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

Quantitative analysis of competitive tendering and contracting typically focuses on their effect on the cost of providing public sector services. In this article we tum to the systematic factors that appear to influence the performance of cleaning contracts. This is defined as compliance with contract specification, public perception of service quality and other qualitative measures of service characteristics as observed by the contracting authority. Our analysis attempts to isolate particular features of contract design, monitoring and enforcement that influence performance positively or negatively. Econometric results based on a sample of public sector cleaning contracts suggest that contractor selection procedures and contract enforcement mechanisms have the greatest influence on performance.