Joint Service Delivery

Joint Service Delivery

Introduction

Joint service delivery refers to different governing bodies working in collaboration with each other to be more productive. At times there can be some issues in a collaborative working but the advantages of a joint service are far more than working in isolation. Municipal services or facilities are the essential services that the citizens of any city expect the city government to provide in exchange for the taxes paid by those citizens. Vital city services may include sanitation, water, schools, fire department, streets, police, ambulance, health department issues, transportation and food inspection (Osborne & Gaebler 1992). All these services are basics for survival for any community. As a general practice they operate individually performing their operations but at times they can also work in collaboration with each other to reduce overhead bills and increase productivity.

A few other utilities like electricity, gas, cable television etc. are operated on contractual basis. Funding for these services vary according to the nature of municipality involved. It includes tax revenue such as income tax, property tax, municipal sales tax, fees, fines such as parking or speeding violations, fees for other different services, or other sources like profits from municipally operated or owned utilities (Dean T. 2011).

Organizations working together for public service delivery operate with their voluntary sector partners along with public sector agencies. The affiliation between voluntary organizations and public bodies is more of a partnership between them. Any collaborative working unit is defined as partnership between voluntary or community organizations. Any service provider may work with one or more other service providers to widen their scope of work. They can either work as a team temporarily or this alliance can be permanent as well (Dean T. 2011). It may be possible that two municipality service providers may come in collaboration on some special event to bring out the best results and their collaboration also ends with the event.

Firefighters

In America fire-fighting lead to fire insurance. Union fire company was the first to operate as a volunteer it was organized by Benjamin franklin back in 1736. This company was a mutual alliance for fire protection; each fire-fighter purchased leather buckets and linen bags and was forced to bring them to fires occurring on any fellow citizen's property. They assisted in fighting the fire. Volunteer fire companies were also formed in other parts of the country, and usually most of these organizations were not mutual but served all the entire community (Osborne & Gaebler 1992).

These fire-fighting companies soon acquired fire engines; later hosepipe companies were formed and were linked to the engines of the engine companies for water supply. The members of these fire companies were mostly the leading citizens of the society and were very proud of their community position (Osborne & Gaebler 1992). There used to be a healthy competition between these companies there used to be a contest as to whose engine would arrive first at the site and whose engine would pump most ...