International Journal of Public Administration – IJPA

Special Issue on:

“Knowledge Management and Public Administration: good bedfellows or potential sparring partners”

Submission deadline: Friday 25^th November, 2011

Editors:

Deborah Blackman, University of Canberra, Guest Editor

Monica Kennedy, University of Canberra, Guest Editor

Sally Burford, University of Canberra, Guest Editor

Stuart Ferguson, University of Canberra, Guest Editor

We are developing a special issue for the IJPA entitled  “Knowledge Management and Public Administration: good bedfellows or potential sparring partners”. We welcome original manuscripts, empirical as well as theoretical, relevant to this broadly defined topic. There has been a dramatic rise in the discussions around knowledge management and innovation within the public management arena in the last 5 years. Advocates of the fields of research argue they enable agility, novelty and value creation in policy development, policy implementation and service delivery. However, there is an argument that attention to knowledge and innovation is often overly linear and simplistic and that, if more complex or practice-based approaches were made the potential public administration outcomes would be quite different. In this special issue call we ask for papers which apply more complex theories of knowledge and innovation to aspects of public management. Examples of areas for discussion could include the implications of concepts such as practice-based knowledge, autopoiesis, communities-of-practice, collaborative learning, meta-loop learning or other alternative methodologies for knowledge creation, transfer and implementation. The objective of this special issue is to advance the debate around the impact of knowledge management theories upon the public management effectiveness and to consider what the research focus of the future needs to be.

IJPA is an international, research-driven, peer-reviewed, publication aimed at exploring the latest developments in public administration and management – translating theory for practice and practice into theory.

The aim is to be truly global in scope, covering developed, emerging and transitional states and all areas of public activity. We welcome both individual country-based and especially comparative work.

The target audience is not just scholars, but also policy-makers and practitioners, including aspiring public sector leaders engaged in education and research in the growing global MPA community. We want to draw on the latest research – whether carried out by scholars or practitioners or indeed collaborations. We aim – and encourage – the reporting of this research to be as clear and accessible as possible to the widest possible audience, whilst maintaining the necessary rigour and scholarly standards.

Submission: Instruction for authors and further information regarding the Journal can be found at: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/01900692.asp. However, please submit your paper for refereeing directly to Deborah Blackman on Deborah.blackman@canberra.edu.au by Friday the 25^th November. For further enquiries please contact Deborah Blackman.

L. R. Jones

[revised version 9th May 2011]

We know from past experience that managing public sector fiscal stress and even crises requires more than cutting government spending. No nation can resolve fiscal stress or crisis solely through budget reduction. It is pure folly to think this is the case. History shows that workouts have to involve loan assistance, debt restructuring, and sometimes forgiveness or reduction, (i.e., defeasance as it is referred to in the private sector) along with means to increase revenue, increase government productivity and of the greatest importance stimulation of the economy so as over time to increase revenue flows to government. For example, given the way the UK has attempted to solve its debt and fiscal stress condition through drastic budget cuts it is no wonder that recent forecasts for the nation’s GDP in 2011 are only slightly positive and may end up negative. Such deep cuts have a direct negative impact on economic growth to worsen rather than resolve longer-term fiscal problems that are to some extent structural in nature.

If we look back about a decade when Argentina was nearing bankruptcy a combination of instruments was used to prevent fiscal collapse. Loans from international institutions were combined with debt restructuring and writing down some debt through defeasance using collateralized US Treasury bonds. Recent fiscal crises including those in Iceland, Greece and Ireland have been at least temporarily neutralized through loans, largely from the EU and the International Monetary Fund. None of these somewhat successful bailouts have involved debt restructuring and defeasance to the extent employed to save Argentina. Whether continuing fiscal stress management using loans, bank buy-ins and other measures combined with initiatives to cut spending and increase tax revenues will lead to financial recovery for these nations remains to be seen.

Fiscal stress management approaches may be divided into non-mutually exclusive categories according to variances in the measures applied in attempt to restore fiscal and economic stability:

1. Budget reductions in government operations accounts such as the cuts made in the UK by PM Cameron and those forced by the Republican Party in the US House of Representatives in negotiating the Fiscal Year 2011 federal budget with Democratic Party leaders in the Senate and President Obama. This approach tends to be superficial and its purpose is political, i.e., a method of posturing to persuade potential voters in the next presidential and congressional elections to elect more budget cutters. Significant and often inaccurately reported media attention to such reductions seems to have a real impact on some citizens under the misguided perception that something meaningful is being done to help resolve fiscal stress conditions. The critical question with these cuts is which programs and beneficiaries are hit hardest and what is the consequent effect on their welfare and the economy? Predictable spillover consequences also include shifts in the preferences of many private investors to perceived safe havens such as gold, silver and precious metals, contributing to drops in currency values and reduced consumer confidence.

