Learning from International Public Management Reform: Vol 11, part a

Governments around the world are criticized as inefficient, ineffective, too large, too costly, overly bureaucratic, overburdened by unnecessary rules, unresponsive to public needs, secretive, undemocratic, invasive into rights of citizens, self-serving, and failing in provision of the quantity and quality of services desired by the taxpaying public. Fiscal stress has plagued many governments, increasing the cry for less costly or just less government. Critics have exerted sustained pressure on politicians and public managers for transformational reform. Recommendations for change have included application of market and economic logic and private sector management methods to government. Managerial reform has been promoted on grounds that the public sector is organized and functions on many of the wrong principles and needs reinvention and renewal. This text explores many of these issues.