Management of Public Services - Best Reading on Reform

It’s remarkable how few titles are available to help the concerned citizen (or official) make sense of the “reforms” which have deluged the public sector in the past few decades – whether privatisation, restructuring or austerity. There are, of course, thousands of academic books – but they have a weird focus on arcane and incestuous matters and simply don’t ask the sort of questions most people are interested in….An ex-civil servant, Martin Stanley, has ploughed a lone furlow in his writing about government and civil servce reform on his great site

Last year I spent a lot of time trying to identify what we had learned from 50 years of efforts to improve our public services (see Change for the Better? A Life in reform) The key group acting as a bridge between the public and the (extensive but generally arcane) writing on the subject are journalists too many of whom choose to titillate readers with tales of blunders and corruption. Whether they mean it or not, this only serves to develop cynicism and fatalism

It’s interesting that the book which helped spark off the global interest in what became known as New Public Management – Reinventing Government (1992) was written by a consultant and journalist (David Osborne and Ted Graeber respectively).
I've offered reading lists before on this subject - but this is my most up-to-date and considered shot yet....Interesting that there are more by activists and journalists than I had imagined!

The following may appear a long list – of the generalist books from the past 30 years I would recommend to the activist. But it works out as one significant book every 2 years!!

Title	Author’s profession	Takeaway
Short-term thinking in a long-term world;	B Spurling (2020) public servant	an Australian public servant reflects on his experience
“STRATEGIES FOR GOVERNING - reinventing Public Administration for a dangerous century”	Alasdair Roberts (2019) Canadian public admin academic	what will hopefully be the start of a long overdue reassessment of the subject
A New Politics from the left	Hilary Wainwright (2018) Activist	a rare defence of Public Admin from one of the British left’s most creative thinkers
“Radical Help – how we can remake the relationships between us and revolutionise the welfare state	Hilary Cottam (2018) activist	should be read in conjunction with the recent Demos' pamphlets on the social state and the preventative state.
Dismembered – the ideological attack on the state	Polly Toynbee and D Walker (2017) journalists	a clear analysis of the tragic UK situation by two british journalists
“The 21st century public manager – challenges, people and strategies”	Z van der Wal (2017) Dutch academic and consultant	who has spent the past 7 years as a Prof at the University of Singapore
Reclaiming Public Services – how cities and citizens are turning back privatisation;	TNI (2017) a radical Dutch Think-tank	An excellent overview by the radical international think tank of this very welcome trend
How to Run a Government so that Citizens Benefit and Taxpayers don’t go Crazy;	Michael Barber (2015) consultant	A clearly written book about the approaches favoured by who became Tony Blair’s favourite "go-to" fixer. His optimism is a bit underwhelming
The Fourth Revolution – the global race to reinvent the state;	J Micklewaithe and A Woolridge (2015) journalists and Editors of no less a journal than The Economist	a breathless neoliberal analysis
The Tragedy of the Private – the potential of the public;	Hilary Wainwright (PSI 2014) activist	an important little pamphlet
Public Sector Reform – but not as we know it;	Hilary Wainwright (Unison and TNI 2009) activist	A rare readable case study (Newcastle) of a bottom-up approach to reform. We need much more of this....
Leadership for the Common Good;	Crosby and Bryson (2nd edition 2005) academics	Probably the most comprehensive of the practical guides to getting the public services working well. Clicking the title gives the entire 500 pages!
The Essential Public Manager;	Chris Pollitt (2003) political scientist	A great and very practical analysis of the political and technical aspects of the search for effective public services
The Values of Bureaucracy	Paul du Gay (2003)	“ Proceedings of an academic conference on du Gay's 2000 book which was a rare attempt to rescue aspects od this all-too-easilymaligned institution. Full book acessible by clicking the title

