What is Public Sector?

The public sector is a part of the state that deals with the delivery of goods and services by and for the government, whether national, regional or local/municipal.

Examples of public sector activity range from delivering social security, administering urban planning and organizing national defenses.

The organization of the public sector (public ownership) can take several forms, including:

• Direct administration funded through taxation; the delivering organization generally has no specific requirement to meet commercial success criteria, and production decisions are determined by government.
• Publicly owned corporations (in some contexts, especially manufacturing, "state-owned enterprises"); which differ from direct administration in that they have greater commercial freedoms and are expected to operate according to commercial criteria, and production decisions are not generally taken by government (although goals may be set for them by government).

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