Managing Public Services

Week 1 Module Overview and New Public

Management
 Module Aim
This module is designed to introduce students to the ‘real world’
of public services management.

It examines the ways in which the main elements of the ‘new

public management’ have been implemented within a range of
public organisations, and the principal challenges and issues
facing public sector managers in the workplace.

The module is designed to enable students to develop their

knowledge of the theoretical and conceptual elements of public
management through an engagement with public management
practice.
 Module Learning Outcomes
L1. Critically discuss the key issues facing public
sector managers in the 21st century
L2. Analyse the impact of these issues on service
delivery
L3. Critically evaluate management approaches
to managing a changing environment
L4. Develop appropriate recommendations for
implementing identified strategies
 Public Sector Definition
• The part of the economy concerned with providing basic
government services. The composition of the public sector
varies by country, but in most countries the public sector
includes such services as the police, military, public roads,
public transit, primary education and healthcare for the poor.

• The public sector might provide services that non-payer

cannot be excluded from (such as street lighting), services
which benefit all of society rather than just the individual who
uses the service (such as public education), and services that
encourage equal opportunity.

www.investorwords.com
Discussion

• What is the
 Differences Between Public and Private
Sector Management
• Government must serve all people and all segments of
society.
 Public administration must engage with diverse groups and
individuals.
 Planning and decision making becomes slower and more difficult.
• Ambiguity, an advantage in politics, can also make objectives
unclear.
• Power, often diffused in a political system, tends to be clearer
in the corporate sector.
• There are many competing and conflicting values in
government, while performance measures tend to be more
clear-cut in business.
 Differences Between Public and Private
Sector Management
• Public administration operates within…
 a rule-based and procedurally-bound personnel
system.
 a relatively short time horizon driven by the
political cycle.

• Public decisions are open to citizens while

businesses operate much more privately.
 Hood’s 7 Doctrinal Elements of NPM
(1991)
• Disaggregation
• Competition
• Private Sector Styles
• Resource Management
• Hands-on Management
• Standards and Measures of Performance
• Output Controls
 New Public Management
• Global /isation
• 30 Years of Change
• Role of Government
• Public Choice Theory
– the decision-making behaviours of voters, politicians and
government officials from the perspective of economic
theory (James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock)
• Public Expenditure
– Efficiency Unit 1979
– Gershon Efficiency Review 2004
NPM: Disaggregation

• Breaking
 NPM: Competition
• Compulsory Competitive Tendering
• Purchaser-Provider
• Service Level Agreements
• Best Value
 NPM: Management Practices
• Human Resources Management
• Management Activities
• Management Techniques
 NPM: Resource Management
• Discipline
• Economy
• Efficiency
• ‘More for Less’
 NPM: ‘Hands-On’ Management
• Strategic Management
• Operational Management
• Performance Management
• Partnership Management
NPM: Standards of Performance

• Explicit and
NPM: Output Controls

• Performance
 Pollitt Concepts & Practices
2003
• Greater emphasis on ‘performance’, especially through the
measurement of outputs
• A preference for lean, flat, small, specialized (disaggregated)
organisational forms over large, multi-functional forms
• A widespread substitution of contracts for hierarchical
relations as the principal coordinating device
• A widespread injection of market-type mechanisms (MTMs)
including competitive tendering, public sector league tables
and performance-related pay
• An emphasis on treating service users as ‘customers’ and on
the application of generic quality improvement techniques
such as TQM
 Summary

Disaggregation + Competition + Incentivization

(Dunleavy et al, 2006)

Discussion

• To what
 Dilemmas
• Behave more entrepreneurially, take risks, be creative,
exercise new managerial freedoms;
• But at the same time, be more responsive to the current
government’s policies
• And, by the way, make sure you are more transparent, more
measured, more audited, more quality-checked than ever
before;
• And don’t take any significant decisions which will affect
particular groups of citizens without getting their participation
or at the very least, thoroughly consulting them beforehand.
(Pollitt 2003)
 Future Expectations
• Do things differently?
• Do different things?
• Engage more with communities
• Work more in partnership/joint resourcing
• Be more ‘business-like’?
• Be more efficient?
• Do more for less?
• Make savings?
• Sustainability
Public Management Pre-1979

