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This chapter considers the area of personal work relations, i.e., relations between employers and workers which are not mediated through the formal institutions of workers' collective representation. It argues that the main trend during the period under review was one of ‘de-standardization’ of those relations, initially through a straightforward process of de-regulation and later, under ‘New Labour’, through more sophisticated legal and regulatory mechanisms. The main aim of this policy, it is argued, was to promote managerial adaptability, i.e., the ability of employers to respond to changes in demand or methods of production. However, de-standardization was compatible with, and perhaps even required, some cautious conferment of new rights on workers, for example, in the area of ‘family-friendly’ policies. On the other hand, this policy caused difficulties for the government in relation to more far-reaching European proposals for individual rights, whether stemming from the European Court of Human Rights or the institutions of the European Community.

This chapter and the following two look at the structural changes that have resulted from the economy‐wide application of contracting out. The public sector is, perhaps, the one that has been most profoundly affected by it, and about which controversy concerning the appropriate scope of private and public production continues to smoulder. Chapter 9 considers the issues relevant to public sector contracting, including the potential benefits and problems. The emphasis is on application, and the identification of the limits to contracting activity. The different parts of the chapter are as follows: The role of contracting in public sector reform; Potential benefits of public sector contracting; Problems of public sector contracting; Private–public sector competition––a level playing field? and The limits to public sector contracting.

The essay discusses some key features of the wawe of public sector reforms that has swept through the OECD area during the last three decades under the heading of New Public Management. I review what economic theory and the empirical evidence can say about the effects of introducing pay for performance, performance measurement and various forms of competition in the public sector. I also review some evidence on the growing bureaucratization of the public sector and discuss the drivers behind this trend. The final part of the essay draws some implications for the design of public sector reforms.

Since the early 1980s, African countries have embarked upon public sector reforms. Criticism has been generated over these reforms because they were undertaken without sufficient data or understanding of the realities on the ground. Until recently, there has been no robust, standardized set of indicators to measure the quality of services as experienced by citizens in Africa. Without consistent and accurate information on the quality of services, it is difficult for citizens to assess and hold accountable service providers. Although the quality of data relating to Africa’s public administration has improved over the years by way of indicators, none has so far focused on capacity assessment and development. The annual Africa Capacity Indicators Reports have attempted to provide both qualitative and quantitative data on several clusters of capacities for development since 2011. Several issues arise from the use of capacity indicators to understand the nature of the relationships between actors and the beneficiaries of services for a post 2015 African development agenda.

This chapter focuses on efficiency and responsiveness — two values that are significant in meeting the expectations of the people, winning popular support, and reducing legitimacy deficit, particularly in a non-democratic government like Hong Kong. This chapter examines the public sector reforms made by the Hong Kong government in order to enhance efficiency and to develop responsiveness. In addition, the chapter evaluates the extent to which these goals have been achieved.

Chapter 8 explores how to achieve a “good fit” between country characteristics and options for public-sector reform. It distinguishes among three types of public-sector reforms: comprehensive reforms to build a high-performing core of government, cascading downward throughout the public-sector hierarchy; incremental efforts to improve public management, focused on specific functions, sectors, public agencies, and locales; and multistakeholder initiatives that engage stakeholders in processes of formulating rules and policies and assuring their implementation. Comprehensive approaches can work in settings where formal institutions (or leadership) and a commitment to achieving development results are strong. In personalized-competitive settings, multistakeholder engagement takes on heightened relevance—as a complement to targeted initiatives to improve public-sector capacity incrementally and as the basis for building and sustaining islands of effectiveness even in the absence of a supportive public sector. Their success depends on developmentally oriented coalitions having sufficient strength to trump predatory threats.

Chapter 5 discusses some of the main elements of Irish public administration, exploring the origins of contemporary administration and the main pillars around which it is built. This discussion provides a platform for analysis of how social justice has been dealt with at different levels in the Irish administrative system. It questions whether the largely undisturbed transfer of administrative capacity from pre independence Ireland to the newly independent state served to cultivate and embed a culture of conservatism within the public administration system that inhibits a willingness to tackle the complexity of social justice. The chapter goes on to explore the evolution of state agencies and the closely related topics of public sector reform and capacity building, focusing on the role of agencies in creating both activist and relational capacity for the state. However, the chapter concludes that the potential to exploit this capacity may well be undermined by the largely technical and instrumental nature of current public sector reform dispositions.

