The Ministry of Justice is considering outsourcing some of its services starting with juvenile protection and bankruptcy comptrolling.
ACM Prachin Jantong, a deputy prime minister who also serves as justice minister, said the Department of Juvenile Observation and Protection (DJOP) has drafted a regulation to allow the private sector to participate or even work for the DJOP in juvenile delinquency reforms.
"The new regulation will open doors for the private sector to help the ministry handle juvenile delinquency projects such as behavioral reform to help them assimilate into society," ACM Prachin said yesterday.
"But those in the private sector who are eligible to carry out juvenile protection tasks must show they have credibility and experience," he said.
The ministry reportedly decided to outsource this service after it became convinced that the foundation and non-governmental organisations often worked more efficiently than state social workers when it came to taking care of juvenile delinquents.
The new ministerial regulation is expected to be finalised this year, said ACM Prachin.
Next year society will see the foundation and social workers from non-governmental organizations play a greater role in the monitoring and protection of juveniles, he said.
"The ministry is possibly going to outsource some services to the private sector so it can focus on regulatory and monitoring projects," ACM Prachin said.
Another service that may soon be outsourced is bankruptcy comptrollers. Usually these figures confiscate assets or debts from a bankruptcy cases after the court's final ruling.
However the Legal Execution Department (LED) has faced a manpower shortage recently as more litigation has resulted in or stemmed from bankruptcies.
Currently, each state comptroller handles 100 such cases a year whereas the ideal workload would be about 10% of this, according to Ruenvadee Suwanmongkol, secretary-general of the LED. The LED has completed drafting the law to facilitate outsourcing this, she said.
The draft law was approved by the cabinet and National Legislative Assembly (NLA) this year, she said. The justice ministry will revisit the matter next month and make any final adjustments before sending it for royal approval.
The new law focuses on ensuring bankruptcy comptrollers are properly trained and certified, such as mandating they pass an exam to obtain a professional licence from the ministry and enroll in extra classes, in a bid to upgrade both capacity and manpower, said Ms Ruenvadee.
Under the law, bankruptcy comptrollers would become part of an accredited profession, much like accountants, lawyers and engineers.
After the law and policy take effect later this year another three years will be needed for the LED to complete the outsourcing process, experts say.
Ms Ruenvadee said that state bankruptcy comptrollers will continue working on some cases while individual and small-scale bankruptcy cases will be given to privately licensed comptrollers.
