What are the risk consequences of different ways of managing and organizing public services?
Claims about the risk consequences of different ways of providing public services (such as partnership working versus single-organization provision, self-insurance versus external insurance, and control by explicit metrics versus control by the management of implicit tensions) tend to be largely proverbial. For example, sometimes it is claimed that effective risk management in public services demands requires putting all the relevant activities into a single organization (such as a single defence ministry rather than a separate army, navy and air force). But sometimes it is argued that effective risk management can be done through ‘partnership’ forms of organization to share risks between the public and private sector and produce a richer combination of information and modes of action than any single organization could have. Can we move beyond claims resting on folk-wisdom and forceful advocacy to more systematic and dispassionate evidence on such matters, or can we rely on ‘the intell
