This paper examines transparency and the performance of outsourced government services. It discusses three aspects of outsourcing: value-for-money efficiency, effectiveness of performance, and publicity of performance information, and explores a number of lessons for both government and public sector managers on how to increase the extent of transparency, and thus the quality, of outsourced services.

Four in five public service employees agreed that Right to Information and Information Privacy reforms have had a positive impact on their agency and that their agency has a culture open to the release of information. As part of the Office of the Information Commissioner’s (OIC) program to monitor agencies’ performance, the OIC has examined...