Budget manipulations of this type come in at least three forms, (a) politically acceptable across the board reductions (e.g., 10%) that punish effective agencies the same as ineffective ones, (b) specific program reductions where some programs are cut by an additional percentage based on evidence that they are not efficient or their services are not needed as much as more important programs, (c) program termination and merger where some programs are terminated completely while others are merged functionally into other continuing programs (Jones, 2010). Some efforts to raise general and specific taxes may be attempted accompanying this approach but they are almost always politically unpopular, e.g., Greece.

2. Budget reductions in operational accounts accompanied by spending reductions and in some cases revenue increases in government trust fund accounts of the type that provide long-term income, health and other types of social security, particularly to older and low income portions of the population. In the US such measures may lead to restructuring Social Security through increasing the retirement age, limiting the annual inflation indexed cost of living increases paid to program recipients (something that has already been done for several years in the US), and increasing social security taxes paid by both employees and employers. Similar measures would have to be made to medical care trust fund programs, e.g., US Medicare and Medicaid programs, to ration benefits in some way and to increase user fees shifting more costs to consumers and away from government. These programs are far more resistant politically to rationing and cost shifting due to the size of the populations affected and the specific impact on the poor. In the US and in most developed nations much more is spent on these entitlement programs that in support of normal government operations, e.g., roughly 70% of annual spending in the US is on these programs where around 30% is spent from accounts that pay for daily government operations, including national defense.

3. Debt bailouts by international organizations that provide relatively low interest loans over long terms and, in some cases, direct infusion of capital into the receiving nations and their banks, e.g., loans to Ireland. In the case of Greece lending from the EU and IMF has been predicated on the nation’s willingness to engage in longer term budget reductions and measures to increase tax revenues. While some debt restructuring is part of this type of package it is less extensive than in the next option.

4. Debt workouts orchestrated by international organizations (e.g., the EU, IMF, G10 and others) that provide relatively low interest loans over long terms and also require and enable significant debt restructuring, spreading  and extending pay back periods and incorporating some form of defeasance, i.e., writing off some debt (forgiveness) to domestic and international lending institutions. The so called Brady Plan that pulled Argentina out of bankruptcy involved forgiveness and collateralizing (backing up) some of the long term debt using US Treasury bonds. This approach also assumes government budget reductions and some schedule for future tax increases when the economies of debtor nations begin to recover. In the case of Argentina these policies succeeded; the Argentine recovery continued until the global fiscal collapse in late 2008.

In conclusion, dialogue on how to manage fiscal stress, defined here as the condition when a nation or other entity can still get loans to support its debt and operations, and crisis when either loans are not available or are needed to prevent absolute bankruptcy and cessation of government operations, should be informed by an understanding of the various approaches to coping with long-term revenue shortfalls leading to sizable long-term debt. Further, it is essential to understand the complex relationships between government spending and the direction of overall fiscal policy in combination with monetary and other policies and the productivity of the private sector that is needed to drive the economy towards recovery.

Although monetary policy has not been the focus here, history should not be ignored. When the Japanese housing bubble burst in the 1980s, Japan’s monetary policy decision makers held interest rates relatively high for a long period. The result was a decade of virtually zero GDP growth for the nation. Recent efforts by the US Federal Reserve Bank to reassure markets that a low interest policy would be extended for the near future (with a constant vigil for signs of inflation) spurred the US stock market and sent signals to industry that investment required to contribute to sustained economic recovery would be supported. In contrast, the EU has recently raised interest rates in part due to fear of rising inflation. While such caution is understandable, economic recovery is likely to suffer as a consequence. Also, it is notable that during the past 18 months the US has taken only moderate steps to support the falling US dollar, which has made it easier to sell cheaper US products and services abroad. At the same time, a strong Euro and UK Pound have made it more difficult to sell products abroad from these markets.

Reference:

L. R. Jones. 2010. “Restructuring Public Organizations in Response to Global Economic and Financial Stress,” International Public Management Review, 11/1 2010: 1-20.

© L. R. Jones 2011

1. Banking Crisis

1.1. Contents

The measures taken by governments to support and save banks and restore confidence in the banking sector followed a similar pattern all over the Western world:

-       Capital injections. Governments injected capital into banks and became shareholders, thus gaining some control over banks and possible future benefits from the recovery of banks. Nationalisation occurred when governments came to own a significant fraction or all shares of a bank and gave governments more direct control. Nationalisation is criticised in free market economies for fear of political interests overshadowing efficiency and fair competition. In the case of the German regional ‘Landesbanken’ that conflict of interests had occurred in the past. Nationalisation of banks did take place in Britain and The Netherlands, but not in Germany.

-       Guaranteeing bank debt. Guaranteeing bank debt increases the liquidity of banks and promotes interbank lending. The measure was taken by governments to encourage banks to lend to each other and to firms. Notice that after the bank support measures the common complaint of particularly medium and small industry was that they could no longer get loans from banks.

