bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Policy Network Analysis of UK Central Government Civil Procurement
Authors: Erridge Andrew , Greer Jonathan
Published: March 2007

This paper analyses recent policy developments in civil procurement by UK central government departments and agencies using policy network analysis. The research was funded by an ESRC personal research grant (No. 000237023), and included a questionnaire survey and follow-up interviews of heads of procurement in government departments and agencies, as well as interviews with members of management boards responsible for procurement. The paper maps changes in the policy networks from 1995 to 2000, showing an increasing recognition of the importance of procurement in government policy and a commensurate rise in the status of the procurement function. In particular, the extent to which procurement is seen as contributing to core government policies and processes, such as obtaining better value for money from public expenditure, is reflected in the integration of procurement networks at the centre of government with traditionally powerful policy networks based within Treasury and the Cabinet Office, demonstrated by the establishment of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) within Treasury. However, that integration has not occurred within all departments and agencies, with the result that procurement's contribution is not being optimised fully across government, and attempts by the centre to ensure uniform implementation of procurement policy raise issues of centre departmental power and interdepartmental relationships. Finally, the paper concludes that policy networks provide a valid and useful theoretical framework for the analysis of public procurement.
Reducing the Democratic Deficit? Devolution and the Accountability of Public Organisations in Wales
Authors: Ashworth Rachel E. , Boyne George A. , Walker Richard M.
Published: March 2007

Devolution is viewed as a way to deal with the perceived ‘democratic deficit’ in Wales. It can be argued that political accountability has already been enhanced by the creation of a new directly-elected democratic institution. However, equally crucial to the success of devolution is improved organisational accountability, which is likely to be more difficult to achieve. In this paper we evaluate the effectiveness of the accountability arrangements in place before the establishment of a Welsh Assembly. We examine the role of the Welsh Office, Parliamentary Select Committees, National Audit Office and the Audit Commission. We then analyse the new accountability framework for Wales, in particular the early work of the assembly committees. The view of politicians and officials is that post-devolution scrutiny regimes are beginning to strengthen organisational accountability in Wales.
A Surfeit of Strategies? Governing and Governance in the North-East of England
Authors: Elcock Howard
Published: March 2007

The economic decline of the North-East of England relative to the rest of the country has been a cause for concern at least since the early 1960s. However, efforts to reverse it have varied from preparing major plans to encouraging free markets to benefit the region. Since 1997 the North-East's regional planning machinery has been considerably extended, with the result that extensive development strategies for the region are now either in place or being prepared. However, the question still arises as to whether the North-East of England has sufficient in the ways of common interests and a common culture to support the establishment of a directly elected regional assembly.
New Public Management, Old Populism and the Policing of Fraud
Authors: Doig Alan , Johnson Sarah , Levi Michael
Published: March 2007

While the cost of fraud is difficult to determine, it is significantly greater than other crimes. Nevertheless fraud has not been a policing priority either for governments or for individual police forces. The provision of policing resources has declined in favour of other policing objectives where there is a continuing emphasis on a political agenda concerned with public order and property crime. At the same time, the resources which are devoted to fraud have, as with the police generally, been subject those changes which reflect the themes of new public management (NPM). This review of the development of the policing of fraud in the UK draws upon the first full survey ever undertaken of UK police fraud squads. The purpose of the survey was to consider the structure, staffing and activities of the squads in the light of the changes to policing in the past decade, as well as the priorities determined by governments, to assess the implications for the future policing of fraud. The article concludes that, unless there are re-organisations along the lines of serious crime, such as regional or national fraud squads, then the likelihood is that the investigation of fraud will continue to be limited both by the changes consequential on the wider application of NPM to policing, and by Old Populism - governments' attention to those policing issues which will impact on public opinion and electoral support.
Attitudes and Approaches to Europeanisation
Authors: Smith James
Published: March 2007

This article seeks to investigate the attitudes and approaches adopted by UK civil servants as they undergo Europeanisation processes and accommodate the demands arising from membership of the European Union, a supranational tier of governance. Drawing extensively upon interview source material, the analysis reveals the extent to which the traditions and approaches of individual departments can shape their own particular forms of adaptation. At the same time, however, such variation and flexibility as there is only takes place within broader parameters common to Whitehall as a whole. In particular, such parameters revolve around apoliticism and traditions of neutrality within the UK civil service.
Evaluating Executive Agencies in UK Government
Authors: James Oliver
Published: March 2007

