Effects of contracting out public sector tasks
A research-based review of Danish and international studies from 2000-2011

This report is based on a widely recognised research-based method of assessing the documented effects of contracting out public sector services. The method involves a comprehensive and systematic search of the literature (3,893 publications were identified) and, based on this, we selected the relevant studies published from 2000 onwards (80 studies in total), which were used in this research review. The same set of quality criteria was used to describe and assess all the studies and, on that basis, a transversal assessment was made to assess research-related evidence of the effects of contracting out public sector tasks. Three overall questions were formulated at the start of the project and the report is structured according to these: 1) what are the documented effects on economy and quality when public sector tasks are outsourced to private players? 2) what are the documented differences in the effects on technical and social service areas, respectively? and 3) what are the documented effects on employees affected by contracting out?