-       Isolating or buying bad assets. Securing or direct buying of assets was meant to isolate the toxic assets of a bank (derived from sub-prime mortgages). This measure was not easily taken by governments because of the difficulty of pricing the toxic assets and the time pressure. Ring fencing assets postponed that decision by first isolating the assets and dealing with the costs later.

-       Increasing deposit insurance. The main argument for having deposit guarantees was to prevent bank runs. In Britain the banking crisis started with the bank run on Northern Rock in 2007. If depositors feel that a bank is failing and they have no insurance, they will rush to withdraw their money before all is gone. In most OECD-member countries the deposit guarantee limit used to be around 20.000. After the banking crisis the guarantees were mostly raised, in Britain to 50.000, in The Netherlands to 100.000 and in Germany to 100% of the deposit.

The following table indicates that the costs of the banking crisis were highest in Britain where the banking and financial sector played a predominant role in the economy, but were also relatively high in The Netherlands (20 billion capital injection fund, and 200 billion liabilities guarantee fund) where the banking sector also has a relatively high part in the economy.

Table. Overview of Banking Aid Measures, 2009 (in percentage of GDP)

Source: European Commission, 2009

Countries outside of Europe, except for the United States and Japan, have not taken capital injection or nationalisation measures, but have restricted themselves to increasing deposit guarantees and guaranteeing bank debts. These two measures were critical for short-term relief of the banking system and were employed first in the financial crisis.

In March 2010 the European Commission, the ECB and the National Banks decided to carry out a ‘stress test’ in order to determine the capability of European banks to resist new shocks. In July 2010 the results of the ‘stress test’ were published: seven of the investigated ninety-one banks had a capital reserve less then 6% of the balance total, which was the minimum limit. These were Hypo Real estate (Germany), the Agricultural bank of Greece and five Spanish regional savings banks (‘cajas’).

In the summer of 2010 plans were devised for higher capital requirements for banks, known as ‘Basel-3’. Banks reacted furiously on the consequence of attracting extra capital. In September 2010 the Basels Committee (European bank regulatory agencies) reached an agreement to increase the capital reserve requirements in a couple of years.

P.M. Recovery of banks?

The following table gives an indication of the effects of the bank support measures on government finances. It presents the increase in government financial liabilities. Britain has endured the most severe increase in government debt.

Government Debt (percentage of GDP)

Source: OECD Economic Outlook 2010

1.2. Process

In Britain the decisions during the banking and financial crisis were taken by prime-minister Brown, chancellor of the Exchequer Darling, the governor of the Bank of England King, and a very small group of insiders (headed by the first secretary of the Treasury). For fear of information about the sensitive bank actions leaking to the press, the number of people involved was kept to a bare minimum (like in other countries). Due to the institutional characteristics of the British government, with its leading position of the prime-minister, Brown dominated the decision process, at least in public.

In Germany the institutional characteristics of government also give the Chancellor a strong position, but that is restrained by the principle of ministerial responsibility and autonomy. Chancellor Merkel (CDU) had to cooperate with her Finance minister Steinbrück (SPD). In Germany the chairman of the National Bank (..) was also heavily involved in the decision-making on banking support.

In The Netherlands the formal-institutional position of the prime-minister is merely ‘primus inter pares’, that is, chairman of the Friday cabinet meetings. The minister of Finance Bos clearly dominated the decision process, most certainly in public appearances, where he was seconded by the prime-minister Balkenende and the chairman of the National Bank Wellink. The National Bank did play a major role in the process, but the role of the prime-minister was less exposed. The department of General Affairs (the prime-minister’s office) ‘was kept well informed’. Behind the public screens the secretary-general of the ministry of Finance Gerritse played a coordinating role in the many crisis-deliberations. In The Netherlands too only a very small number of people was informed and involved in the crisis-management, even amongst the top-officials of the ministry of Finance, for fear of premature leaking of bank support measures.

Another feature of the decision process in all three countries was the involvement of many external advisors and specialists like lawyers, investment bankers, accountants and the more, to assist in supporting and taking-over banks, in checking the banks’ balances and books, in determining the price of banks’ assets, etc. Ministries of Finance were not prepared for the financial banking crisis and did not have the expertise for buying up banks. External expertise was heavily relied upon.

Decision-making during the banking crisis was typically urgent-crisis-management (Boin et al., 2005; ‘t Hart et al., 2010; Boin and ‘t Hart, 2003). A pressing and important event requires immediate action, but is characterised by high uncertainty. Decision-making becomes centralised in the hands of a few key-players.

2. Economic Crisis: economic recovery plan

2.1 Contents

Almost all Western countries have taken measures to support the economy in face of the crisis. The size and composition of the economic recovery packages varied between countries, depending on the severity of the economic crisis and the fiscal position before the crisis (In 2009 Britain had a high 11,5 per cent of GDP budget deficit, Germany a lower 3,9 deficit and The Netherlands 3,4) . The United States have taken the largest economic measures at about 5,5 per cent of GDP. The following table gives an financial-economic overview of the measures taken in the three countries, where the two main categories of the packages, tax revenue and spending measures, are further specified.

