Outsourcing is based on the concept of work as globalisation. Next came Open-source- the concept of working externally. And then Crowdsourcing discovered the concept of working socially.

All these models share a few things in common- formulas designed to reduce business costs, budgets and expand the geographical locations of the workforce.  

And last month, one of the largest county councils in England (Suffolk) revealed plans to attempt to do just that- find cost-effective means of running its services, outside of the confines of a single office space.

Suffolk County Council has taken the bold step of turning to the outsourcing model en masse- which could potentially reduce its budget by 30% ($1.1billion). The local council is not the first to adopt outsourcing amongst its departments but it is the first to so on such a scale.

The idea is to turn the local authority from a provider of public services into a council which commissions private sector companies and enterprises to run their services for them.

There are two lines of thought here. First, a high percentage of the council’s 27,000 jobs are on the line. This model will trigger mass unemployment and the council’s influence over its services will be lessened.

Accountability will become a shared partnership between the remaining council staff (estimated to be in the hundreds) and the companies and enterprises that outsource their departmental work. This could leave the council exposed to embarrassing leaks of confidential information and could cause confusion as to where responsibilities lie for failing services. Are the elected councillors passing the buck?

On the other hand, as mentioned earlier, this isn’t a new concept. It already works efficiently at a certain level (for instance, rubbish and recycle collection, home care, sheltered housing and social services), so perhaps it can work at a greater and more complex level?

Public services are going to be reduced, and the Government have been consistent in their plans for an austerity drive. And here is an example of a local authority trying to just that by cutting costs, but at least their outsourced replacements will be specialists in their field.

If this model was to succeed, could certain outsourced council services one day become Crowdsourced? Instead of paying a company for their complete services for a flat fee, one off projects or smaller managed ventures could be cherry picked from a Crowd of experts and potentially prove more cost-effective. Council departments could keep a larger proportion of their staff, while making cuts which effect less key components of their team- thus adhering to the government’s directive.

Of course, if Crowdsourced council services were to exist, there would be an even greater requirement for responsibility and leadership from elected councillors. This would at least ensure accountability. If the party in charge of the council were incapable of providing the correct checks and balances, the model would simply implode.

Unlike the opensourced departments proposed at Suffolk County Council, a Crowdsourced department would need direction and guidance. Unmanaged Crowdsourcing simply does not work. Could local government prove outsourcing to be a model that can work under these conditions? Let the people of Suffolk be the judges of that…