Public Management Over the Last

¶ … Public Management

Over the last 65 years, the role of the public sector manager has been constantly evolving. Where, the traditional models of the past are being replaced by other models that will address the changes in the future. This is because managers are facing changing demographics within the community and from globalization. Where, prior to the 1980's governments were following a more formalized structure of various rules and procedure. Then over the years, this structure evolved with: greater flexibility given to managers, more of an emphasis on applying the same elements as privatization and increased amount of discretion. (Lunt 2010) This was designed to provide government with a wide variety of solutions, in delivering greater services to the general public. A good example of this can be seen with the NHS in 1982, where it would follow a more formalized structure. With Secretary of State for Health and Social Security maintaining direct control of: Regional Health Authorities, District Health Authorities and hospitals. By 1991, this model had become more decentralized; with Secretary of State for Health and Social Security maintaining direct control of: the Department of Health and NHS Trusts. The Department of Health maintains control of the Regional Health Authority, while the NHS Trusts controls District Health Authorities. The Regional Health Authority and the District Health Authority control the hospitals directly. (Lunt 2010) This is significant, because it shows how the overall role of government managers is evolving, with the changes that are taking place in government itself. To fully understand the overall scope of these changes requires: examining new public sector management, how it is reforming the public sector and the experiences of different countries using this model. Together, these different elements will provide the greatest insights, as to how the public sector is evolving.

Examining the New Public Sector / How it is Reforming the Public Sector

The public sector consists of a wide variety of areas to include: government agencies, national health systems, local governments, schools and various public services (i.e. police / fire). These different parts make managing the entire public sector very cumbersome. As each of these various entities were large, often involved with providing a number of different services. Then, when you consider the fact that public managers were: more exposed to changes in environmental factors, they were less stable and there was no competition; means that a variety of governments would become large bureaucratic organizations. This would lead to a shift in the way government would provide various services to its citizens. (Lunt 2010)

What is new public sector management and what does it recommend for the reform of the public sector?

New public sector management is when you are reforming the public sector, to more quickly and efficiently provide a variety of services. While at the same time, administrators / managers are trying to increase the overall value for these services. (Bovaird 2003, pg. 6) This encompasses a number of areas the most notable would include: resource utilization, performance measurement, civil service reforms, and partnerships, improving the overall quality of services that are being provided and reorganizing the public sector to deliver services more effectively. (Lunt 2010) The idea originates from the fact that many reforms will often trickle down to the general public. In some cases, this is problematic because these centralized structures were slow and inefficient in responding to the needs of the people. Then, when you combine this with the elements of performance measurement and changing modes of delivery; it would mean that government would undergo a revolution in the way it delivered various services to the general public. Performance measurement is when you are looking at how effective the different services are being provided. Where, you would include the views of: the public, parents, government officials, business leaders and tax payers when implementing any kind of new policies. This allows for a variety of viewpoints to be taken into account when new policies or regulations are being created, helping to mitigate the inefficiencies of government by eliminating issues that could become a problem early. (Lunt 2010)

The changing modes of delivery, is when you are eliminating the overall levels of bureaucracy as much as possible. This means utilizing various tools / techniques that can improve the responsiveness of the government to the needs of the people. To achieve this objective governments began to use various tools that would increase communication / responsiveness to include: increase face-to-face communication, call centers and through the use of internet technology (e-government). This would modernize the way government would respond to citizens. With the OECD claiming that this approach, is a tool that helps to increase the overall effectiveness of government. This is important because it shows how new public sector management is affecting the way various government services are delivered. (Lunt 2010)

As a result, new public sector management highlights how governments can become more responsive. This means that the overall scope of any kind of reforms, that will be implemented will depend upon: the country, traditions and the willingness to go beyond these reforms. This shows how the changes will vary depending upon these different factors. Where, the overall scope of the reforms will be vastly different from location to location. Therefore, it recommends that the changes will depend on the location, as the more extreme reforms will have dramatic effects on how the government will respond, to a variety of issues and how it is providing different services. (Lunt 2010)

The Experiences of Different Countries

Prior to the early to mid-1980's, the way various governments around the world would provide different services followed a basic model. This involved the government and various administrators, maintaining strict control of how various resources were utilized in achieving this objective. Where, many governments would follow a similar model in providing the different services that would include elements such as: complete budgetary control, a separation of the administration / enforcement entities in various departments, bureaucrats holding positions for large amounts of time, less transparency and no accountability. These various elements would be vastly reduced or eliminated under new public sector management, as a variety of countries around the world would turn to this as ways to effectively reform the government itself. (Lunt 2010)

Discuss the extent to which these counties have developed along the lines proposed by new public sector management.