Table. Composition of Economic Recovery Packages

(total over 2008-2010 in percentage of GDP in 2008)

Source: OECD (2009)

Tax revenues in most OECD-member countries rather concentrated on personal income taxes than on business taxes. Great Britain has lowered consumption taxes by means of a (temporary) reduction of the VAT rate. The following table presents an overview of the economic recovery measures taken per country.

Table. Economic Recovery Packages per Country

Source: OECD (2009)

The overview shows that the measures taken in the three countries are similar to some extent, but vary in the details. For instance, all three countries introduced a premium for the replacement of old cars by new ones. The action was invented in Germany, which has a large car-industry, and had a substantial effect on car-sales there. In Britain the measure only partly supported domestic car-industry as many car-sales are foreign import. The Netherlands hardly has a domestic car-industry.

Although it is too early to already assess the effects of the economic recovery measures on the actual economic development the following table shows that both Britain and Germany in 2009 experienced a severe economic decline, and that the German economy recovered sooner and better than the British one.

Change in real GDP (percentage from previous year)

Source: OECD Economic Outlook 2010

2.2. Process

The decision-making in this second stage of devising economic recovery plans, was not of the urgent-crisis-management type at the time of the banking crisis. It was not centralised in the hands of the few financial key-actors such as prime-minister, Finance minster and Chairman of National Bank, but involved more actors. Ministries of Economic Affairs, of Social Affairs, Education, Housing, Health and the more were involved in the preparation of the stimulus package. Moreover parliament and politics this time were playing an active role. And employers and employees organisations were involved, as well as many other interest organisations.

P.M. Britain

In Germany the Christian-Socialist coalition government has involved more parties in the preparation of the economic stimulus package. In German governmental decision-making the so-called ‘coalition committee’ (Fleisher and Parrado, 2010) traditionally plays a prominent role in the intermediation between government and parliament. It consists of the Chancellor, the Vice-chancellor (from the coalition party), the chairmen of the parliamentary parties, and the party chairmen. The coalition committee met in October 2008 (first Konjunkturpaket) and January 2009 (second Konjunkturpaket) to coordinate the government response to the economic crisis. Due to the upcoming September 2009 elections the process was clearly influenced by party competition. The Social-democrat (SPD) Finance minister Steinbrück and Foreign minister Steimeier dominated the policy debate and e.g. proposed the car scrappage scheme (Abwrackprämie), which became very popular. The Christian-democrat (CDU-CSU) ministers were less active in setting the policy agenda so Chancellor Merkel (CDU) adopted many of the SPD-proposals without amendments. The Foreign minister Steinmeier (SPD) even organised a meeting with trade-unions to discuss the economic stimulus measures, thus forcing Chancellor Merkel to convene an ‘economic summit’ with representatives from government, science, industry, trade unions and interest groups to discuss the economic recovery actions. The institutional characteristics of German government allowing for power-concentration in the hands of the Chancellor, did lead to a centralisation of decision-making during the banking crisis, but not during the economic recovery preparation. Even ministers who bear no responsibility for financial and economic Affairs, like the Foreign minister, became highly involved in the process. In cases that attracted much public attention, like the saving of the warehouse-chain Karlstadt, or the post-order company Quelle, and above all the support plans for the car-company Opel, many political players interfered publicly in the debate.

In The Netherlands the Christian-Socialist coalition government in March 2009 announced the economic recovery plan ‘working on the future’ as an addition to its original 2007 coalition program. Besides consultations with the coalition partners the Christian-democrats, the Social-democrats and the Christian Union, and with opposition parties in parliament, the government in the recovery program explicitly mentioned intensive consultation with employee and employer organisations in the Labour Foundation. Behind the screens top-official played an important role in the coordination of the policy-making, especially the secretary-general of the ministry of Finance Gerritse. The decision-making at this stage of the crisis was not urgent-crisis-management but the normal Dutch system of consultation, deliberation, compromise and consensus. In the policy-making on economic recovery many more actors played a role than just the minister of Finance Bos and prime-minister Balkenende. Measures to support the labour market and assist unemployed were prepared and published by the ministry of Social Affairs. Economic relief measures for businesses were the competence of the ministry of Economic Affairs. Measures on education and science fell under the responsibility of that ministry. A whole range of constitutionally independent and autonomous ministries was involved in preparing the recovery plan. Moreover the recovery plan was not a one-off event but a sequence of announcements of various measures. In March 2009 the plan was announced, in April the part-time unemployment measure was enacted, extra investments for rail-maintenance and extra investment in sustainable stables were announced, in May the car scrappage premium and actions against youth-unemployment, in June another elaboration of the crisis approach for housing construction, in July a measure for school building maintenance, and so on. The process involved many actors and consisted of many subsequent steps, such as announcement, working-out, enactment, realisation etc. Quite different from the immediate actions required during the banking crisis.