Evaluating executive agencies is important even though most government and academic interest is currently focused on ‘modernising government’, ‘e-government’, ‘joined-up’ government and ‘partnership’ working. Firstly, executive agencies are a significant part of the structure of UK central government. In 2000 about 60 per cent of civil servants worked in 126 agencies with about 75 per cent of civil servants working either in agencies or bodies working on agency lines. But there has been very little assessment of whether agencies have been a success. Instead, attention has moved on to the next reform. Secondly, the current ‘joined-up’ government agenda, in part, rests on a view of the merits and shortcomings of agencies. The evidence base for this view requires strengthening. These issues are particularly salient because the Cabinet Office has belatedly instigated an agency policy review and several countries have embarked on reforms seeking to emulate the UK agency initiative. This paper evaluates executive agencies through a general survey of their performance and a case study of the largest agency, the Benefits Agency. The case study enables the effects of agency structures on performance to be assessed. The research draws on existing studies and new research, identifying gaps in evidence and the need for further research which could be incorporated in the Cabinet Office agency policy review.
Government-Society Relations and the Politics of Administrative Reform in Hong Kong
Authors: Huque Ahmed Shafiqul
Published: March 2007

Administrative reforms are usually implemented for enhancing efficiency, reducing expenditure and improving the quality of public services. External and internal political forces may sometimes prompt reforms. All these factors have been responsible to some extent for the reform attempts undertaken in Hong Kong over the past three decades. Another factor that is not usually recognised in studies on reform is the relationship between the government and society. Administrative reforms undertaken in Hong Kong during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s have been preceded by social, economic and political events that have transformed the relationship between the government and society. While small adjustments and tinkering with the existing system was attempted in the 1970s, reforms of a substantial nature had to be introduced in the 1980s. During the 1990s, the relationship changed more radically, and this was reflected in the nature of the latest round of reforms. In order to cope with such changing relationships, the government resorted to administrative reforms as a tool for accommodating changes.
Public Representations at Development Control Planning Committees
Authors: Manns Susan , Wood Colin
Published: March 2007

This article reviews the findings of a survey undertaken by the authors in 1999 of all local planning authorities in England and Wales to establish current practices and procedures regarding public speaking rights at development control planning committees. The survey found that the number of planning authorities allowing public speaking appeared to have doubled in the last few years. At the same time, over one third of all planning authorities still did not allow public speaking, and had no intention of introducing it. Moreover, of those that did allow it, only one in five permitted the full range of interests recommended by the Nolan Committee on standards of conduct in local government. We argue that there is a need for planning authorities to exchange experiences on speaking rights in order to inform ‘best practice’, and conclude that there may well be tensions between the drive to improve efficiency in local government decision making and the demands for more openness and accountability.
Modernising EU Programme Management
Authors: Levy Roger
Published: March 2007

Unlike public administration systems in many member states, the management of EU programmes has not, until recently, been subject to a radical modernizing agenda. Following the resignation of the Santer Commission in March 1999, a wide ranging programme of management reform has been introduced by the European Commission. Based on the findings of the committee of independent experts reports of 1999, a reform White Paper was published by Commissioner Kinnock in March 2000 with the intention of implementing many of these proposals and adding some new ones. This article will review the content and progress of these reforms in the context of the ‘New Public Management/Modernising Government’ paradigm, and compare them with earlier change packages initiated by the outgoing commission. The likely trajectory of the current initiatives will be evaluated against this experience taking into account recent Court of Auditor’.findings.
Europeanisation as a Discourse: Domestic Policy Legitimisation through the Articulation of a ‘Need for Adaptation’
Authors: Kallestrup Morten
Published: March 2007

This article explores how and why domestic policies and political systems of European nation-states are being changed due to the articulation of a ‘need’ for adaptation to the policies of the European Union (EU). Domestic policy changes are legitimised with reference to the conception of the inevitability of European integration. Under certain circumstances Europeanisation processes occur even in areas where we find neither ‘de jure’ nor ‘de facto’ needs for harmonisation with EC/EU policy. Non-EU-induced ‘adaptation to the EU’ is thus claimed to be an underestimated dynamic of Europeanisation. The article analyses processes of construction and communication of policy change proposals leading to Europeanisation and domestic institutional change. It presents a case study analysis of the processes leading to the 1993 tax reform in Denmark, as well as the processes leading to the 1997 reform of Danish competition legislation. In both cases major changes to policies and institutions were initiated and to a large extent legitimised with reference to a ‘need’ for adaptation to the Internal Market. The necessity for actual harmonisation was and is still questionable.
‘The Appliance of Science’: The Politics of European Food Regulation and Reform
Authors: Taylor George , Millar Michelle
Published: March 2007

