] The commissioned services may be delivered by organisations in the public sector, private sector or third sector:[12] when the private or third sector is involved the process of commissioning will usually be linked with a process of procurement, to determine who will provide the services, at what cost and on what terms. Commissioning is often seen as a cyclical process.[11]
Governing bodies have long provided core public services. The tradition of keeping citizens secure through organized military defence dates to at least four thousand years ago.[13]
Maintaining order through local delegated authority originated at least as early as the Warring States period (5th to 3rd centuries BCE) in ancient China with the institution of xiàn (prefectures) under the control of a centrally appointed prefect. Historical evidence of state provision of dispute resolution through a legal/justice system goes back at least as far as ancient Egypt.[14]
A primary public service in ancient history involved ensuring the general favor of the gods through a theologically and ceremonially correct state religion.[15]
The widespread provision of public utilities as public services in developed countries usually began in the late nineteenth century, often with the municipal development of gas and water services. Later, governments began to provide other services such as electricity and health care. In most developed countries, local or national governments continue to provide such services, the biggest exceptions being the U.S. and the UK, where private provision is arguably proportionally more significant.[16] 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. For example, water services might only be available to the wealthymiddle class. For political reasons, the service is often subsidized, which reduces the finance potentially available for expansion to poorer communities.[citation needed] The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 is however, a global initiative which aims to influence the provision of public services and infrastructure to marginalized demographics.[17]
Nationalization, privatization and personalization
A group of Chilean 'Damas de Rojo', volunteers at their local hospital
Nationalization took off following the World wars of the first half of the twentieth century. In parts of Europe, central planning was implemented in the belief that it would make production more efficient. Many public services, especially electricity, fossil fuels and public transport are products of this era. Following the Second World War, many countries also began to implement universal health care and expanded education under the funding and guidance of the state.
There are several ways to privatize public services. A free-market corporation may be established and sold to private investors, relinquishing government control altogether. Thus it becomes a private (not public) service. Another option, used in the Nordic countries, 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 until 2007, the rest being owned by private investors. A 49% share did not make it a "government enterprise", but it meant 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.
A 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 partnerships. This involves giving a long lease to private consortia in return for partly funding infrastructure.
^McGregor, Eugene B. Jr.; Campbell, Alan K.; Macy, Anthony itua; Cleveland, Harlan (July–August 1982). "Symposium: The Public Service as Institution". Public Administration Review. Washington. 42 (4): 304–320. doi:10.2307/975969. JSTOR i240003. ProQuest 197199863.
^"Definition of PUBLIC SERVICE". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2019-08-21.
^Anderfuhren-Biget, Simon; Varone, Frédéric; Giauque, David (December 2014). "Policy Environment and Public Service Motivation". Public Administration. London. 92 (4): 807–825. doi:10.1111/padm.12026. ProQuest 1639861884.
^"Services of general interest". European Economic and Social Committee. 2012-07-09. Retrieved 2020-06-16.
^ abFrank, Sue A.; Lewis, Gregory B. (March 2004). "Government Employees: Working Hard or Hardly Working?". The American Review of Public Administration. 34 (1): 36–51. doi:10.1177/0275074003258823. S2CID 155017646.
^Richwine, Jason (11 September 2012). "Government Employees Work Less than Private-Sector Employees". Backgrounder. The Heritage Foundation (2724): 1–6. Retrieved 16 January 2016.
^Ovsey, Dan (27 May 2014). "Public sector stigma: The 100,000 workers Tim Hudak removes from the provincial payroll could have a tough transition to the private sector". Financial Post. Retrieved 16 January 2016.
^ abVolokh, Sasha (7 February 2014). "Are public-sector employees "overpaid"?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 18 January 2016.
^"Securing decent living standards for all while reducing global energy use". phys.org. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
^Vogel, Jefim; Steinberger, Julia K.; O'Neill, Daniel W.; Lamb, William F.; Krishnakumar, Jaya (29 June 2021). "Socio-economic conditions for satisfying human needs at low energy use: An international analysis of social provisioning". Global Environmental Change. 69: 102287. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102287. ISSN 0959-3780.