3. Fiscal Crisis: retrenchment package

3.1. Contents

The retrenchment packages that Britain announced in the October 2010 ‘spending review’ (£81 billion), Germany in the July 2010 ‘Sparpaket’ (82 billion) and The Netherlands in the October 2010 ‘coalition agreement’ (18 billion) were different but also had some common characteristics, the most prominent one being that administration itself was the prime target of the spending cut-backs. The British Cameron-Clegg-government announced a 34 % cut in the costs of the Whitehall administration and its agencies and cut-backs for local government. Official estimates were that 490.000 jobs in the public sector will be lost, and others later estimated an additional 0,5 million loss in associated private sector jobs. The spending review announced that this would be compensated by a creation of 2 million extra jobs in the private sector. The German Merkel-government announced cut-backs in administrative expenditures leading to a loss of 10.000 jobs, and an army-reform by cutting 40.000 soldiers. The Dutch Rutte-government announced savings of up to 1,5 billion in national administration and another 1,1 billion cuts in the provincial and municipal incomes, plus a range of other measures totalling up to 6,1 billion cuts in administrative expenditures in 2015.

The retrenchment packages also excluded specific sectors from cut-backs. The British ‘spending review’ announced to protect school spends for the poor, the national health service, and international development aid. The German retrenchment package announced to exclude education and research from cuts (an extra 12 billion was announced). The Dutch announced extra investments in care (to be financed from larger cuts in cure and care), safety, infrastructure and quality of education (to be financed by equivalent cuts in education).

The retrenchment packages also consisted of measures to reduce social unrest. In Britain the principle of ‘fairness whilst protecting the most vulnerable’ was worked out in school spending for the poorest. In Germany education was protected. In The Netherlands the elderly were protected (an election campaign issue of the right-populist Wilders-party) by increasing the pension-age by only one year, and extra funds for elderly care.

The retrenchment packages also contained measures that were rather symbolic and rhetoric than specific and realistic. Such as the British rhetoric about ‘big society’ and ‘small state’ where citizens and social organisation should take more responsibilities for themselves and each other. A retreat of the welfare state did not succeed in the 1980s either. The rhetoric of ‘localising’ public tasks means a decentralisation of central government tasks to municipalities, however local government was to be severely cut its expenditures. The Dutch announced a budget-cut in the performing arts sector, which is financially peanuts but symbolically representative of the right-populist aversion against ‘high-brow leftists’. It caused a major uproar in the arts field that naturally has a high public profile.

P.M. elaborate

Although it is too soon to assess the effects of the fiscal cut-back measures on the actual levels of deficits and debt the following table indicates that the budget deficit problem was most severe in Britain before the crisis and will remain so. In Germany and The Netherlands the balance before the crisis had a surplus. Germany seems most successful in reducing its budget deficit.

Government Financial Balance (percentage of GDP)

Source: OECD Economic Outlook 2010

The following table gives an indication of the severity of the government debt problem. The first two rows indicate how large the government debt was in 2007 and how much it increased between 2007 and 2012. The second row indicates what effort should be made to stabilise government debt in 2025. Clearly Britain is in the most severe position.

Government Debt (percentage of GDP)

Source: OECD Economic Outlook 2010

3.2. Process

The decision-making in this third stage of decision-making on major cut-backs in public expenditures was politically more sensitive than in the previous stages, because this time the role of government was not heroic about saving banks or recovering of the economy, but quite unpopular about budget cut-backs, loss of public sector jobs, cutting public services, reducing social security and welfare arrangements, hurting social interests. In all three countries the governments postponed the decision-making about retrenchments till after the elections, that is, to the next cabinet. The decision-making was therefore typically political in the sense of weighing many different and conflicting interests. Government, ministries, parliament, political parties, employer and employee organisations and many other interest groups were involved. Normally that would imply that the decision-process is slow, incremental and gradual. In Britain however the actions were far from incremental. So let us have a look at the speed and the extent of the decision-making in the three countries.

At first sight the British process leading to the ‘spending review’ seems an example of the quick and swift decision-making, which the institutional characteristics of the British centralised government and majoritarian political system enables. The new Cameron-Clegg cabinet was formed within one weekend after the May 2010 elections and severe retrenchments were announced. These were, however, just first global announcements, which still had to be worked out, first in the June ‘emergency budget’ which still was only the framework for the spending review, and finally in the October ‘spending review’ with the details of the cut-backs. In sum the process took more than five month to arrive at a specified stage. Compare that to the time lapse between the June 2010 elections in the Netherlands and the detailed retrenchment plans in the October coalition agreement. Although the Dutch government system of weak prime minister and the consensual political system are usually considered the reason for slow and incremental decision-making, in effect the process did not take longer.