The Captive State – the corporate takeover of Britain;	George Monbiot” (2000) journalist	“A powerful critique of the nature and scale of corporate involvement in our public services which first alerted me to the nature of public-private partnerships
In Praise of Bureaucracy - weber, organisation, ethics;	Paul du Gay (2000) political scientist	It may be academic, but is clearly written and has become a classic defence of a much maligned institution. Well reviewed here
Change the World;	Robert Quinn (2000) management academic	Simply the best analysis of the process of social and organizational change
Creating Public Value – strategic management in government;	Mark Moore (1995) Harvard acacemic	One of the few books which actually looks at examples of effective leaders in the public sector. Started a wave of (in-house) discussion which led to what could be the third stage of public admin
Reinventing Government;	David Osborne consultant Ted Graeber, journalist (1992)	The book which started the New Public Management revolution

Administrative Reform

Gerard Caiden (1969)

.More specialist recommended reads

A Governance Practitioner’s Notebook – alternative ideas and approaches Whaites et al OECD 2015) a series of notes for the aspiring professional - delightful reading

Rethinking policy and politics – reflections on contemporary debates in policy studies ed C Ayres (2014) This looks a fascinating collection of contributions

Reinventing Organisations; Frederic Laloux (2014) a classic and radical view of organisations

People, Politics and Change - building communications strategy for governance reform (World Bank 2011) This and the 2008 book offer the greatest insights

Governance Reform under Real-World Conditions – citizens, stakeholders and Voice (World Bank 2008)

The 21st Century Public Servant; C Needham and Mangham (undated) Results of a British research project

The Blacksburg Manifesto and the postmodern debate about PA; Marshall and White (1990)

a useful insight into how things were seen in those days

Public service trade unions

The International Trade Union Confederation

European Trade Unions (ETUC)

https://publicservices.international/resources/publications

Public Services International

TUC (Trade Union Council) UK

Prevention is a no-brainer – so why doesn't it work?

Such is the policy question just posed on the comment on Freed blog by Sam, son of military historian Lawrence Freedman. 

Novels, we are told, operate with 7 basic plots – viz Overcoming the monster; Rags to riches; The quest; Voyage and return; Comedy; Tragedy;.and Rebirth.
This raises the interesting question of how many basic themes political leaders use for their slogans and political rhetoric. The last century would suggest the following-

• scapegoating and blaming outsiders

• taking back control

• our country the greatest

• power to the workers

• prevention is better than cure

Let's explore Freedman's post which looks at the difficulties the last policy slogan has encountered when it is attempted

A recent review of the health system by Patricia Hewitt, the former New Labour health 

minister, argues for a greater focus on preventative health. More money should be spent reducing 

the risks of illness in the first place. This would save the NHS time and money, while enabling

 people to lead healthier and happier lives.
As far as I’m aware absolutely no one disagrees with this. Some dispute the idea that it will 

save much money, as healthier people live longer and ultimately may require more healthcare 

over their lives, but no one disagrees with the basic principle that it’s better to prevent illness

 than manage its consequences.
This includes the government. The report was commissioned, and welcomed by, the Chancellor

 Jeremy Hunt. When he was health secretary his “long term plan” emphasised prevention. 

Every health and shadow health secretary pays lip service to the idea. There have been

 hundreds of reports over the years making the unarguable case. And yet since 2015/16 

the public health grant to local authorities – the main budget for preventative health - has fallen 

by 24% in real terms, even as overall healthcare spending has continued to rise. As a result

 spending in every key area of preventative health, except childhood obesity, has fallen

So despite everyone agreeing with the policy – including the person who was health secretary in 2015 and is Chancellor now – funding has been cut rather than increased. Hewitt, being an experienced policymaker, explicitly asks the “why will it be different this time” question in her report but her answers are unconvincing because she doesn’t acknowledge the fundmental reason why it keeps happening.