Amid increasing political anxiety generated by the BSE crisis, the European Union (EU) has sought to replace a confusing medley of food laws with a Food Safety Agency (EFSA) responsible for regulation from the farm to the fork’. Presented as an alluring cocktail of science and administrative change, the agency's remit will extend to redefining the relationship between risk assessment, its management and communication. In this context, this article advances three principle arguments. First, that any reform undertaken has been required to acknowledge the international agreements between the EU and the USA which have extended further the role of the free market in food trade. The agency's institutional architecture has therefore been framed by the imperative to construct an authority capable of restoring market confidence without threatening the habitat of those multi-national companies which occupy this arena. A second, related argument suggests that the role of risk (and science) in food regulation has altered. Rather than perform the task of sustaining order through responsible government, science now participates in (re)constituting order through the market. The role of science is now about creating and sustaining the view that ‘risks’ are an attendant feature of day to day life, and what matters is how we, as individuals, make judgments about those risks. Its role is to establish definitively whether a product or process will be detrimental to public health, thereby establishing negligence or culpability. Finally, the article suggests that the EU's attempt at reform has been influenced considerably by policy learning between member states, particularly that of Ireland.
The Institutional Arrangements for Connecting Evidence and Policy: the Case of Drug Misuse
Authors: Nutley Sandra , Walter Isabel , Bland Nick
Published: March 2007

The Modernising Government agenda stresses the need for policy to be evidence-based. Yet there is still a general perception that research rarely impacts on policy making. Strategies to increase the connection between evidence and policy have typically focused on improving the evidence base and on enhancing communication between researchers and policy makers. By contrast, this paper examines an area that has largely been ignored: the influence of micro-institutional arrangements on the integration of evidence and policy. It examines the development of new institutional arrangements for linking research evidence and policy on drug misuse in England and in Scotland, using data from interviews and documentary analysis. This provides the basis for a re-consideration of a set of propositions from the literature about those features that encourage evidence use. A fine-grained analysis of conducive arrangements in the drug misuse policy area results in a revised list of propositions, which provide some preliminary guidance on those institutional arrangements likely to support evidence-based policy making.
Bureaucratic Failure and the UK's Lack of Preparedness for Foot and Mouth Disease
Authors: McConnell Allan , Stark Alastair
Published: March 2007

This article explores the UK's lack of preparedness for Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) and the consequences for the 2001 outbreak. First, it utilises literature on crisis management and policy failure in order explore the problems caused by, and explanations for, lack of crisis preparedness. Second, it examines in detail a series of overlapping bureaucratic failures, particularly on the part of the Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), which not only reduced the UK's capacity to cope with the epidemic, but also exacerbated it. These failures included cultural complacency, resource weaknesses, lack of contingency planning, delays in implementing EU legislation, confused priorities and a failure to learn from the previous major outbreak in 1967-68. Finally, it suggests that explanations for the UK's inadequate preparedness for FMD can be found at the individual, organisational and societal levels.
Not by Error, But by Design - Harold Shipman and the Regulatory Crisis for Health Care
Authors: Smith Denis
Published: March 2007

The case of Harold Shipman sent shock waves of revulsion and disbelief though UK society and through the NHS. The notion that a doctor could repeatedly, systematically and callously murder patients in his care shattered the assumptions that many held about health care professionals. As terrible as Shipman's actions were, they raised quite fundamental questions about how a doctor could kill patients over such a long period without being detected and stopped. As such, Shipman served to surface a much wider sense of malaise within the health service. To see the actions of Shipman as generating a crisis for health care might be somewhat misleading, although there is little doubt that it was a crisis for the community of Hyde. What the Shipman murders do illustrate, along with a number of other events concerning problem doctors, are the difficulties facing a health service that, until the turn of the millennium, had failed to adequately address the problems of rogue doctors. Shipman proved to be one of a number of trigger events that illustrated the fragility of the regulatory system that was in place to deal with medicine and, more importantly, it illustrated the importance of societal assumptions in the generation and incubation of that ‘crisis’. This paper seeks to examine some of the these issues as part of a wider debate concerning the nature of crisis within government and the manner in which learning after the event can serve to prevent the incubation of further crises.
Elected Mayors: More Distraction Than Attraction?
Authors: Game Chris
Published: March 2007

