Privatization
Business/Legal Term
A federal agency decision to change a government-owned and government-operated commercial activity or enterprise to private sector control and ownership. When privatizing, the agency eliminates associated assets and resources (manpower for and funding of the requirement). Since there is no government ownership and control, no service contract or fee-for-service agreement exists between the agency and the private sector after an agency privatizes a commercial activity or enterprise. Moving work from agency performance with government personnel to private sector performance where the agency still funds the activity is not privatization.