What explains the paradox? Why are the most widely supported things the least likely to happen? The simple answer is that if an idea is that obvious and not ideologically contested, and has featured over many years in reports and speeches, and still hasn’t happened, then the reason it’s not happening has nothing to do with support for the principle. Something else is acting as a barrier. More advocacy for the policy will not change this. As I tell the eager young think-tankers I meet, there’s no point writing another report making the case. The blockage needs to be identified and removed.
In my experience there are three core categories of barrier that prevent the obvious ideas happening: 

• spending rules; 

• misdiagnosis; and 

• fear of the electorate.

And, sure enough, the Demos Think Tank recently and obligingly sustained this argument by publishing a couple of pamphlets arguing, variously, for a “Social, relational or preventative State” with the latter arguing that

Public services are facing an unsustainable rising tide of demand. In response, politicians across the political spectrum are calling for a greater shift to prevention in public services. This is necessary: public services today are too reactive, intervening too late. To address this we need to move from transactional public services to relational public services.

Yet this essay argues that focusing on a new model for public services is necessary but insufficient, we need a state which is more expansive in how it sees the challenge of reforming public services. That’s because to truly reduce demand for public services in the long run, we need to not only prevent problems from arising, but create the conditions for flourishing and resilience within communities. Achieving this means investing in those foundational goods which create the social capital that enables us to lead better lives, without state intervention. Only then can a truly preventative state emerge.

To which, Freedman's response would undoubtedly be along the lines of

Just because something hasn’t worked, or has been blocked, in the past, it doesn’t 

mean it can’t work now. But it is important to understand the history and explain why 

it can be different this time.
The more of these discussions I have the more I have come to realise that there’s an

 odd paradox that applies to every policy area: the more obvious the idea, the less likely it is to happen. I don’t just mean obvious to me. There are plenty of policies that I personally – as a member of the dissolute liberal new elite – think are no brainers that are nevertheless hotly contested. No, these are ideas that everyone, bar perhaps a tiny ideological fringe, agree with, and that, at any of those panel events, will get a room full of appreciative nods, but nevertheless don’t happen.

This, of course, takes us back to the issue of public admin reform to whicih I will retung in another post

Strategies for Governing - Reinventing Public Administration

A strange new virus was let loose on the world some 50 years ago – so strange that it lacked a name. In 1975 it caused a report called “The Crisis of Democracy” to be produced; it made states “ungovernable” and/or “overloaded” but, in recent years, has acquired the name of “neoliberalism”.

In 1989 “the state” had crumbled – at least in eastern Europe – and a huge effort was made by international bodies and consultancies to try to encourage countries in that region build on western experience and create effective state bodies which would be responsive to public needs… and deal with the new socio-economic challenges which required dramatic changes in how all state bodies went about their business…

The Brits had started this fashion in the 1970s – but, by the 1990s, everyone wanted in on the act….In How did Admin Reform get to be so sexy? I suggest (on page 21) 15 questions on the best way into the most interesting (and extensive) writing about the reform of public services and noted that

- Different parts of the world have their own very different approaches and ways of talking about public sector reform. English language material has tended to dominate the literature (with an emhasis on learning from commerical practice); but
- Scandinavians, Germans and French let alone South Americans, Chinese and Indians have also developed important ideas and experience - of which English-speakers tend to be blithely unaware.
- We are overwhelmed by texts on reform experience but most written by academics – targeting their students and other academics. Where are the writers who can help the public make sense of it all?
- At least 8 very different groups have been active in shaping our thinking about “reform” efforts. These are - academics, politicians, think-tankers, global bodies, senior officials, consultants, journalists and an indeterminate group- each uses very different language and ideas
– with academics being the most prolific (but tending to talk in jargon amongst themselves; and therefore being ignored by the rest of us)- Some “old hands” have tried to summarise the experience for us in short and clear terms. The lesson, they suggest, is that little has changed…
- What is sad is how few “social justice” campaigners seem interested in this issue (Hilary Wainwright being an honourable exception….)
- and the public, suffering from a decade of austerity, have been left blithely 

unaware of the incestuous discussions the subject of state reform has been causing amonsgt the cognoscenti

The Covid pandemic, however, brought home to everyone the damage austerity had been doing to the social fabric. 