The Government's policy of encouraging the adoption of directly elected mayors in the cities and major towns of England can hardly be judged, at least in the short term, as anything other than a failure - and particularly a failure of process. The contention of this paper is that there is an additional cost to this failure. The focus on mayors has distracted public - and to some extent local government - attention from many of the other strands of the ‘modernisation’ agenda that either already were or could have been being implemented in councils across the country before a single provincial mayor was even elected. The major part of the paper traces the development and implementation of the mayoral policy, including the 30 mayoral referendums, and culminating in the election of 11 mayors - nearly half of them Independents - in 2002. A key argument is that, by reversing their initial commitment to the piloting of a whole range of different and locally determined forms of executive local government, ministers contributed significantly to the widespread rejection of elected mayors.
The Scrutineer: The Impact of Overview and Scrutiny on Councillor Roles
Authors: Snape Stephanie , Dobbs Lynn
Published: March 2007

Over a number of decades academics have sought to devise categorisations of the roles that councillors perform. The advent of new political management arrangements has challenged these categorisations, with some academics - and practitioners - proposing the emergence of a new ‘scrutineer’ role (Sweeting, 1999; Wilson & Game, 2002). This paper seeks to explore and elaborate the nature of such a role. Examining the development of overview and scrutiny to date reveals that ‘the scrutineer’ is faced with performing an almost bewildering range of tasks. Indeed in teasing out this role, the authors found it most appropriate to analyse the key generic councillor role types and ask: ‘which of these roles are either supported or undermined by councillor involvement in overview & scrutiny?’ The paper also identifies three new roles - lobbyist, policy analyst and challenger- which are emerging as a result of the development of overview and scrutiny.
Minimising Risk: The Role of the Local Authority Risk Manager in PFTIPPP Contracts
Authors: Hood John
Published: March 2007

Recent pronouncements by senior government figures would suggest that, despite much opposition, PFl/PPP will remain the favoured route for the procurement of large public sector projects. There has been a considerable debate surrounding the Value for Money and Public Sector Comparator calculations essential to gaining approval for PFI/PPP, much of which has focused on how risks are allocated between the parties and how these risks are valued. This article considers another aspect of the risk element of PFI/PPP projects, specifically the role that the local authority risk management function performs, and perhaps should perform, in the process. Based on three local authority case studies, the research will suggest that there has been a marginal growth in the involvement of internal risk management experts by local authorities. Equally, there is evidence that this involvement could be considerably increased, bringing a number offinancial and operational benefits for local authorities.
Leadership, Politics and Accountability: G.W. Jones' Contribution to Local Government
Authors: Isaac-Henry Kester
Published: March 2007

In response to the PAC's project on Volumes of Influence (referring to the contribution made by political scientists to the study and development of public policy/public administration) this article attempts to evaluate the influence of G. W. Jones' contribution to local government over the last thirty years or so. It analyses his groundbreaking works on the development and importance of party politics in Wolverhampton (Borough Politics, 1969) and on political leadership and the developing political processes in the ‘running’ of London under Herbert Morrison (Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician, 973). It also attempts to evaluate Jones' contribution to the defence of local government over this period. The article suggests that Jones led a crusade for over 30 years on behalf of local government for its political processes to be understood and valued. In so doing he challenged conventional wisdom on the role of local political parties and political leadership as well as helped to set the agenda for study and research into these areas. Recent developments, relating to the importance of the political processes in local government (e.g. Widdicombe Committee) and the emergence of a cabinet or mayoral government, have vindicated Jones' views on these issues.
Celebrating Northcote/Trevelyan: Dispelling the Myths
Authors: Greenaway John
Published: March 2007

The Northcote/Trevelyan report of 1854 is cited frequently, but it is not always properly understood in the context of its time. Various myths have grown up that have become entrenched in textbooks. Among them are the views that it founded the modem civil service; that it called for a unified civil service; that it established the cult of the generalist all rounder; that it aimed to promote the interests of the middle class as opposed to the aristocracy; and that it envisaged a clear distinction between political and administrative careers. This article seeks to dispel these myths by looking at the intentions of the reformers of the 1854. However, it is argued that Northcote/Trevelyan remains important in so far as its ideas dovetailed with many of the developments of the following decades.
Multi-Level Governance and the Study of the British State
Authors: Bache Ian , Flinders Matthew
Published: March 2007

