Managing Public Services: The Case of Local Authority Sport

Summary

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Sport was introduced into public services in the late nineteenth century, with Acts of Parliament which introduced public baths and parks into the developing portfolio of local authority services. In the 1970s, local government reorganisation is widely credited as the catalyst for a new wave of public sports facilities, particularly indoor sports and leisure centres. Recent evidence (see Figure 1) identifies around £1 billion of annual local government expenditure on sport and recreation.

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Extract

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Managing Public Services: The Case of Local Authority Sport

But why is taxpayers' money used in this way and is it used cost effectively? In the last 20 years the cost effectiveness question has often centred on who is managing the services. Is one type of management more cost effective than another? We shall return to this question later, but before that we address the more fundamental question of why should the public sector f...

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