The collapse of Carillion has re-opened the age-old ideological debate on public sector contracting. 

From the nationalised industries of the 1970s, to the private sector obsession of the 1980s, the in-house/outsourced pendulum swung back and forth. But since the birth of Best Value and the Blairite mantra of ‘what matters is what works,' such binary bickering over services looked outdated and historic, relegated to reminiscing over the Thatcherite days of compulsory competitive tendering.