The British State is currently being restructured through a process of constitutional and institutional reform. This process contributes to other changes that are creating an increasingly complex range of inter-governmental relationships of shifting and opaque jurisdictional boundaries together with a redefinition of state-society relations. In light of this, observers are increasingly making reference to an emergent system of ‘multi-level governance’ within Britain. The focus of this article is conceptual. The aim is to assess the value of multi-level governance as an analytical framework that can contribute to understanding the changing nature of the British State. In doing so, we identify and apply the two models or types of multi-level governance developed by Hooghe and Marks (2004). We conclude that while multi-level governance has its limitations, it has great potential as a contrastive concept when juxtaposed with the Westminster Model.
Modernising Regulation or Regulating Modernisation? The Public, Private and Voluntary Interface in Adult Social Care
Authors: Goodship Jo , Jacks Kevin , Gummerson Matt , Lathlean Judith , Cope Stephen
Published: March 2007

Regulation is a very significant form of managing public services in Britain, as central government increasingly relies upon regulatory agencies and mechanisms to measure and improve the performance of agencies delivering public services. The present Labour Government's modernisation strategy has strengthened the key role of state-sponsored regulation of public services, including social care. A key plank to its modernisation agenda facing public services, and underpinned by Third Way thinking, is a move towards partnerships and collaborative governance embracing public, private and voluntary sector bodies in the delivery of public services. In the case of adult social care, this push furthers moves towards a mixed economy of welfare, where ideological ‘state-versus-market’ arguments take backstage to managerialist discussions about ‘what works’. Public service regulation represents a ‘third way’ between state and market provision of public services. Our preliminary research findings support the view that regulation of adult social care, though not new nor without its tensions, has been and is being transformed as New Labour's modernisation programme of reforming public services increasingly takes hold, and that the transformed adult social care regulatory regime is consistent with and informed by Third Way thinking.
The European Commission's External Service
Authors: Spence David
Published: March 2007

This article reviews and analyses successive reforms of the Commission's Delegations outside the EU; its “External Service”. It also poses relevant questions arising from the proposals in the draft Constitutional Treaty, which foresees the appointment of a Commission vice-president for foreign affairs and a “European External Action Service” (EEAS) based broadly on the Commission's External Service. It describes how thle EU's external relations are affected by the growingly central role of the External Service (ES) as it has evolved during its fifty-year existence. The article argues that frequent reform of the ES was a response to the Commission's outside environment rather than the result of a deliberate political decision to create a robust quasi-diplomatic service. While many recognised that a growingly powerful European Union needed a strategic view of the purpose of the External Service and an adequate management and personnel policy for its staff, the ES grew like Topsy. Today's ES is a lean and effective management structure. But, notwithstanding this, its future role is likely to be decided in terms of the political dialectic between intergovernmentalism - the proprietary attitudes of member state foreign services - and supranationalism - the policy preference of the European Commission. The ES may turn out to be the embryonic version of a European diplomatic service. Or it may prove to be no more than a technical support structure in an intergovernmental system of representation.
European Policy Management: Future Challenges and the Role of the Commission
Authors: Metcalfe Les
Published: March 2007

As the Prodi Commission comes to the end of its term of office, the Kinnock reforms of internal management systems are now well under way. While these are welcome, they are only a preliminary step in a much broader and more difficult process of change. As the EU institutions have to work with and through the administrations of the member states, it is essential to develop the management of organizational networks. These networks are a negotiated multi-level order in which the Commission is only one actor. This article explores the nature of these networks, their common features and problems, arguing that the Commission use its unrivalled position to act as a strategic node for their future development.
The Challenge of Change in the Civil Service: 2004 in Retrospect
Authors: O'toole Barry J.
Published: March 2007

This is an article of record. It presents information about what has happened in relation to the British Civil Service in the last year or so, analyses that information and presents a discussion of it. The article has no methodological pretensions, and is essentially based on official documents and other publicly available records or information. Three of the most important of these sources are: first, the evidence and report of the Hutton Inquiry, which revealed much about the inner workings of government; secondly the report of the subsequent Butler Inquiry; and thirdly, the report of the Gershon Inquiry on the delivery of public services and the statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which partly dealt with some of the matters raised in the Gershon report. There is one other set of documents that provides an overall framework for discussion, and these relate to a ‘Civil Service Reform Event’ held in February 2004, addressed by the Prime Minister and the Head of the Civil Service. These documents reveal the attitudes of those in charge of the civil service and, as with the other documents discussed, contain information and recommendations that are vital to understand changes in the civil service over the period under review, and potential changes for the future. To some extent this is countered by the thoughtful deliberations of the Public Administration Select Committee, which published a report including a draft Civil Service Bill, but the overriding impression, despite lip-service to the contrary, is of a government out of sympathy with public service.
Striving for Excellence in Public Service Delivery: Experiences from an Analysis of the Private Finance Initiative
Authors: Broadbent Jane , Laughlin Richard
Published: March 2007