^ abCabinet Office, Office of the Third Sector (2006), Partnership in Public Services: An action plan for third sector involvement, published December 2006, accessed 17 February 2021
^Cabinet Office, Modernising Commissioning: Increasing the role of charities, social enterprises, mutuals and cooperatives in public service delivery, page 7, published 2010, accessed 17 February 2021
^Rice, Michael (1998). The Power of the Bull. London: Routledge. p. 13. ISBN978-1-317-72583-1. As the more advanced social institutions began to take shape they contributed to some counterbalancing of the essential insecurity of man's condition. It was inevitable that ambitious and assertive men should see an opportunity for establishing for themselves positions of power and influence. No doubt many such occasions had their origins in a genuine concern for the public good [...] The position of [...] the war-band leader as the strong arm of the community's defence would increasingly be confirmed by the subjection of the community to the members of what [...] were becoming, demonstrably, elites, [...] This period, embracing part of the fifth and all of the fourth and third millennia before the present era, is absolutely pivotal to the development of the modern world.
^Haley, John O. (2016). Law's Political Foundations: Rivers, Rifles, Rice, and Religion. Cheltemham, Gloucestershire: Edward Elgar Publishing. pp. 43–44. ISBN978-1-78536-850-9. Pharaonic Egypt epitomizes a regulatory, public law regime. [...] The principal function of this elaborate apparatus was to maintain order and security, and, above all, to acquire as much of the surplus agricultural wealth and labor as possible.
^Hovey, Craig; Phillips, Elizabeth (2015). The Cambridge Companion to Political Theology. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 4–5. ISBN978-1-107-05274-1. To ensure the favor of the gods was the preeminent task of ancient rulers worldwide, for they all were priestly kings. The Roman Caesar was the pontifex maximus of Rome's state god. The Chinese emperor certainly stood over his subjects as 'Son of Heaven,' but if he fell into disfavor with heaven and his country was visited by famine, plague, earthquakes, and floods, he could be overthrown. The Moloch of Carthage demanded children as sacrifices; the Aztecs and Mayas offered their Gods still-quivering hearts. These political religions were do ut des religions in which the relationship between deity and worshippers was one of contractual exchange.
^by (2019-10-29). "Concept Of Public Service (1)". Andhra Pradesh PCS Exam Notes. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
^"Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender equality". UN Women. Retrieved 2020-09-23.
External links
Municipal Services Project
Public Services International
Public Services International Research Unit
Daniel Chavez (ed), Beyond the Market: The Future of Public Services, TNI Public Services Yearbook 2005/6, Transnational Institute / Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU), February 2006
European Centre of Enterprises with Public Participation and of Enterprises of General Economic Interest 2011-08-13 at the Wayback Machine
public, service, other, uses, disambiguation, confused, with, civil, service, this, article, multiple, issues, please, help, improve, discuss, these, issues, talk, page, learn, when, remove, these, template, messages, this, section, includes, list, references,. For other uses see Public service disambiguation Not to be confused with Civil service This article has multiple issues Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page Learn how and when to remove these template messages This section includes a list of references related reading or external links but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations Please help to improve this section by introducing more precise citations December 2016 Learn how and when to remove this template message The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject You may improve this article discuss the issue on the talk page or create a new article as appropriate July 2020 Learn how and when to remove this template message Learn how and when to remove this template message A public service or service of general economic interest is any service intended to address specific needs pertaining to the aggregate members of a community 1 2 Public services are available to people within a government jurisdiction as provided directly through public sector agencies or via public financing to private businesses or voluntary organizations or even as provided by family households though terminology may differ depending on context Other public services are undertaken on behalf of a government s residents or in the interest of its citizens The term is associated with a social consensus usually expressed through democratic elections that certain services should be available to all regardless of income physical ability or mental acuity Examples of such services include the fire brigade police air force and paramedics see also public service broadcasting Tbilisi Public Service Hall Building Tbilisi Georgia Even where public services are neither publicly provided nor publicly financed they are usually subject to regulation going beyond that applying to most economic sectors for social and political reasons Public policy 3 when made in the public s interest and with its motivations is a type of public service Contents 1 Sectors 2 Implications 2 1 Government employees 2 2 Need satisfaction and sustainability 3 Characteristics 4 History 5 Nationalization privatization and personalization 5 1 Nationalization 5 2 Privatization 6 See also 7 References 8 External linksSectors Edit The National