The changing regulation of public leisure provision
There is much current international interest in the effectiveness, efficiency and economy of alternative mechanisms of public service delivery. In the UK, research has concentrated on Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT), both in terms of its impacts and the wider socio-political project which it represents. It has been argued that CCT has been less about getting the private sector into public leisure provision than it has about commercializing the public sector. However, it is evident that the ‘externalization’ of public leisure management functions has been encouraged by the legislation, meaning that a new marketplace has been created, characterized by the emergence of a number of private sector leisure management companies. With the potential advent of a new Best Value (BV) regime in place of CCT, it is argued that the significance of these companies could increase considerably. Here, this new dynamic of private capital into public leisure provision is analysed, through reviewing its structural natur...