This article is built on the assumption that all Governments will strive for excellence in public service delivery and will put in place all manner of innovations to achieve this end state. These innovations assume that there is always scope for improvement, very largely because what constitutes this end state is contested and subject to changing views and disagreements by the multiple constituencies involved in public service delivery. The paper makes plain that this realisation does not mean that a discursively agreed consensus on improvement and excellence in particular cases is impossible but rather cautions against claiming that this is some absolute, objective and time-invariant state. These themes are illustrated through an ongoing six-year research project into analysing and evaluating the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) with particular emphasis on PFI in the National Health Service. PFI is an innovation in public service delivery instituted in 1992 as a way to improve public service delivery thorough involving the private sector in property-based service provision. The article traces PFI developments at the policy (Government), programme/project (Government Department) and operational (actual operating projects) levels to show how the nature of PFI, its application and its evaluation has changed over time as the multiple constituencies have debated and disagreed on these key characteristics. The paper draws wider lessons from this case that can be used for analysing and evaluating other innovations pursued to improve public service delivery on the pathway to excellence.
Consilience and Performance in the ‘Art of the State’
Authors: Talbot Colin
Published: March 2007

The future of the liberal arts lies... in addressing the fundamental questions of human existence head on, without embarrassment or fear, taking them from the top down in easily understood language, and progressively rearranging them into domains of inquiry that unite the best of science and the humanities at each level of organization in turn.... I find it hard to conceive of an adequate core curriculum in colleges and universities that avoids the cause-and-effect connections among the great branches of learning - not metaphor, not the usual second-order lucubrations on why scholars of different disciplines think this or that, but material cause and effect. (Wilson, 1998, p.301).
The Citizen’. Charter: How Such Initiatives Might Be More Effective
Authors: James Simon , Murphy Kristina , Reinhart Monika
Published: March 2007

In Public Policy and Administration Taylor (1999) concluded that the charter system was inadequate to safeguard consumers’ and citizens’ interests and that they would have to have a greater input to ensure success. Following its introduction in 1991, the Charter initiative certainly made an impact and by 1997 there were 40 main charters and perhaps 10,000 local ones. However since then the original Citizen’. Charter has, in the words of one commentator, ‘perished, or at least atrophied’ Drewry (2002, p.12). There is little doubt that it could have been more effective. For example, tax charters seem to have had more success - indeed the UK Taxpayers’ Charter pre-dates the Citizen’. Charter, having been introduced in 1986. This paper therefore reviews the Charter initiative in the light of the development of tax charters and describes a particularly successful one - the Australian Taxpayers’ Charter - that continues to provide a clear focus on twelve basic principles of tax administration. An important factor in the Australian success appears to be the more strategic approach taken with respect to the implementation, monitoring and development of its Taxpayers’ Charter. The paper also presents relevant results of two surveys (N = 2,040 and 2,374) on the extent to which Australian voters consider the Australian Tax Office adheres to the principles outlined in the Charter. The evidence is consistent with Taylor’. (1999) views and concludes that initiatives such as the Citizen’. Charter would benefit from more strategic or systematic preparation that incorporates the views and expertise of a wide range of stakeholders before being introduced and for the initiative to become an integral part of the approach to standards of service thereafter.
Richard Crossman, the Civil Service, and the Case of the Disappearing Pension
Authors: Thornton Stephen
Published: March 2007

Richard Crossman - a member of Harold Wilson’. Cabinet from 1964-1970 - wrote widely about the relationship between ministers and the civil service, and, with particular reference to his famous Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, he continues to be cited as an influential figure who questioned the veracity of the traditional model of public administration. This article will move beyond an examination of Crossman’. own words, and a case will be considered, involving Crossman, where it appears that officials did play a large role in changing existing party policy. However, this case study - which draws heavily on archive material - will not be taken from Crossman’. time at the Ministry of Housing (1964-1966), where his bruising battles with ‘the Dame’ have become political folklore, but rather from a later period in which Crossman believed he had largely mastered the civil service
Information, Cooperation and Trust in Strategic Service Delivery Partnerships
Authors: Watt Peter A.
Published: March 2007