Bureau of Investigation NBI headquarters building in Tikkurila Vantaa Finland In modern developed countries the term public services or services of general interest often includes 4 Courts Education Electricity Emergency services Environmental protection Health care Mail Military Public buildings Public libraries Public parks Public policy Public utilities Public transportation Social services State schools Telecommunications Transportation infrastructure Urban planning Waste management Water supply network Trains are a public service Implications EditMain article Public administration Public services can be constructed coordinated and operated in many ways or forms They include government agencies independent state funded institutes government coordinated organizations civil society militaries and volunteers Government employees Edit Government agencies are not profit oriented and their employees are often motivated differently 5 Studies of their work have found contrasting results including both higher levels of effort 5 and fewer hours of work 6 A survey in the UK found that private sector hiring managers do not credit government experience as much as private sector experience 7 Public workers tend to make less in wages when adjusting for education although that difference is reduced when benefits and hours are included 8 Public servants have other intangible benefits such as increased job security and high wages 8 Need satisfaction and sustainability Edit A study concluded that public services are associated with higher human need satisfaction and lower energy requirements while contemporary forms of economic growth are linked with the opposite Authors find that the contemporary economic system is structurally misaligned with goals of sustainable development and that to date no nation can provide decent living standards at sustainable levels of energy and resource use They provide analysis about factors in social provisioning and assess that improving beneficial provisioning factors and infrastructure would allow for sustainable forms of sufficient need satisfaction 9 10 Characteristics EditA public service may sometimes have the characteristics of a public good being non rivalrous and non excludable but most are 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 They may be provided by local or national monopolies especially in sectors that are natural monopolies They may involve outputs that are hard to attribute to specific individual effort 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 process of assessing the needs of the people of an area and then designing and securing an appropriate public service to meet those needs is often referred to in the UK as commissioning 11 The commissioned services may be delivered by organisations in the public sector private sector or third sector 12 when the private or third sector is involved the process of commissioning will usually be linked with a process of procurement to determine who will provide the services at what cost and on what terms Commissioning is often seen as a cyclical process 11 See also Act of entrustmentHistory EditGoverning bodies have long provided core public services The tradition of keeping citizens secure through organized military defence dates to at least four thousand years ago 13 Maintaining order through local delegated authority originated at least as early as the Warring States period 5th to 3rd centuries BCE in ancient China with the institution of xian prefectures under the control of a centrally appointed prefect Historical evidence of state provision of dispute resolution through a legal justice system goes back at least as far as ancient Egypt 14 A primary public service in ancient history involved ensuring the general favor of the gods through a theologically and ceremonially correct state religion 15 The widespread provision of public utilities as public services in developed countries usually began in the late nineteenth century often with the municipal development of gas and water services Later governments began to provide other services such as electricity and health care In most developed countries local or national governments continue to provide such services the biggest exceptions being the U S and the UK where private provision is arguably proportionally more significant 16 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 For example water services might only be available to the wealthy middle class For political reasons the service is often subsidized which reduces the finance potentially available for expansion to poorer communities citation needed The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 is however a global initiative which aims to influence the provision of public services and infrastructure to marginalized demographics 17 Nationalization privatization and personalization Edit A group of Chilean Damas de Rojo volunteers at their local hospital Nationalization Edit Main article Nationalization Nationalization took off following the World wars of the first half of the twentieth century In parts of Europe central planning was implemented in the belief that it would make production more efficient Many public services especially electricity fossil fuels and public transport are products of this era Following the Second World War many countries also began to implement universal health care and expanded education under the funding and guidance of the state Privatization Edit Main article Privatization There are several ways to privatize public services A free market corporation may be established and sold to private investors relinquishing government control altogether Thus it becomes a private not public service Another option used in the Nordic