The Next Government: Partnerships & Networks

Successful partnerships initiated by the government can involve various stakeholders including private companies, state governments, and nonprofit organizations. Partnering and building networks with outside organizations can play an extremely important role in helping government reach its service delivery goals. Often significant cost savings are achieved by working closely with external groups. Government has also moved toward engagement with faith-based organizations, allowing denominational charities to compete for government funding. 

Partnerships can impact other aspects of government management, including personnel needs and oversight responsibilities. Cutting the federal workforce was the most widely publicized goal of the Clinton administration’s Reinventing Government initiative (alternately referred to as the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, or NPR). Between 1992 and 2000, the federal government shed 377,000 civilian employees, creating the smallest federal workforce in forty years. These numbers, heralded by some, were also called into question by scholars like Paul Light, whose paper “The True Size of Government” observed that many jobs formerly done by federal employees had merely been contracted out to private firms, or passed on to states and localities.

Recently, controversy surrounding accountability standards for private contractors has come to the forefront of public attention. Government leaders have an obligation to determine what services are best provided in-house and which should be contracted out. Experts agree, however, that cost-effectiveness varies widely by agency and program. All federal agencies contract out at least some of their work, and the process requires constant attention to matters of fairness, efficiency, and transparency.

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