A number of different governments have been using new public sector management, with varying degrees of success in one way or another. For simplification purposes, we will focus on the countries of: China, New Zealand, the UK, South Korea and North Korea. Once this is complete, it will highlight how new public sector management is applied around the world.

China

In 1949 China would undergo a communist revolution that would establish a government model based upon, centralized planning. Part of the reason for this, was in response to the backlash that was created from remnants of the Western leaning government. Where, government officials would be known for being corrupt and unresponsive to the needs of the people. Under the central planning model, the underlying amounts of corruption would remain high and the economy would begin to stagnate. This would lead to the various reforms in the 1980's. Where, the intention was to: reduce corruption, reform the government and allow the economy to grow more effectively. (China a very Short History n.d.) These reforms would mark the beginning of the introduction of new public sector management, where various administrators and government officials would use this as a tool, in helping to achieve these objectives. This would involve several key elements to include: privatization, civil service reforms and e-government. Privatization would use limited amounts of privatization on the local and national level. Under this program, businesses were allowed to have a share of the ownership of the business or company. This was vastly different from the state control and production of various natural resources. At the same time, this would involve radically reducing restrictions on individuals purchasing and owning land. The way the program would work on a national level is the government would be divided into: public sector units, state sponsored entities and special organization. A public sector unit would allow a limited amount of shareholders to participate in the ownership of the entity. (Lunt 2010)This would compete against state sponsored entities (which were government agencies / departments) and special organization (these were indirectly funded by the government to invest in specific areas). The combination of all these different pieces would reshape the relationship between the government and the people. (Lunt 2010) As the government would take on three unique roles to include: to be a regulator / provider of various service in conjunction with the private sector, the contractor of services to the private sector and maintaining its traditional role of providing different services. This is significant, because these moves toward privatization would show how the government was attempting, to become more responsive to the needs of the people. (OECD 2006)

Civil service reform is when the government was seeking to address the inability of bureaucrats, to respond to the needs of the people. Like what was stated previously one of the biggest issues facing China was large amounts of corruption taking place. This caused many local governments to experience runaway deficits and inefficiency. Under new public sector management, the government would address this issue by: using a combination of privatization / government-based models that were discussed earlier, it reduced the size of government, improved the rule of law and they would allow the free market to set prices (to a certain extent). These different elements would provide a way of reducing corruption, by taking power out of the hands of government officials. Instead, this power would be divided in a loosely-based confederation between the government and various private entities. This is significant, because it shows how these reforms were able to reduce corruption, by providing various checks and balances of government officials. (Lunt 2010)

E government would be used as a tool to provide the government with a way of more effectively responding to the people. Where, it helped improve economic development and it would be useful in monitoring corruption. These different elements are important, because they show the how government is seeking to improve responsiveness and how quickly they can provide these different services to the people. (Lunt 2010)

In the case of China, they have developed new public sector management, by using it as a way to increase the performance of the government and how various services are delivered. The difference is how these services are provided, where they will often use a model that is combination of the government, private business or the government indirectly funding various projects. As a result, the strategy that they are utilizing is: one that will increase the reforms dramatically in certain areas, while maintaining some form of political control.