countries 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 until 2007 the rest being owned by private investors A 49 share did not make it a government enterprise but it meant 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 A 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 partnerships This involves giving a long lease to private consortia in return for partly funding infrastructure See also EditAct of entrustment Certificate of public convenience and necessity Community service Good governance Infrastructure Labour Relations Public Service Convention 1978 New Public Management Right to Public Services legislation The Odisha Right to Public Services Act 2012 SGI Europe United Nations Public Service Awards United Nations Public Service Day Universal basic servicesReferences Edit McGregor Eugene B Jr Campbell Alan K Macy Anthony itua Cleveland Harlan July August 1982 Symposium The Public Service as Institution Public Administration Review Washington 42 4 304 320 doi 10 2307 975969 JSTOR i240003 ProQuest 197199863 Definition of PUBLIC SERVICE www merriam webster com Retrieved 2019 08 21 Anderfuhren Biget Simon Varone Frederic Giauque David December 2014 Policy Environment and Public Service Motivation Public Administration London 92 4 807 825 doi 10 1111 padm 12026 ProQuest 1639861884 Services of general interest European Economic and Social Committee 2012 07 09 Retrieved 2020 06 16 a b Frank Sue A Lewis Gregory B March 2004 Government Employees Working Hard or Hardly Working The American Review of Public Administration 34 1 36 51 doi 10 1177 0275074003258823 S2CID 155017646 Richwine Jason 11 September 2012 Government Employees Work Less than Private Sector Employees Backgrounder The Heritage Foundation 2724 1 6 Retrieved 16 January 2016 Ovsey Dan 27 May 2014 Public sector stigma The 100 000 workers Tim Hudak removes from the provincial payroll could have a tough transition to the private sector Financial Post Retrieved 16 January 2016 a b Volokh Sasha 7 February 2014 Are public sector employees overpaid The Washington Post Retrieved 18 January 2016 Securing decent living standards for all while reducing global energy use phys org Retrieved 10 July 2021 Vogel Jefim Steinberger Julia K O Neill Daniel W Lamb William F Krishnakumar Jaya 29 June 2021 Socio economic conditions for satisfying human needs at low energy use An international analysis of social provisioning Global Environmental Change 69 102287 doi 10 1016 j gloenvcha 2021 102287 ISSN 0959 3780 a b Cabinet Office Office of the Third Sector 2006 Partnership in Public Services An action plan for third sector involvement published December 2006 accessed 17 February 2021 Cabinet Office Modernising Commissioning Increasing the role of charities social enterprises mutuals and cooperatives in public service delivery page 7 published 2010 accessed 17 February 2021 Rice Michael 1998 The Power of the Bull London Routledge p 13 ISBN 978 1 317 72583 1 As the more advanced social institutions began to take shape they contributed to some counterbalancing of the essential insecurity of man s condition It was inevitable that ambitious and assertive men should see an opportunity for establishing for themselves positions of power and influence No doubt many such occasions had their origins in a genuine concern for the public good The position of the war band leader as the strong arm of the community s defence would increasingly be confirmed by the subjection of the community to the members of what were becoming demonstrably elites This period embracing part of the fifth and all of the fourth and third millennia before the present era is absolutely pivotal to the development of the modern world Haley John O 2016 Law s Political Foundations Rivers Rifles Rice and Religion Cheltemham Gloucestershire Edward Elgar Publishing pp 43 44 ISBN 978 1 78536 850 9 Pharaonic Egypt epitomizes a regulatory public law regime The principal function of this elaborate apparatus was to maintain order and security and above all to acquire as much of the surplus agricultural wealth and labor as possible Hovey Craig Phillips Elizabeth 2015 The Cambridge Companion to Political Theology New York Cambridge University Press p 4 5 ISBN 978 1 107 05274 1 To ensure the favor of the gods was the preeminent task of ancient rulers worldwide for they all were priestly kings The Roman Caesar was the pontifex maximus of Rome s state god The Chinese emperor certainly stood over his subjects as Son of Heaven but if he fell into disfavor with heaven and his country was visited by famine plague earthquakes and floods he could be overthrown The Moloch of Carthage demanded children as sacrifices the Aztecs and Mayas offered their Gods still quivering hearts These political religions were do ut des religions in which the relationship between deity and worshippers was one of contractual exchange by 2019 10 29 Concept Of Public Service 1 Andhra Pradesh PCS Exam Notes Retrieved 2020 09 24 Sustainable Development Goal 5 Gender equality UN Women Retrieved 2020 09 23 External links EditMunicipal Services Project Public Services International Public Services International Research Unit Daniel Chavez ed Beyond the Market The Future of Public Services TNI Public Services Yearbook 2005 6 Transnational Institute Public Services International Research Unit PSIRU February 2006 European Centre of Enterprises with Public Participation and of Enterprises of General Economic Interest Archived 2011 08 13 at the Wayback Machine Indian Public services Archived 2020 10 20 at the Wayback Machine Government Jobs Alert Archived 2020 10 28 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Public service amp oldid 1151645173, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