I have been rereading “STRATEGIES FOR GOVERNING - reinventing Public Administration for a dangerous century” which a Canadian academic, Alasdair Roberts, produced in 2019. It argues that -

The field of public administration took a wrong turn forty years ago, and slowly moved away from large and important questions about the governance of modern-day states. The purpose of this book is to map a way back to the main road.

This is a book about public administration and what its aims should be. It is intended for researchers in the field, practitioners in public service, and students preparing to become researchers or practitioners, but it will also interest readers concerned about building secure and thriving societies.

My argument is straightforward: In the United States, the field of public administration was launched almost a century ago by people with bold aspirations. They were not interested only in the efficiency of government offices; they wanted a thorough overhaul of the creaking American state so that it could manage the pressures of modern-day life.

Unfortunately, this expansive view of the field’s purpose has been lost. Over the last four decades in particular, the focus within the field has been mainly on smaller problems of management within the public sector.

This narrowing of focus might have made sense in the United States and a few other advanced democracies in the waning decades of the twentieth century, but it does not make sense today.

The challenge of governing was described by the Florentine diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli a half millennium ago. Machiavelli warned the rulers of Italian city-states such as his native Florence that their work was fraught with danger. Sometimes the threat was posed by other city-states, and sometimes it arose within the city walls because people were restless and hard to please. A clever leader sought advice on how to build institutions that would bolster his authority both inside and outside the city walls. But even strong institutions could be toppled by the tempest of public affairs. They had to be renovated constantly to keep up with changing conditions, and this was very hard to do. States that did not constantly renew themselves, Machiavelli warned, were likely to collapse.

Some commentators have suggested that Machiavelli lived in unusually precarious times. In some ways, though, the rulers of sixteenth-century Florence had it easy. Florence was merely a city-state: its walls contained only four square miles of territory and sixty thousand people. Today the average state has more than two hundred thousand square miles and more than thirty million people. Compared to Florence in 1500, China has a million times as much land and twenty-three thousand times as many people. The institutional apparatus required by a state like China is more vast and complex than anything Machiavelli could have imagined.

There are additional complications for today’s rulers. Machiavelli warned about renewing institutions to keep up with the times, but the world in which he lived was relatively stable. In important ways, it was not much different when he died in 1527 than when he’d been born sixty years earlier. By comparison, the pace of change today—social, economic, technological—is blistering. The planet’s current population of seven billion is also more restless: urbanized, literate, wired, and mobile. And they have higher expectations of their rulers. Standards for security and order, public services, and protection of human rights are more demanding today than they were in the sixteenth century. The leaders of modern-day states have a difficult assignment.

• They must devise a strategy for leading their countries toward security, order, prosperity, and justice.

• Next, they must design and build institutions that translate their strategy into practice.

• And then they must deal with the vicissitudes of time and chance, adapting strategies and institutions in response to altered circumstances and unexpected events.

The first self-styled school of public administration was established in 1922, and the first textbook in public administration, written by Leonard White of the University of Chicago, was published in 1926. Woodrow Wilson’s work did not get much attention until the 1930s, when professors of public administration invented a history for their new field, which included a contribution from a well-regarded then-recent president. The first generation of scholars and practitioners in public administration were tied to a political movement in American politics known as progressivism, which coalesced in the 1890s and gained strength over the next two decades. American society was convulsed during these years by the emergence of big industries and cities, stark inequality and labor unrest, a surge in immigration, extraordinary technological advances, and shifts in the international balance of power. Americans had great hopes for their country. But many also worried that events could spiral out of control. Institutions designed for a simpler time did not seem sufficient for new realities. “The government of the part of the world in which we live,” Luther Gulick warned, “is in many respects three generations behind our necessities.”3 Gulick was one of the leading figures in American public administration in the early twentieth century. He believed that progress required a complete reconstruction of the old order. The writer Walter Lippmann called this “the fitting of government to the facts of the modern world.”