Environment and Planning A 1995, volume 27, pages 1437-1461 'Hollowing out' the local state: compulsory competitive tendering and the restructuring of British public sector services A Patterson Department of Human and Environmental Sciences, Brunei University, Borough Road, Isleworth, Middx TW7 5DU, England P L Pinch Geography and Environment Division, School of Land Management and Urban Policy, South Bank University, Wandsworth Road, London SW8 2JZ, England Received 27 May 1994; in revised form 7 October 1994 Abstract. The process of compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) for the provision of local- government services has forced significant changes to the way in which such services have been provided, whether such services have been contracted out or remain in-house, and has spawned a considerable literature on the impact of these changes on the quality, reach, and cost of public services. The primary focus of this literature has been on service users (or 'consumers') and the local taxpayer. In this paper, however, we attempt an analysis of these changes in terms of their impact on the nature of work within public sector services. Empirical evidence of geographical and sectoral variations in the degree of success of the private sector in winning contracts is considered, and explanations for these variations are offered. In particular, the discussion focuses on variations in the form of work in different sectors and the treatment of workers in different places and in different types of services, through a study of the labour processes involved and a consideration of the diverse potential for different fractions of capital to benefit from the intro- duction of CCT. Last, the concept of 'hollowing out' is reworked in order to further assist the theorisation of employment and other contemporary changes in the local state. Introduction Compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) is cutting a swathe through the traditional paternalistic employment practices of British local government, but little systematic research has been done on the implications of these changes for employment, for private capital, and for the nature of local government itself. The local-government journals and the press have reported the impact of CCT on the quality, reach, and cost of local authority services, but have paid significantly less attention to its impact on the nature of work, and, in particular, the consequences of these changes for the workforces involved. In part, this may be explained by the increasing dominance of a new form of discourse (increasingly taken up by those on the political Left as well as the Right), which focuses attention on the users of local- government services (typically referred to as 'consumers' or 'customers') rather than the producers of these services. However, the introduction of CCT highlights several significant theoretical issues, both about the nature of work in the public sector and about the nature of local government itself, and therefore in this paper our aim is to contribute to the illumination of these aspects of contemporary public sector restructuring. In the paper we draw on an extensive review of the existing secondary literature as well as a series of intensive interviews with key actors involved in the process of CCT in London and the South East of England, which form part of an ongoing research project. We begin the paper with an overview of the contribution of some important con- temporary attempts to conceptualise employment restructuring in the public sector.