Strategic service-delivery partnerships (SSPs) are a new method of contracting for the delivery of local government services. They are rapidly becoming an important feature of local government in Britain. Negotiating and operating such partnerships successfully is a difficult challenge. They require the development and maintenance of a strongly cooperative relationship between the local authority and the strategic partner. This does not always work and there are examples where SSPs have been terminated. This article analyses SSPs in a transactions cost framework and identifies the contracting problems that can work against the success of SSPs and possible solutions to these problems provided by the development of trust. The likelihood of cooperation being based on trust can be signalled by the gifts both sides make during the procurement process in the form of negotiations, factfinding and preparation of the bid. However, procurement regulations may work to discourage a local authority from attaching a sufficiently high weighting to a factor as intangible as trust in the procurement decision.
Public Service Motivation in an International Comparative Perspective: The UK and Germany
Authors: Vandenabeele Wouter , Scheepers Sarah , Hondeghem Annie
Published: March 2007

Public service motivation refers to the type of motivation to perform behavior that relates typically to the public sector; such as altruism or public interest. The concept was originally developed within an American context by James Perry and other academics. However; one can distinguish a similar, if not identical, concept in several European countries. This article makes a comparison between two European cases of public service motivation: the United Kingdom and Germany. The results show that although there are similarities between them, there are also marked differences. Our findings provide the basis for further research to explore the phenomenon in a cross cultural and international context.
The Public Service Ethos in the British Civil Service: An Historical Institutional Analysis
Authors: Horton Sylvia
Published: March 2007

This articler traces the origins, development and decline of the public service ethos in the British civil service and the extent to which it has been supplanted by a new set of values, beliefs and institutional relationships since the 1980s. The modem civil service dates from the mid- nineteenth century and has evolved to meet the changing needs of the state as it has moved from a regulatory to a social service to a welfare state and now to an enabling state over the last 150 years. Some periods were significant for step changes in the structure and role of the service but these have been interspersed with longer periods of incremental change. By the 1920s the service was underpinned with an ethical framework or public service ethos, which both attracted and guided civil servants and shaped the public's expectations of their behaviour. It also contributed to its high international standing and the respect of governments of all political parties and the public. During the 1960s, however, criticisms of the service increased and by the 1980s the public service ethos had become an issue as a series of events called into question the impartiality and integrity of senior civil servants. This article explores the origins and content of the ethos and the extent to which it has been replaced by a new set of values consistent with the new role of the state associated with public management reforms and governance.
Public Sector Motivation: Is There Something to Learn From the Study of Volunteerism?
Authors: Steen Trui
Published: March 2007

A principal question in the study of public administration is how to motivate personnel to work in public services and to work towards achieving public purposes. The conceptualisation of the notion of ‘public service motivation’ has provided researchers with openings to explain the disinterested behaviour often displayed by public servants. In a similar way other scholars trying to explain what motivates individuals to take up volunteering activities, struggle to explain disinterested or altruistic behaviour This article examines the contribution that the literature on volunteering can make to a better understanding of public service motivation. The article first, outlines major arguments used to explain why people volunteer and second, explores the extent to which these insights provide a fertile ground for public management scholars to further develop theories of public service motivation. The insight into the multi-dimensional nature of volunteering motivation and the notion of ‘impure’ altruism demonstrate that altruistic activities are both complex and rationally driven. This leads to ways of narrowing the existing gap between rational choice and principal-agent theories of motivation and a purely altruistic view of public service. Finally, the article examines what this implies for the development of human resource policies to obtain and retain committed and motivated staff.
The Effects of Psychological Contract Fulfilment and Public Service Motivation on Organizational Commitment in the French Civil Service
Authors: Castaing Sébastien
Published: March 2007

In a context where French public organizations are confronted with a rise in the demand for high-quality services, with limited financial resources and with a new form of management based upon a ‘results culture’, understanding work commitment in the civil service seems to be more crucial than ever Committing servants to their public organization is necessary to improve public services quality. According to Perry and Wise (1990), public service motivation seems to be important in explaining organizational commitment in public organizations. Further, psychological contract and organizational commitment appear to be significantly associated in public organizations (Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler, 2003). This study investigates psychological contract and public service motivation as antecedents of organizational commitment using survey responses from 754 civil servants, including police officers, teachers and servants working in Civil Engineering Administration. According to the results, psychological contract and public service motivation could both explain organizational commitment in French public administration. However, depending on the form of commitment, public service motivation and psychological contract vary in their predictive power.
Public Appointments: The Gendered Nature of Health Policy?
Authors: Miller Karen
Published: March 2007