P.M. Germany September 2009 elections, October 2009 coalition cabinet, July 2010 Sparpaket.

As to the extent of the measures, the difference between the British drastic fundamental actions, and the Dutch incremental compromise measures does indeed reflect the institutional characteristics of both political systems. The British cabinet created a special form of cabinet decision-making to ensure that all Whitehall spends could be fundamentally scrutinised, the so-called ‘star chamber’. An explicit attempt to prevent cut-back measures to be only the outcome of a dealing and wheeling between the respective ministries and the Treasury, to prevent that the many vested interest in the status quo would allow for mere incremental actions. The Dutch cabinet in 2009 only installed ‘working-groups’ consisting of officials to perform fundamental reconsiderations, thus shifting the prime political responsibility for fundamental priority-setting to the bureaucrats. Moreover the proposals of the reconsideration working-groups were more or less neglected in the election campaign and can hardly be found back in the October 2010 coalition agreement.

The marking difference between both the British and German decision-process and the Dutch, was that the first two processes took place after the coalition-cabinet was formed, so that the process resulting in the retrenchment package was orchestrated, coordinated and lead by an already installed and functioning government, while the Dutch decision-making on the retrenchments coincided with the coalition formation. The Dutch coalition formation was a sequence of political party alternations. First in June a coalition of centre-right was investigated, then in July a coalition of left-plus-right, subsequently in August a centre-right-populist cooperation, which shipwrecked but was later restored, resulting in September in plans for a Liberal-Christian coalition supported by the populist party, which in October led to the final coalition agreement. During the coalition formation the ‘cabinet-informers’ negotiate with the party-leaders and their adjutants, while every deal is extensively discussed in the party fractions, and when leaked to the press also publicly debated. Besides the ‘cabinet-informers’ also ask questions about policy issues that are answered by officials in the respective ministerial departments. Departments have long before prepared answers to every possibly conceivable question, to make sure that the cabinet-informers are immediately served when a request arrives. Besides hundreds of widely different interest organisations write letters to the cabinet-informers, which usually is just a waste of time. Intelligent and major interest groups know better ways to influence the political decision-making. No wonder that in such a hectic circus fundamental priority-setting can hardly take place. Moreover retrenchments are certainly not the only political hot issue at stake. The coalition agreement contained a financial attachment, which specified the cut-back measures and which was composed by the financial party-specialists with support of expert officials.

4. Conclusions

The institutional characteristics of government and parliament in the three countries are:

-       Britain has a two-party majoritarian political system with a single-party cabinet. Power in cabinet is centralised in the hands of the prime-minister. Cabinet dominates over parliament. Remark that in 2010 for the first time since ages a coalition-cabinet was formed.

-       Germany has a multi-party consensus democracy with coalition cabinets. In cabinet the Chancellor has much power but that is more restrained than in Britain because of the autonomy of ministers. Relation between cabinet and parliament is more dualistic.

-       The Netherlands has a multi-party consensus democracy with coalition cabinets. The prime-minister has no formal-legal dominance over the constitutionally independent ministers. Relation between cabinet and parliament is dualistic.

The similarities between the decision processes in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands during the banking crisis were:

-       The decision-process was of an urgent-crisis-management type. The urgent and major crisis asked for immediate, swift and drastic responses.

-       Decision-making was centralised in the hands of a small number few key-actors, the prime-minister, the minister of Finance, the Chairman of the National Bank and the secretary-general of the ministry of Finance.

-       Many external advisors and specialists like lawyers, investment bankers, accountants etc. were involved.

The differences between the three countries were:

-       In Britain and Germany the prime-minister played a central role, whereas in the Netherlands the prime-minister played a secondary role.

-       Differences were not so much in process as in contents. The banking sector in Britain was economically much more predominant, Germany had specific problems with the regional ‘Landesbanken’, and in the Netherlands the nationalisation of ABN-Amro was specific.

The similarities between the decision processes during the economic crisis were:

-       The decision-process was no longer urgent-crisis-management by a few key-actors, but involved many more actors, such as other ministries, parliament, party politics, employee and employer organisations, and many interest groups.

The differences between the three countries were:

-       The British prime-minister played a more central role than the German Chancellor, who was even challenged by the Socialist-democrat  Foreign minister. The Dutch prime-minister played an even less prominent role. In the Netherlands the economic recovery package was not a one-off action, but a sequence of many subsequent steps.

-       Differences were not so much in process as in the contents of the economic recovery package, although the sub-categories of tax revenue and spending measures were similar in all countries.

The similarities between the three decision process during the fiscal crisis were:

-       The decision process became politically more sensitive as this time it was about highly unpopular cut-back and retrenchment actions. In all three countries the retrenchments were lifted over the elections.

