Outsourced Management / Public Management Culture

CULTURAL MANAGEMENT PROGRAM University of Barcelona PUBLIC MANAGEMENT OF CULTURE outsourcing management There are four factors that are fundamental: the administrative model, the cultural policy model, the current social welfare -and the reform hypothesis- and certain contemporary paradigms about how public management should be. These four factors have an influence on the concept of "outsourcing". The law says that, if you don't have enough means to develop an activity, you are allowed to outsource it. This is the main reason why we outsource a service. Normally, we outsource activities to save money. If, let's say, an activity costs us 100, we will try to get it for 80. I don't think the objective is to improve professionality or operating -it should be- but I don't think it is. When do you decide to outsource a service? It depends on the project making: there are many administrations that do it just so they don't have overload with more staff. We always work under the idea that, when we have a project that is clearly well made, and carried out through cultural venues -mainly with civic centers- we tend to outsource it. The model of outsourcing in local venues management is a necessary model, for several reasons: administrations have an inflexibility that prevent us from adapt quickly enough to the ongoing changes of our society. From the irruption of internet and new technologies, changes of models at work have been dramatic. There are some elements that are more logical to outsource: those knowledges that are more peripheral in their savoir faire. Complementary services, all temporary projects, and auxiliary services are outsourced. So, only the hard core, at most, belongs to administration. MACBA's bookshop's management is outsourced with a qualified company. This isn't an isolated case, since, under MACBA's policy, we manage everything that has a nuclear service, and it's therefore linked to our mission, or our raison d'etre, The bar we open in summer, is also outsourced. We also outsource complex technical structures, or even cleaning and security services. In our day to day, we are monitored by a department of the administration, which follows two different lines: an economic or administrative monitoring, and a programme- based monitoring that makes sure all we do follows the scheme of the project through which the manager company has won a tendering. When we talk about monitoring indicators or monitoring reports, we can see a dramatic change. We are still presenting reports in projects, but the impact of information and communication technologies has prompted us to change the ways in which we do monitoring. Having concessions make those services aligned with the rest of services, so they can have a certain control over the service provided. There is, also, a certain share of risks. The contract is based on administrative concessions, and it includes a list of technical and administrative clauses. The technical clauses clearly specify which requirements we request to the selected bid awardee, what are the conditions of the service provided, and what is the model of relationship between MACBA and the bid awardee. When we speak about outsourcing we are not speaking about privatizing. The responsibility remains public, and everything must be under their responsibility. Planning and production tasks are under public administrations responsibility, not in an exclusive way, but they definitely have more to say in the decision-making or in the analysis. We are aware there isn't outsourcing without projects. We know that projects are public, and that's why we try to establish shared relationships with companies that can contribute with their knowledge in order to achieve mutual enrichment. When we talk about sectors, all of them are liable to be outsourced, even though some things don't meet that liability, not legally, but because there are functions that wouldn't be logically outsourced. For example, subsidies monitoring, or cultural policies. But, apart from this, everything related to consultancy, venues management, both multipurposed and specialized, management of cultural programme campaigns... is liable to be outsourced. It's very common to ask for a study to get a plan of facilities and, afterwards, intend to manage it on your own. I think it should be the opposite: you should design the plan and then going for the best company or the best foundation to carry out your plan. The best experiences I know in outsourcing cultural venues are based on administration ability to assess all structural conditions and, after, agree on how to design and carry out the operative conditions.