ON THE PERFORMANCE OF COMPETITIVELY TENDERED, PUBLIC-SECTOR CLEANING CONTRACTS

Quantitative analysis of competitive tendering and contracting typical ly focuses on their effect on the cost of providing public sector serv ices. In this article we tum to the systematic factors that appear to influence the performance of cleaning contracts. This is defined as co mpliance with contract specification, public perception of service qua lity and other qualitative measures of service characteristics as obse rved by the contracting authority. Our analysis attempts to isolate pa rticular features of contract design, monitoring and enforcement that influence performance positively or negatively. Econometric results ba sed on a sample of public sector cleaning contracts suggest that contr actor selection procedures and contract enforcement mechanisms have th e greatest influence on performance.