-       The contents of the retrenchments packages were similar in the sense that in all three packages administration was most to be cut in expenditures, that some sectors were excluded from cuts-backs, that measures were included to appease social unrest, and that many actions had a rather rhetoric and politically symbolic character.

The differences between the three countries were:

-       Although the British government system allows for quicker and swifter decision-making and at first sight that seemed the case, in effect the process in Britain was not shorter that in the Netherlands with its eternal deliberation and compromise culture.

-       Nevertheless Britain created special forms of decision-making to enable fundamental political  priority-setting (star chamber). In the Netherlands government shifted the political responsibility for fundamental priority-setting to working-groups of officials.

-       The extent of the decisions was definitely more drastic in Britain.

-       A marked difference was that the decision-making about the retrenchments in Britain and Germany was coordinated and lead by the new cabinet after the elections, whereas in the Netherlands that decision process coincided with the cabinet formation itself, which is a hectic period of intensive deliberation, compromise and consensus searching.

Institutional Characteristics of Countries

Managing the Banking Crisis

Similarities

Differences

Managing the Economic Crisis

Similarities

Differences

Managing the Fiscal Crisis

Similarities

Differences

CUTBACKS AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REFORM:  LET’S NOT KID OURSELVES

Introduction

Most EU countries currently have to make cutbacks in public expenditure.  In some – Greece, Ireland, the UK – these cuts are unprecedentedly deep.  In others – such as Denmark and Finland – they are large but not quite so out of scale with the past.  The UK is having a particularly bad time because its economy houses a bloated financial services sector and a bloated property market – the two sectors which have sourced the global crisis.   Finland, as a contrasting example, has a much smaller financial services sector and, what’s more, banking regulation was reformed after a bank crisis in the 1990s, in a way that the New Labour and Coalition administrations in the UK – for all their endless speeches on the subject -  have so far signally failed to achieve.  All EU countries have been navigating through the same storm, but they are by no means all in the same boat.  The effects of the cuts are already unpopular in the countries which are the hardest-hit, and will become more so as their impacts become more visible and concrete.

In the face of these difficult times we are beginning to hear quite a lot of relatively optimistic or upbeat discourse.  It comes particularly from some of those politicians who have responsibility for the cuts, and from some senior public managers and management consultants.  This more hopeful rhetoric tends to focus on three principal themes.  First, there is an emphasis on the acute need to hunt down and eliminate waste.  This is usually based on the assumption that there is lots and lots of waste in the public sector and now we really have to find it.  The second is about opportunities for innovation.  Cuts are a chance to try radical new ways of doing things, the argument goes (management consultants are particularly keen on this line, since they hope to use it to gain business – Pandey, 2010, p568)).  The third is about collaboration.  We must all pull together, it runs.  More than ever before, public services will have to be delivered by partnerships of public authorities, business firms and civil society associations.  UK Prime Minister Cameron’s idea of ‘The Big Society’ combines all three themes.  People must do more, collectively and collaboratively, to help themselves.  This will lead to many innovatory ways of tackling problems – government often doesn’t know best.  Meanwhile government itself should remove bureaucracy and regulation – much of which is assumed to be wasteful and inhibiting of innovation.

I believe there are very considerable difficulties with all three of these arguments.  While the current pressures are already leading to some innovations, the high probability remains that the cuts will be damaging to the aspirations and expectations of many citizens – not to speak of public sector staff.  These are not the circumstances any sensible person would have chosen in order to promote innovation in public management.  If, as public administration academics, and supposedly independent thinkers, we enthusiastically embrace the idea that the current situation is a great opportunity for improving public services then we risk being seen as naïve and out of touch with the everyday experiences of citizens and public service staff.

Problems with the three optimistic arguments

The main problem with the waste argument is that there does not seem to be nearly enough of it!  Some politicians seem to want to believe that the public sector is absolutely swimming in waste.  If asked to produce examples, however, they usually cite what are, on the scale of the savings which have to be made, quite trivial examples, or they give examples of bigger savings which would probably be extremely difficult actually to realize.  The sad truth is that many western European governments have been pushing for more efficiency and less waste for much of the past thirty years.  This is the umpteenth hunt for waste, so the stuff probably is not lying around in vast quantities.  There will always be waste to be found, and the hunt should go on, but you cannot cut the public sector by roughly a quarter just by eliminating waste.

