Employment in the UK Public Sector, December 2013

The public sector, also called the state sector, is the part of the economy composed of both

public service A public service is any service intended to address specific needs pertaining to the aggregate members of a community. Public services are available to people within a government jurisdiction as provided directly through public sector agencies ...

s and

public enterprise A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn profit for the governme ...

s. Public sectors include the public goods and governmental services such as the

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distin ...

law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term en ...

infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...

public transit Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...

public education State schools (in England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand) or public schools (Scottish English and North American English) are generally primary or secondary educational institution, schools that educate all students without charge. They are ...

, along with

health care Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profes ...

and those working for the government itself, such as

elected officials An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority, (either their own or that of their s ...

. The public sector might provide services that a non-payer cannot be excluded from (such as street lighting), services which benefit all of society rather than just the individual who uses the service. Public enterprises, or state-owned enterprises, are self-financing commercial enterprises that are under

public ownership State ownership, also called government ownership and public ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, or enterprise by the state or a public body representing a community, as opposed to an individual or private party. Public ownership ...

which provide various private goods and services for sale and usually operate on a commercial basis. Organizations that are not part of the public sector are either part of the

private sector The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The p ...

voluntary sector The voluntary sector, independent sector, or civic sector is the realm of social activity undertaken by organizations that are non-governmental nonprofit organizations. This sector is also called the third sector, community sector, and nonprofit ...

. The private sector is composed of the

economic sector One classical breakdown of economic activity distinguishes three sectors: * Primary: involves the retrieval and production of raw-material commodities, such as corn, coal, wood or iron. Miners, farmers and fishermen are all workers in the pr ...

s that are intended to earn a profit for the owners of the enterprise. The voluntary, civic, or social sector concerns a diverse array of non-profit organizations emphasizing

civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.

Organization

The organization of the public sector can take several forms, including: * Direct administration funded through

taxation A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or ...

; the delivering organization generally has no specific requirement to meet

commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

success criteria, and production decisions are determined by government. *

State-owned enterprise A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn profit for the government ...

s; which differ from direct administration in that they have greater management autonomy and operate according to commercial criteria, and production decisions are not generally taken by a government (although goals may be set for them by the government). *The public sector in many countries is organized at three levels: Federal or National, Regional (State or Provincial), and Local (Municipal or County). * Partial

outsourcing Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and ...

(of the scale many businesses do, e.g. for IT services) is considered a public sector model. A borderline form is as follows: * Complete

or contracting out, with a privately owned corporation delivering the entire service on behalf of the government. This may be considered a mixture of private sector operations with public ownership of assets, although in some forms the private sector's control and/or risk is so great that the service may no longer be considered part of the public sector (Barlow et al., 2010). (See the United Kingdom's

Private Finance Initiative The private finance initiative (PFI) was a United Kingdom government procurement policy aimed at creating "public–private partnerships" (PPPs) where private firms are contracted to complete and manage public projects. Initially launched in 199 ...

.) * Public employee unions represent workers. Since contract negotiations for these workers are dependent on the size of government budgets, this is the one segment of the labor movement that can actually contribute directly to the people with ultimate responsibility for its livelihood. While their giving pattern matches that of other unions, public sector unions also concentrate contributions on members of Congress from both parties who sit on committees that deal with federal budgets and agencies.

Infrastructure

''Infrastructure'' includes areas that support both the public's members and the public sector itself. Streets and highways are used both by those who work for the public sector and also by the citizenry. The former, who are public employees, are also part of the citizenry.

Public road A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-access ...

s, bridges,

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube const ...

water supply Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavors or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes. Public water supply systems are crucial to properly functioning societies. Thes ...

, sewers,

electrical grid An electrical grid is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids vary in size and can cover whole countries or continents. It consists of:Kaplan, S. M. (2009). Smart Grid. Electrical Power ...

s and

telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

networks are among the public infrastructure.

Criticism

Right-libertarian Right-libertarianism,Rothbard, Murray (1 March 1971)"The Left and Right Within Libertarianism" ''WIN: Peace and Freedom Through Nonviolent Action''. 7 (4): 6–10. Retrieved 14 January 2020.Goodway, David (2006). '' Anarchist Seeds Beneath the ...

and

Austrian School The Austrian School is a heterodox school of economic thought that advocates strict adherence to methodological individualism, the concept that social phenomena result exclusively from the motivations and actions of individuals. Austrian school ...

economists have criticized the idea of public sector provision of goods and services as inherently inefficient.Rothbard, Murray (1961). "The Fallacy of the 'Public Sector'". ''The Logic of Action Two, Application and Criticism from the Austrian School''. . In 1961,

Murray Rothbard Murray Newton Rothbard (; March 2, 1926 – January 7, 1995) was an American economist of the Austrian School, economic historian, political theorist, and activist. Rothbard was a central figure in the 20th-century American libertarian ...

wrote: "Any reduction of the public sector, any shift of activities from the public to the private sphere, is a net moral and economic gain." American

libertarians Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...

and

anarcho-capitalists Anarcho-capitalism (or, colloquially, ancap) is an anti-statist, libertarian, and anti-political philosophy and economic theory that seeks to abolish centralized states in favor of stateless societies with systems of private property enforc ...

have also argued that the system by which the public sector is funded, namely taxation, is itself coercive and unjust. However, even notable small-government proponents have pushed back on this point of view, citing the ultimate necessity of a public sector for provision of certain services, such as national defense, public works and utilities, and pollution controls.Ellickson, R. C. (2017). "A Hayekian Case Against Anarcho-Capitalism: Of Street Grids, Lighthouses, and Aid to the Destitute". ''NYUJL & Liberty'', 11, 371.

References

Citations

Sources

* Barlow, J. Roehrich, J.K. and Wright, S. (2010). "De facto privatisation or a renewed role for the EU? Paying for Europe's healthcare infrastructure in a recession." ''Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine''. 103:51–55. * Lloyd G. Nigro, ''Decision Making in the Public Sector'' (1984), Marcel Dekker Inc. * David G. Carnevale, ''Organizational Development in the Public Sector'' (2002), Westview Pr. * Jan-Erik Lane, ''The Public Sector: Concepts, Models and Approaches'' (1995), Sage Pubns. * A Primer on Public-Private Partnership
PFM blog: A primer on Public-Private Partnerships
* What is the Public Sector? Definition & Examples. (2016, June & July). Retrieved June 10, 2017, fro
What is the Public Sector? Definition & Examples
{{Authority control Public economics Economic sectors Libertarian theory

Infrastructure

Criticism

See also

References

Citations

Sources