Outsourcing in public administration – opportunity or threat?

The modern market economy is based on four pillars, which are the diversity of services, their easy availability, flexibility to adapt to market needs and an online presence. Without these, no enterprise or entrepreneur can exist in the modern world. These pillars are also of great importance from an employee point of view, as every enterprise can be a potential workplace and every entrepreneur can be a potential employer as well as an employee at the same time. The world is therefore a global village based on a network of mutual connections. Indeed, technological developments already allow us to be connected to the entire globe. But are these changes beneficial? Let us look at it from another perspective. The demand for services in the reality that surrounds us is overwhelming, therefore companies have to meet the requirement of multitasking in order to meet the challenges that the market is currently posing to them. This means, among other things, that their staff resources, despite numerous skills in a given area, are not able to meet the requirements of the speed of delivery of their services to end users and have to resort to external services, which are often of a non-employee nature. Is such an economic model optimal? We should look at it from the point of view of the public administration, which can be at the same time service provider, employer and entrepreneur in one. Just as the resources of businesses in today’s world are inadequate, so is the administration facing the constant challenge of inadequacy in providing its services to the general public. Therefore, many of its tasks are nowadays taken on by external bodies, which are themselves equipped with administrative authority when they are carried out. But in what does lie the problem in this phenomenon? Public administration services are, as the name suggests, ‘public services’, so they should be performed to the greatest possible benefit for the public. Is this really the case? There are many benefits and risks associated with this process in various aspects of social life, especially in terms of employees, which will be discussed below.