Cities and social service efficiency: does the managerial form of provision matter?

Purpose: Over the past 30 years, there has been an increasing focus on efficiency in the public sector, intended as “productivity,” and several trajectories of public management reforms were aimed at producing significant productivity gains. However, the available evidence on efficiency can be improved. The paper aims to assess efficiency of cities in the provision of social services and to examine how different managerial forms of service delivery (internal provision, hierarchy, market, and network) affect efficiency. Design/methodology/approach: Using a population of 116 cities over five years (4640 observations), we applied DEA to measure efficiency, and then we estimated the relationship between efficiency and forms of provision by means of a GLS regression. The study focuses on services delivered to the elderly and the disabled. Findings: We find some concluding remarks useful to support social policy planning: efficiency in the provision of social services exhibits increasing returns to scale; the internal provision contributes positively to efficiency, whereas the use of network-based coordination has a negative effect. Finally, we present some policy and managerial implications. Originality: An element of originality in this work is the focus on public social services both because they have been little investigated and because they are characterised by a progressive involvement of cities in the provision of these services. The study also provides novel empirical evidence on the impact of organizational choices on local government performance, using a comprehensive national dataset.