The Monitoring and Control of Government Towards Contracted-out Public Service Providers: The Case Study of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The process of controlling contracted-out public services has attracted academic studies, however, very few studies have covered this topic in relation to developing countries, such as Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia started Vision 20301 aiming to improve the performance of the public sector. This vision relies in large part on the private sector, especially privatization2 and contracting-out of public services. As the government retains accountability for the quality of the services, they must monitor public-service contracts in order to achieve their objectives. Therefore, drawing on Structuration Theory (ST), which is novel for this context, this study aims to explore how the relationship between the government and public service providers is associated with controls and monitoring systems put in place. Few studies have examined these areas in relation to the public sector in detail. To bridge these gaps in previous accounting studies, 33 interviews were conducted, and relevant documents were collected. Two public services (public transportation and elderly care) were examined in two Saudi Arabian cities, Riyadh and Dammam, meaning that a total of four comparative case studies were explored. This is another novelty as this study attempts to broaden the understanding of controls and relations by investigating multiple studies. The results showed that control mechanisms were utilized differently by government actors at various levels and connected with the relationships between government and providers. Processual/relational variables played key roles, and they were strictly linked with the control systems. Different perspectives with regard to the enabling and constraining role of controls were revealed. Some patterns between controls and ST variables were discovered.