New Zealand

New Zealand would achieve independence from Great Britain in 1948. Where, the government would follow a model that was occurring around the world, central planning, with the government heavily involved in many sectors of the economy. While, overall amounts of control were not as extreme as in China, the government was the main provider of: housing, wages, social services, education and health care. In the years between 1948 and 1984, this model would be expanded rapidly, as the country would enjoy tremendous amounts of economic prosperity during the 1950's and 1960's. However, by the 1970's the economy would begin to implode, with the country facing the forces of stagflation and rising unemployment. These two factors would lead to the realization that reforms were needed, in the way various services were provided. In 1984, the Labor party would implement a series of reforms; that would seek to redefine the relationship between the government and the people. These reforms would continue throughout the 1990's, when the National party would come to power. (New Zealand a very Short History n.d.) The results were that a new way would be developed, in how the government would respond to needs of the people, as new public sector management became the strategy utilized to achieve this objective. Under the model used in New Zealand this would include a number of different elements such as: selling various state assets to private entities, making the government run similar to a business, reducing the size of ministries and reducing government interference through reduce regulation / the delivery of services. Selling various state assets was a part of the realization that different entities of the private sector, could deliver services more effectively. Making the government run similar to a business is when: you are attempting to reduce the overall amounts of inefficiency in the government. To help improve responsiveness, the government would use various forms of information technology. This would allow them to more effectively communicate with the people. Reducing the size of ministries involved: decreasing the size of the ministry, by splitting its responsibilities into two different functions (separating policy advice from the delivery of different services). Reducing government influence through regulation is when you are limiting, the overall power of government officials to regulate the private sector. The results of these effects were that the reforms were to extreme, which would expose the economy to various swings in the economic cycle. As the government would begin to modify the way new public sector management was being applied, by focusing on: of partnership, coordination, services users, rebuilding trust / professional ethos of public service, cohesion, and modernizing administration systems. (New Zealand a very Short History n.d.)

In the case of New Zealand, they used new public sector management, as way to reduce the overall amounts of government regulations and how various services are provided, by liberalizing government controls on key industries. This would lead to a shift in the way various services were delivered, as the private sector would play an increasingly dominate role. However, this would expose the economy to volatile swings in the economic cycle, which would lead an increase in government regulations. In this aspect, new public sector management was based more on values rather than efficiency, where the government was trying to give the citizens more of a choice as to how they want various services delivered to them.

UK

The UK would follow a similar approach to what was occurring in New Zealand, where the years after World War II would see a massive increase in the size of the government. This would mean that many government ministries would play a central role, in providing a variety of different services to the general public. During the 1950's and 1960's, the economy would experience unprecedented amounts of growth that would cause the size of the government to increase even more. However, by the 1970's, stagflation and high unemployment would make this model ineffective at meeting the needs of the people. This would lead to large amounts of deregulation that would occur during the 1980's and into the 1990's. With new public sector management being the core principal defining these reforms, as the government was utilizing similar tools and strategies that were being used in New Zealand. The only difference is that the central role of government would not be as reduced, as it was in New Zealand. By 1997, this model had given the private sector to much control over the economy, which made the public nervous. When, Tony Blair was elected, he would institute a wave of embracing the ideas of new public sector management, while increasing the overall role that government would play. This is similar to what occurred in New Zealand, as the total amounts of reforms during the 1980's and early 1990's would become too extreme, which would involve a shift in the role that government would play under this new model. (United Kingdom a very Short History n.d.)

South Korea

South Korea would undergo a period of state planning and militarization from the 1950's into the early 1990's. This was in response to the devastating civil war that the country would fight with North Korea, resulting in the total devastation of all infrastructure. To revitalize the economy, a period of heavy central planning and militarization would occur. During the 1960's until the mid to late 1980's, this would help South Korea begin to experience unprecedented economic growth. However, corruption became more rampant, as families that were tied to the government, were able to have control over various state controlled industries. This would lead to the implementation of new public sector management, during the late 1980's and into the 1990's. This led to reforms of the economy and the government, with many state controlled industries being deregulated. In the government itself, they created an open competition system for government jobs to include: increased transparency, greater accountability and to challenge the vested interests of government officials. This was accomplished using information technology (e-government); to more effectively respond to the needs of the people. The results were that this would increase transparency, helping South Korea to become a major economic powerhouse in region. In many ways, one could argue that the shift to new public management procedures would have profound impact upon the success of the country. (South Korea a very Short History n.d.) (Lunt 2010)