The delivery of public services in developing countries is over‐centralised. One of the reasons for this is the presence of centralised decision‐making apparatus, which distances power from communities. The centralised decision making reduces accountability among public sector employees and...

During the 1990s the contract has become a key feature in the restructuring of the UK public sector. Currently available literature demonstrates an awareness that the implementation of contracting must entail new forms of management control and organizational structure which involve new patterns...

When making decisions about budget expenditures, governments often confront stakeholders with dramatically opposing positions. These stakeholders attempt, through lobbying, to impress on politicians a preferred decision. Frequently forgotten in the process are issues of ethics. The bitter divide...

This article reports and evaluates how a traditional approach to recruitment and selection in the Social Services Department of West Sussex County Council was superseded by a competency‐based approach. The authors discuss the impacts of external and internal changes on the local authority and...

There has been a global phenomenon in public sector management which advocates a paradigm shift from administrative to managerial values. Governments have been able to put an ideological gloss on managerial strategies to suit local political agendas. The spread of this policy, where public...

Research was commissioned to identify the competences that are required by local authority chief executives in the UK. It emerged that the “competence approach” was inappropriate for their needs. Instead, “capacity” – a concept originating in psychoanalytic theory – was adopted as...

This article aims to examine the effects of the best value policy initiative on the human resource function in Scottish local government. The article examines whether best value provides the human resource function with the opportunity and ability to perform strategically, rather than in a...

Focuses on the introduction of strategic management into a UK local authority, based on several years of empirical research. Aims primarily to explore conceptual and practical links between strategic management and scientific management. Demonstrates that clear parallels exist between the two...

In common with other elements of the public sector, local government organisations are being required to achieve ever increasing performance targets. Responding effectively to such demands is likely to be influenced by, and to influence, the underlying state of health of the organisation....

Employee surveys are becoming increasingly widespread among both public and private sector organisations. Yet, while there are many articles and books on the technical aspects of how to carry out an employee survey there is much less contemporary information about the impact of employee surveys...