The paper draws on exploratory research on non-executives of NHS Health Boards in Scotland. The research investigated the gender imbalance which exists in public appointments and whether this results in a gendered phenomenon of health policy. The analysis of public appointments to NHS Scotland Health Boards reveals a disproportionate representation of men at this strategic policy level and this is seen as having key implications for the formulation and implementation of health policy.
The New Public Management ‘Revolution’ in Political Control of the Public Sector: Promises and Outcomes in Three European Prison Systems
Authors: Boin Arjen , James Oliver , Lodge Martin
Published: March 2007

The ‘new public management’ (NPM) promised a revolution in the way executive politicians control public services. This article looks at the effects of NPM forns on political control, especially ‘arms-length’ executive agencies, contracting with private firms and performance measurement in the prisons domain. These reforms promised politicians strategic control and disengagement from day to day issues, and a harnessing of competitive forces to break up traditional, unresponsive, public sector monopoly provision. We compare three jurisdictions that are conventionally seen as having embraced NPM to differing degrees: England & Wales (a relatively high NPM reformer where a package of measures was introduced), the Netherlands (an intermediate case) and Germany (where much variety is evident within an, overall, relatively low NPM reformer). The ‘promises’ of NPM control were in many aspects not fulfilled and the prison systems that made less use of such structures did not seem obviously to have suffered as a result. Indeed, some of the consequences, especially the detachment of executive politicians from day to day management, may have weakened the legitimacy of control systems, potentially making executive politicians’ task even more difficult.
Janus and the bureaucrats: Middle management in the public sector
Authors: Thomas Robyn , Dunkerley David
Published: March 2007

Two dominant discourses have been identified as underpinning the restructuring of public sector organisations - the New Right ideology (free markets, customer sovereignty, individualism) and the 'post-modernism' position emphasising change, discontinuity and flexibility in organisations. Both are centrally critical of bureaucracy either because of its inefficiency or of its obsolescence respectively. In both views, middle management is a key problem that can be overcome by delayering but middle management is also a solution through implementing change and encouraging the new culture of initiative and entrepreneurialism. The article reports on original research focussing on the perceptions of middle managers in a range of public sector organisations. Rather than moving towards a post-bureaucratic form, the findings suggest that change is being driven by opportunistic cost-cutting leading to a disillusioned and demoralised middle management stratum experiencing long working hours, feelings of job insecurity and working within a strong performance culture - a culture that remains very bureaucratic. Many of the traditional middle management frustrations remain and are exacerbated by the pressures to achieve increasingly demanding targets with little discretion or decision-making opportunity. The article argues that this is the latest stage in the evolution of bureaucracy rather than its impending demise.
Regulating Collaborative Government: Towards Joined-Up Government?
Authors: Cope Stephen , Goodship Jo
Published: March 2007

This article examines the role of regulatory agencies in the development of joined-up government. It argues that they have the potential to both control and influence those agencies they regulate, and consequently constitute potentially significant catalysts for joined-up government. However, there are dangers that rivalry between regulatory agencies (and their different sponsors) and non-collaborative regulatory regimes (including game-playing and regulatory capture) may frustrate such moves towards joined-up government. It also argues that joined-up government requires joined-up regulation, otherwise so-called “wicked problems” that spread across the joins of government are likely to remain unsolved, or at best partially solved. Moves towards joined-up government, including joined-up regulation, are likely to be hindered by the way in which the state is functionally organised and the entrenched interests of politicians, bureaucrats and professionals that have sustained such an organisational and functional carve-up of the state. Consequently progress towards joined-up government, if the past is anything to go by, is likely to be slow and possibly more aspirational than real.
Learning to Modernise: creating the capacity to improve local public services
Authors: Martin Steve
Published: March 2007

The public sector reforms being pursued by 'New Labour' attempt to develop a new style of policy making and to shift the centre of gravity of public services away from the state and market and towards the citizen. The improvement of local public services will however depend in large measure on the capacity of local agencies to implement these reforms. The experiences of the local authorities that are piloting the Best Value framework suggest that there are significant cultural and structural barriers to change, and that councils will need to develop a range of new skills in order to implement the new regime. Existing development programmes, which rely on the dissemination of good practice between local authorities, pay insufficient attention to the need for fundamental restructuring of both local and central government and for more effective joint working between the public, private and voluntary sectors.