New Public Management and Decision Making in UK Public Policy

Under the NPM umbrella, public sector has also been experiencing a shift to greater competition. The need to remove monopoly of service delivery and create contestability, through privatization, public tendering, and term contracts, justifies the adoption of competition principle (Dunleavy 1994; Hood 1991). Insisting to do bureaucratic provision on public services instead of contracting them out, knowing that private sector can deliver them better, it is believed would only force governments to lose comparative advantages on price, efficiency, and effectiveness (Dunleavy 1994. p.49). This way, governments are able to fulfil their responsibility in providing services and the financing, while simultaneously stimulate greater competition among providers under market dynamics. However, it is hard to instigate public service ethos in private parties. Therefore, the capacity of private entities to act consistently with the public interest is greatly questioned in this scenario. Are concerns such as public health and safety, environment sustainability, and social equity likely to be sacrificed underneath market mechanisms? When power is shared with organizations which have business objectives apart from government’s goals, the fundamental issue is how to detect which missions they are carrying out. Many public services being delivered by third parties are targeted for vulnerable sections of the community which can pose a higher risk of potential abuse, neglect, exploitation, and

After reading this article, the author gave readers a bunch of ideas about the public policy field. The author illustrated the definition of public policy clearly, explained specifically the broad field of public policy, and absolutely brought out reliable theories. It is a very useful chapter for the novice of public policy or public administration. By all means, this article provides multidimensional fashions to analyze or determine the

The management of an organization plays an integral part in determining the direction and performance of the organization. The manner in which the management of an organization is handled has a profound effect on the organization. The success of an organization is dependent upon a flexible and skilled management and workforce. The management of an organization is responsible for shaping up the organizational behavior and ultimately the culture within the organization. Public management faces a multiple of challenges and opportunities, how the management deals with these issues translates to efficiency in management. The personal judgments and skills of public managers can make a significant impact in public management. If

The Oxford Dictionary defines discipline as “orderly and obedient behaviour”. It is a standard of respect for other members of your team and hierarchy (an organisation which ranks people according to the power they hold), which involves being able to follow rules and orders, and having self-control. All ranks are expected to show discipline; no matter if they are highly ranked or lowly ranked, as they all are expected to follow the same disciplinary code. However, higher ranked people are permitted to give out orders to the lower ranks, and providing they are reasonable orders, the lower ranks are expected to carry out these orders immediately.

My psychology professor once told me, “You should always keep a journal of your dreams.” She explained to me that it is a very rare occurrence that one might remember their dream off the top of their head. I then contemplated and tried to count the number of dreams I ever remembered. I could not even count my own left hand’s worth. I still have yet to remember any dreams, until now.

Kernaghan, K. 2000. The Post-Bureaucratic Organization and Public Services Values. Interational Review of Administrative Sciences 66. 2000, pp. 92-93.

the world is seen by public sector professionals (for a full review see Trowler, 2001;

Publicness or public quality of public service, the recent transition toward a market driven mode

1. Please submit a writing sample from an academic project, a creative work, or some other writing sample that was reviewed for quality.

On a macro level, public administration and business management are similar in their overall functions. “At the broadest level, some organizational theorists contend that administration is administration whatever its setting, and that the problems of organizing people, leading them and supplying them with resources to do their jobs are always the same (Kettl, 2012, p. 38).” In his paper, “Public and Private Management: Are They Fundamentally Alike in All Unimportant Respects?,” Graham T. Allison explains that in comparing public and administration and business management, “it is possible to identify a set of general management functions (Allison, 2012, p. 4).” Regardless of their end goal, each administration must form strategies by setting goals, priorities and creating procedures. Public and private organizations must manage internal components by organizing staff, defining job responsibilities, hiring and managing personnel and creating budgets. Furthermore, they must manage external constituencies such as other agencies, the press and public (Allison, 2012, p. 5). His observations stem from Wallace Sayre’s famous words, “public and private management are fundamentally alike in all unimportant respects (DiIlulio, 1993).”

Governmental policies and politics play a critical role in the realization of change in a public agency since the policies are developed and implemented at various levels (Dukeshire & Thurlow, 2002). Since these policies may range from formal regulations and legislation to informal guidelines in an agency, understanding them is important in the achievement of change in a public agency. A Public agency basically functions based on the established policies and politics in the government. Therefore, the accomplishment of the change in a public agency requires an increased understanding of the politics and policies of government.

During the last twenty years, various public administrations of countries in Europe, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, were characterised by a practical reform movement defined by Hood (1991) as the New Public Management (NPM). This is documented by other scholars such as Gernod Gruening (1998)[1], and Paul Sutton (2003). Throughout the literature, it is evident that the process of reform have been subject to different terminologies: Managerialism – Pollitt (1990); Market Based Administration – Lan and Rosenbloom (1992); Entrepreneurial Government – Osborne and Gaebler (1992).

In the following paragraphs, I will explain the dominant theory in public administration practice and elaborate on the major theoretical assumptions of the Old Public Administration. As stated in the question, the world has transformed through globalization, information technology, and devolution of authority since the latter part of the last century. The dominant theory in public administration has been replaced from the traditional rule-based, authority-driven processes of the Old Public Administration with market-based, competition-driven tactics in the New Public Management, beginning in the 1980s (Kettl, 2000, p. 3). This was an effort to privatize government and streamline public administration to maximize efficiency and productivity. Heavily relying on market mechanisms to guide public programs, public administrators in the New Public Management are encouraged to “steer, not row,” meaning they should not bear the burden of delivering services, but instead define programs that others will carry out, through contracting or other means (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2011, p. 13). Core values of the New Public Management include using private sector and business approaches to the public sector, squeezing as many services as possible from smaller revenues, market style incentives, providing customers more choices, and focusing on outputs and outcomes instead of mainly processes.

Public organizations and the public administrators have an important duty of promoting and maintaining democratic government especially by ensuring good governance. Social and economic development can be achieved through good governance. Collaborative governance is a primary component of good governance (Ansell & Gash, 2008). Admittedly, public management reforms are fundamental to improving the abilities of various nations to address issues that touch on democratic government. Some of the