WINFIELD, Mark S <br/><br/>
Public safety in private hands :  a study of Ontario's Technical Standards and Safety Authority 

 -  2002 
<br/><br/> This article examines the experience of Ontario's Technical Standards and Safety Aththority (TSSA), a not-for-profit corportation to whitch the public-safety regulation functions of the province's Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations (now the Ministry of Consumer and Business Services) were transferred in 1997n. The authors place the TSSA in the larger context of the restructuring of government functions and responsibilities and the transferring of these activities to non-govbernmental actors, as part of what has become know around the world as the "new public management" The history, rationale, mandate, structury and functions of the TSSA are described. In addition, an assessment of the Tssa as model for the delivery of public services against criteria related to governance, political and legal accountability and performance relative to ists predecessor is provided. The article concludes that significant gaps remain in the Ministry of Consumer and ABusiness Services capacity to adequately oversee the TSSA and in the accountability framework for the TSSA relative to that applicable to a conventionally structured government agency. Improvements in public safety outcomes in Ontario over the past decade are noted, although many of these trends pre-date the creation of the TSSA and may be attributable to factors other than the MMCR/TSSA transition