Beyond New Public Management
Beyond New Public Management
Problems of Accountability in the Modern Administrative State
This chapter examines the evolution of New Public Management (NPM) in the UK from 1997 to the present day. As introduced by Conservative governments prior to 1997, NPM's prescription for public services was that they should be split along ‘purchaser’ and ‘provider’ lines. Successive governments since 1997 have developed more radical forms of NPM which have, so far at least, largely escaped lawyers' attention. This chapter will consider two such forms: the contracting out of public bodies' purchasing activities as well as provision, and grouping services together instead of using a specialist provider for each one. They will be illustrated using case studies drawn from the NHS and local government respectively. It will be argued that these new forms of NPM pose a much greater threat than ‘traditional’ NPM did to the government's accountability for public services.
Keywords: new public management, accountability, NHS, local government, public services, purchasing, contracting out, service provision
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