Public Value Management, Governance and Reform in Britain


Book Description

This book examines developments in governance reform in Britain, with a particular focus on the period since 2010. We argue that the experiences of the past decade mean that public value-based ideas are required to inform governance reform for the coming years. This needs to be prioritised due to the twin challenges of managing the aftermath of Brexit and navigating through the recovery phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. The volume outlines key themes, issues and debates relevant to contemporary public sector reform including: modes of state governance, evidence-based policy-making debates, the challenges and possibilities of public sector innovation, accountability issues, and the implications of Brexit. The overall conclusion of the book is that the coming decade presents an opportunity for more paradigmatic changes to UK governance but, for this to happen, political leaders need to prioritise a ‘reinventing government’ agenda underpinned by public value-based thinking and approaches. This book will be of particular interest to students of politics and public administration and relevant for those with general research interests in British governance and public policy.




Public Value


Book Description

This text provides a concise and internationalized restatement of the public value approach, an assessment of its impact to date - in theory and practice - and of its particular relevance to the challenges of public management in a time of crisis and austerity.




The New Public Governance


Book Description

Despite predictions that 'new public management' would establish itself as the new paradigm of Public Administration and Management, recent academic research has highlighted concerns about the intra-organizational focus and limitations of this approach. This book represents a comprehensive analysis of the state of the art of public management, examining and framing the debate in this important area. The New Public Governance? sets out to explore this emergent field of research and to present a framework with which to understand it. Divided into five parts, the book examines: Theoretical underpinnings of the concept of governance, especially competing perspectives from Europe and the US Governance of inter-organizational partnerships and contractual relationships Governance of policy networks Lessons learned and future directions Under the steely editorship of Stephen Osborne and with contributions from leading academics including Owen Hughes, John M. Bryson, Don Kettl, Guy Peters and Carsten Greve, this book will be of particular interest to researchers and students of public administration, public management, public policy and public services management.




Public Governance Paradigms


Book Description

This enlightening book scrutinizes the shifting governance paradigms that inform public administration reforms. From the rise to supremacy of New Public Management to new the growing preference for alternatives, four world-renowned authors launch a powerful and systematic comparison of the competing and co-existing paradigms, explaining the core features of public bureaucracy and professional rule in the modern day.




Interpreting British Governance


Book Description

How should we study government? How do we know what we know about British government? What is governance? Governance in Britain has changed enormously from the market-led Thatcher years to Blair's 'joined up government'. The authors provide a radical challenge to conventional analyses of the subject.







Public Management Reform


Book Description

Since the third edition of this authoritative volume, most of Western Europe and North America have entered an era of austerity which has pervasive effects on programmes of public management reform. Even in Australasia extensive measures of fiscal restraint have been implemented. In this fourth edition the basic structure of the book has been retained but there has been a line-by-line rewriting, including the addition of extensive analyses and information about the impacts of austerity. Many new sources are cited and there is a new exploration of the interactions between austerity and the major paradigms of reform - NPM, the Neo-Weberian State and New Public Governance. The existing strengths of the previous editions have been retained while vital new material on developments since the Global Economic Crisis has been added. This remains the most authoritative, comprehensive, widely-cited academic text on public management reform in Europe, North America and Australasia.




A Government that Worked Better and Cost Less?


Book Description

The UK is said to have been one of the most prolific reformers of its public administration. Successive reforms have been accompanied by claims that the changes would make the world a better place by transforming the way government worked. Despite much discussion and debate over government makeovers and reforms, however, there has been remarkably little systematic evaluation of what happened to cost and performance in UK government during the last thirty years. A Government that Worked Better and Cost Less? aims to address that gap, offering a unique evaluation of UK government modernization programmes from 1980 to the present day. The book provides a distinctive framework for evaluating long-term performance in government, bringing together the 'working better' and 'costing less' dimensions, and presents detailed primary evidence within that framework. This book explores the implications of their findings for widely held ideas about public management, the questions they present, and their policy implications for a period in which pressures to make government 'work better and cost less' are unlikely to go away.







Value and Virtue in Public Administration


Book Description

A multidisciplinary analysis of the role of values and virtue in public administration, this book calls for a rediscovery of virtue. It explores ways of enabling the public sector to balance the values that are presently dominant with classic values such as accountability, representation, equality, neutrality, transparency and the public interest.