Public Funds, Private Provision

The last decade has seen welfare systems throughout the Western world challenged as governments launched major efforts to stabilize or reduce government social expenditures and to return a larger share of the responsibility for social welfare services to private hands. This fiscal crisis and its accompanying theme of retrenchment coincided with the emergence of neoconservatism that has led to polarized debate and a significant change in attitude and policy regarding the role and function of government in society.

Public Funds, Private Provision analyzes the respective roles of government and the voluntary sector in the financing and administration of social services. Focusing on development in British Columbia from 1983 to 1991, when the Social Credit government actively pursued a policy of privatization, this book examines the growth of the voluntary sector there and presents data which track the impact of privatization on services. It examines the issues of funding and accountability of the voluntary sector as it adopts the public agent role and increasingly delivers services on behalf of government.

In its discussion of the new partnership between government and the voluntary sector, this thought-provoking book raises important issues about government privatization policies and about the possible effects these policies will have on the future of the welfare state in Western society.