MANAGERIAL PROGRAMME AGENDA – I

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Introduction To Public AdministrationMGT111

LESSON 44

MANAGERIAL PROGRAMME AGENDA I

We finished the last lecture on the reforms that were introduced in the public service of developed

countries. We will now examine the reasons for reforms in developed countries and also examine the

managerial programme agenda. So at the end of the lectures you will:

Understand the reasons for reforms and

Understand the `managerial programme agenda

Reasons for Reforms

The Fulton Report in UK recommended result-based management in public service. In USA also

there was demand for improved management in public sector in 70's. The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978

in USA aimed at giving greater responsibility for results. It included merit pay for middle management

and establishment of Senior Executive Services at the top. In Australia in 1982 the need to improve public

service capacity to meet challenges was also felt. All in all there were several reasons that reforms should be

introduced in developed countries and that public sector does not have capability to respond to market

changes.

The more particular reasons for reforms were:

1. Government in developed countries experienced severe resource constraints as tax revenues

declined. Politically it was felt the services need not be reduced but rather more services be

provided with lesser staff.

2. The reforms in public sector were brought by political leadership. This is because during late

70s and 80s there were more changes of government in Canada, Australia, new Zealand and

the idea of change came from political leadership rather than public service itself.

3. There was link between improving public sector management and re-structuring the national

economy. This is because during difficult economic time business community is asked to

improve management. In this process the government also has to improve its management.

4. The size of government was becoming large and inefficient. During this time it was felt and

expressed in developed countries that the size of government had become large due to which

there was need to reduce it.

Managerial Programme

There were several ideas about what is NPM. We have discussed the components and general

management functions that help manager to achieve goals. But there was a similar view like general

management function, but little more focused which was called managerialism. The countries that were

bringing reforms in the public sector were trying to make the public sector more managerial. The main

features of managerialism were:

(i)

To improve human resources, including performance, pay. Performance pay means that

while employees are paid basic pay, the pay should increase according to their

performance. Better the performance the pay should be given accordingly. Bad

performance means no increase.

(ii)

To involve staff in decision-making. Everybody in organization should be involved in

decision making.

(iii)

To relax controls, but impose performance targets. Here it is meant that unnecessary

controls should be relaxed, but employees must achieve targets.

(iv)

To use information technology. The use of IT in work should be encouraged.

(v)

Service to clients. The customer or user should be considered importance.

(vi)

User charges. Services should not be provided free, but the users should pay if they use

service.

(vii)

Contracting out. In order to reduce the size of government, the government instead of

providing the service directly should contract out these services.

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Massey, one of the contributors to new managerialism said that the reforms have had several other

goals. These were:

To reduce the role and extent of the 'state' in order to enhance the role of the private

sector.

To facilitate the acquisition of entrepreneurial skills and activities in society in general.

To prevent future expansion of the public sector, and welfare-demanding coalitions;

which have linked their interest to those of bureaucrats.

To de-politicize many (mainly economic) policy decisions and these should be entrusted to

professional experts, rather than the whim of politicians and bureaucrats and

To inculcate in public sector organisations the best techniques of private sector practice in

order to bring the discipline.

All in all it can be inferred from the above goals of managerialism is that to make public sector

efficient and reduce the size of public sector small.

7 Main Points

Another author by the name of Hood looks more at `new public management' and calls as

comprising seven main points. These points are discussed below:

Handson professional management in public sector. The managers should be

allowed to actively participate in organizational goals and its implementation. It means that

accountability requires clear assignment of responsibility for action.

Public organisations do things: that governments now want to know what they do; how

well they do it; who is incharge and taking responsibility for results; The primary way of

achieving this is to `let the managers manage', meaning that senior managers should

achieve results.

The fate of a minister should depend more on the management performance of the

department, the choice of department head is obviously crucial. Political leaders

increasingly choose managers with good records and who are sympathetic to the minister's

goals. High-profile managers are often appointed to head departments or agencies.

Explicit standards and measures of performance The main change in the managerial

programme is for the organization to focus on outputs or outcomes, instead of inputs.

Managerial reforms have stressed performance by individual and by agencies.

Performance measures can be developed in any public organisation, although here are

more difficulties in practice than usually experienced in the private sector. Performance of

staff is also to be measured more systematically than before. The performance appraisal

system should aim to measure the performance of individual staff.

Greater emphasis on output controls The most important change in this area has been

performance and programme budgeting systems to replace the older line-item budget (we

have discussed programme budgeting). The focus was formerly on inputs rather than

outputs, or on what the agencies actually does.

The line-item system of budgeting was precise in a control sense but, in practice,

governments had little information on actual programme delivery.

Government has also aimed to develop better methods for long-term planning and

strategic management. This means deciding what is the organization's mission, looking

ahead to achievement of goals and objectives, and at the organization fits its environment.

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A Shift to Disaggregation. Disaggregation means splitting large departments into

different parts by setting up agencies to deliver services for a small policy. For example if a

large public organization is performing several functions like maintenance of parks,

provision of housing, provision of education and provision of health care. Then it should

split this into smaller organization, each performing this function separately.

A specific aim was to reduce the numbers of staff in the core civil service to a small group

engaged in functions of advising etc.

In some ways disaggregation could be seen as a reversion to the ideas of Woodrow Wilson

with an organisational split between policy and administration in the division of policy

departments and agencies.

A Shift to Greater Competition Cutting the scope of governments and bureaucracies is

another part of the managerial programme. Competition is introduced for government

services with the idea of cutting costs. It is argued by proponents that if services are

`contestable' they should be put out to tender. Widespread privatization is part of this, but

is not the only means of reducing governmental role.

Conclusions

The reforms that were taking place in developed countries had some influence on developing

countries; through the organizations who were providing loans to developing countries. Thus there was

shift in the approach and goals of government in service provision.

There is now greater shift towards new public management. NPM involves more competition,

reduction in government role, and greater role of private sector. What one infers is that NPM is the

response to the changing economic philosophy of the present time.

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