• Plowden
 Public Management 1979-97
• Efficiency Strategy
• Lord Rayner – Personal Advisor to Thatcher
– Efficiency Unit
• Financial Management Initiative 1982
– a large-scale review of departmental systems of managerial
responsibility, financial accounting and control
• Next Steps 1986
– Phase 1: Taking Forward Scrutiny Process 1987-88
– Phase 2: Getting Agencification up and running 1998-92
– Phase 3: Moving into ‘business as usual mode 1992-95
• Citizen’s Charter 1991
– Charter Mark
Public Management 1997-

• Continuity and
 Public Management
• Civil Service

• Local Government
– Arms length organisations

• National Health Service

• Governmental Agencies
 Public Administration in Scotland
Structure Role
The Executive: The The Scottish Executive (or cabinet) is made up of the first
Scottish Government minister, the two law officers (the lord advocate and the
solicitor general) and other Scottish ministers.
The party or coalition of parties with the majority of seats
in the parliament forms the executive
Responsible for Devolved Matters

Legislative: The Scottish MSPs debate matters of importance to the people of

Parliament Scotland, consider and vote on legislation and hold the
Scottish Government to account.

Judicial: The Scottish Make decisions in both civil and criminal cases. They
Courts ensure cases and verdicts are within the limits of the law
and hand down judgments and sentences.
Will advice Scottish Government on legal implication on
Policy and Legislation
 Public Management in Scotland
• National Performance Framework
– 7 Purpose Targets
– 5 Strategic Objectives
– 16 National Outcomes
– 55 Indicators
• Best Value 2
• The Christie Commission
• Community Planning
• Single Outcome Agreements
• Integration of Health and Social Care
• Digital Scotland
 The Manager in a Political
Environment
• Public Management Sensitivity
• Business-Like But Not Like a Business
• Doing Well While Doing Good
• Evidence Based Policy and Decision Making
• Outcome Driven
 Module Assessment
Individual Essay 1,500 words Week 7 (40%)
• On one of the following:
– To what extent is Hood’s 1991 concept of New
Public Management alive and well in
contemporary public management in Scotland.
– To what extent have the roles and activities of
managers changed in the management of public
services.
• Individual Essay 2500 words Week 13 (60%)
Critiques of NPM

There are extensive multi-layered criticisms

and this is clearly contested terrain.
Note several in the literature:
• NPM is fundamentally flawed – creates
bureaucracy and increases transaction costs
(e.g., Lapsley, 2009)
• What are the appropriate targets in
performance measurement?
• Importing private sector business models generates risks
(Marcon, 2014)
– Standard output measures fail to reflect quality and intangible
aspects of services
– Distorting effects of targets
• Crowding out of effort
• Has NPM enabled corruption?
– Relegation of values, such as equity/equality of opportunity
• The PC approach is ideologically biased and relies on
reductionist assumptions (Orchard and Stretton, 1997)
The Fall of NPM? Towards Public Value?

Following criticisms, gradual emergence of a

Public Value (PV) approach (see, e.g., Bryson,
et al, 2014; Hartley, et al, 2019; Marcon,
2014).

PV challenges the perceived rigidity of NPM

notion of value (summation of individual
preferences).
Instead, PV argues that public value is more complex
and potentially ambiguous. It invokes the potential of
co-creation of value by citizens.

Two main dimensions (based on Bennington, 2011 –

cited in Bryson, et al, 2014; Hartley, et al, 2019):
• What is the public value?
• What adds to the value of the public sphere?
Democratic sphere where collective concerns are addressed.
Key elements of PV:
• Citizen-centric – strongly encouraging of
participation
• Creation of value that matters most to citizens
• State as guarantor of public values
• Open to private sector delivery of services – public
values are not the sole domain of state bodies
• Public values may be ambiguous and not shared
universally.
 MAIN POINTS
• Neo-Liberalism views the state as a threat to liberty
and as a source of inefficiency
• PC approach emphasises state failure on both
demand and supply sides (bureaucracy)
• NPM advocates more ‘business-like’ state: vertical
disintegration; competition, and performance
measurement
• PV emphasis on democratic engagement in the co-
creation of values.