The introductory chapter outlines the ongoing programme of planning reform being pursued by central and devolved government in Great Britain. The reforms implemented by New Labour (1997-2010) are explored and provide the context for policy intervention by the current UK Coalition Government (2010- ). It is argued that, whilst planning reform intersects with a wider agenda to modernise local government and the public services, there is a lack of rigorous empirical data on the reaction of planners to these broad reforms. This leads to a tendency to focus on structures rather than peopled practices, ignoring the fact that reforms require implementation by frontline planners.

This chapter provides a discussion on the economic liberalization and union struggles in Cairo. It begins by presenting the transformation from labor opposition to public sector reform. It also deals with the workers confronting structural adjustment policies. The number of labor protest actions, and strikes in particular, rose steadily over the course of the 1990s. The new decade saw the emergence of a new wave of protest fueled by both the political and economic stagnation at home and the international situation in the region. Since the mid-1970s, Egypt has been attempting with varying degrees of commitment to move away from its state-led development model toward a greater reliance on market mechanisms. During the 1990s, a new phase of structural adjustment policies began and the Egyptian regime became more concerned about integrating the Egyptian economy into the global marketplace.

This chapter analyses the experience of the New Zealand government in converting to accrual accounting. Evidence suggests that the introduction of accrual accounting has succeeded in achieving its objectives. New Zealand Inc. now publishes government accounts in a manner similar to those of a private company, the first government in the world to do so. More generally, the accounting reforms in New Zealand have enabled the debate to focus on the nature of the various services being delivered by a department, what the government is paying for them, and how effective is the management of the department delivering them.

Contributions to the topic of consultants and public policy in France are often unbalanced and consultants are typically analysed as a secondary subject of wider studies. Drawing on the sociology of elites, this chapter argues that their circulation between the private and the public spheres invites us to reconsider the so-called French resistance to private consultants, allegedly led by senior civil service, which artificially opposes two groups that are, in fact, in a sociological position of homology. It helps understanding how an hybrid elite of general government works hand in hand in the development and diffusion of NPM ideas within the French state. The chapter summarizes the main steps which contributed to consultants’ increasing deployment in French public policies and seeks to describe the type of services they aim to deliver, as well as what decision makers may consider as their “added-value”. It argues that a critical part of their growth relies on their legitimizing effects over change. By doing so, it highlights public policies’ specific temporality and logic, as well as the national variations at stake in terms of private consultants’ involvement and the extent to which they impact French public sector.

This chapter discusses the social construction of organizations and the way in which this is influenced by the theoretical concept of organization. It considers examples from recent publicsector reforms in several European countries, including Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Sweden, as well as in Australia and New Zealand. Constructing organizations involves the setting up or changing of entities in such a way that they come to resemble the general and abstract concept of organization. It is argued that traditional public services in many countries have lacked some of the key aspects of organization. They can be described, at the most, as conspicuously ‘incomplete’ organizations.

What lessons about public sector reform can be learnt from using political anthropology to study governance reform? What are the strengths and weaknesses of such an approach? I contrast the everyday working experience reported in Rhodes (2011) with the core themes of civil service reform; namely evidencebased policy making, managerialism, and choice. I use five axioms for clarity of exposition: coping and the appearance of rule, not strategic planning; institutional memory, not internal structures; storytelling, not evidencebased policy; contending traditions and stories, not just managerialism; the politics of implementation, not top-down innovation and control.

This chapter analyses the experience of the Australian government in converting to accrual accounting. The adoption of accrual reporting by governments in Australia represents an important step in Australia's reform initiative to develop a more businesslike reporting model for the government departments—a model that accounts for the full cost of service delivery. Accrual accounting has provided a more comprehensive measure, over cash accounting, of the total activity of the government and the long-term effects of current policy, thereby enhancing governments' fiscal transparency and accountability. Accrual accounting has also been responsible for bringing about sustainability and sound fiscal management, and providing policymakers with information about the financial effects of current policies on future generations.

This chapter analyses the experience of the UK government in converting to resource accounting. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his foreword to the green paper described the accounting changes as, ‘probably the most important reform of civil service accounting and budgeting arrangements this century’. The development of resource accounting and budgeting has introduced best-practice financial management into the government. In the process, the Government of UK has been able to achieve substantial improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of the services delivered by the government.

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the institution of the civil service, covering its initial design as conceived by the makers of the Indian Constitution and changes in that design. It makes an assessment of the effectiveness of the civil service as an institution against four criteria: preserving the constitutional democratic order, impartial implementation of the “rule of law” vis-à-vis citizens, faithfully translating the will of elected governments into policies while effectively implementing those policies, and promoting development (including efficient and effective public services). It explores the causes of the various shortcomings identified in the performance of the civil service and compares the Indian civil service with other countries on several parameters. It concludes with a detailed discussion of policy ideas on reform, drawing on Indian and international experience.