The problems with the second argument – the one about innovation – are several.  To begin with, our knowledge of how to encourage innovation in public organizations is limited (Hartley, 2005; Mulgan, 2007).  One element in that emerging knowledge is that innovation requires a willingness to take risks and that in turn requires a culture of trust.  A degree of organizational slack also helps – one person’s waste is another person’s slack, one might say, and slack gives an opportunity for fresh thinking and experiment (Berg, 2010).  Yet harsh budgetary constraints, greater work pressures and staff layoffs – three likely features of the crisis – tend to squeeze out slack, discourage risk-taking and lessen trust.  How far do Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg think they are trusted by doctors, nurses, teachers and social workers at the moment?  In a performance audit of innovation in central government in the UK ‘Making funds available’ was cited as the most important internal factor in promoting nominated innovations (National Audit Office, 2006, p29).  A large scale American survey of research literature on successful organizational change in the public sector came to a similar conclusion (Fernandez and Rainey, 2006).  However, it is already clear that, in some UK local authority services, the early expenditure reduction decisions have been directed at safeguarding core services and have, in consequence, wiped out some existing innovations.  Finally, we should not forget that not all innovation is good (Hartley, 2005, 2008).  Some innovation is bad because it doesn’t work – most writers on innovation accept that it is a risky business in which one must expect a steady flow of failures as well as successes (Mulgan, 2007).  Tolerance for failure tends to decline during austerity – the pain of perceived waste is that much sharper.  Other innovations are bad because they do work, but represent a lower quality service, or even an ethically unacceptable practice (Hartley, 2005; Mulgan, 2007).  The guillotine, the electric chair and the concentration camp were all public sector innovations.

The third argument is about collaboration and partnership.  Of course this is a not a new argument.  On the contrary, it has been very popular for more than a decade now, and is simply being given a new twist in the context of expenditure cuts.  We have been hearing about joined-up government for more than a decade (Bogdanor, 2005), and now, more expansively, we are reading books and articles about the New Public Governance (e.g. Osborne, 2010).  The problems here are perhaps less large and less obvious than with the first two arguments, but problems there nonetheless are.  For one thing, experience with partnerships and collaborations is that they are often rather long-winded and wasteful ways of organizing, even if in the end they arrive at possibly superior solutions (Huxham and Vangen, 2000).  But according to our first optimistic argument, all such waste and inefficiency must be ruthlessly eliminated.  A second problem is that they don’t even necessarily arrive at superior solutions.  The scientific literature is very mixed, but some of the best work finds that public-public partnerships are those that tend to work best, while public private partnerships do not, on average, show strong gains in efficiency or effectiveness (Andrews and Entwistle, 2010).   A third point is that, in some countries at least, ‘collaboration and partnership’ can look surprisingly similar to old-style NPM ‘privatization and contracting out’.  Public-private partnerships also pose accountability problems, just at a time when politicians are talking of the need to be more transparent and to achieve “real democratic legitimacy” (Prime Minister, 2011).

So far, so bad.  Nevertheless I believe there are things that can be done, and I would like to say a little about those now.  But I want to speak of them from a perspective that recognizes the depth of our difficulties and does not use wildly optimistic arguments to pretend that we can somehow slide out unharmed into a bright new future.

Trying to think positively

One important insight is that the relationship between expenditure cuts and innovation is likely to change over time – it will probably have a strong temporal dynamic.  Another is that, as with many other aspects of public management reform, a similar-sounding reform will work quite well in one context but fail in another.  A third is that we have to look at agents as well as tools and structures.  I will try to say something about each of these in turn.

Over time.  Much depends on how big and how prolonged cuts turn out to be.  Frequently, an initial reaction is to try to protect whatever are regarded as the core businesses, abandoning or contracting out or selling off everything else.  Couple this to a hiring freeze and perhaps a pay freeze, and you have a classic strategy for getting through a period of austerity.  It may work, for a while, and for small and medium-sized cuts (let us say 5 or even sometimes 10%).  Limited efficiency drives are actually quite good at stimulating innovations (National Audit Office, 2006, p24).  However, these tactics are likely to prove inadequate for deeper cuts over the longer term (many public services in EU member states are facing cuts of 20% or more).  These will sooner or later force a reconsideration of core programmes, and at that moment more fundamental innovation may be possible.  But there is nothing inevitable about this.  There are several alternative possible trajectories.  For example, public reaction to the early cuts may be so negative that the government is voted out, or loses its nerve and retreats.  Or when the moment comes for major innovation in core services, a destructive or volatile option may be chosen.  Some think this is what is happening with the UK NHS, as the coalition government is placing so much of its faith in groups of primary care doctors who are now (apparently) going to determine where patients and money will flow in and out of the hospital sector.  Nevertheless, after all these ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, threr is often a crucial period – when the initial cuts have been decided upon and begin to be implemented – that can be an opportunity to think of more radical, considered changes to core programmes.

Beyond that, however, there lies a strange, murky era.  Governments like those of Greece and Ireland face an entire decade of austerity.  Even the UK Treasury has said that the cuts programme will need to extend for at least five years.  Little is known of the behaviour of politicians, voters and public servants in relation to such long term pressures.  The ‘down’ part of the public expenditure cycle has not been as long since the 1930s, and the political record of that period is not something that can be regarded with any enthusiasm.  The contrast between the corporate sector and the public services may become particularly stark:  how will the public react if we reach a point in economic recovery where firms are making large profits (as some banks are already doing) while basic public services are still being cut to the bone?  Private affluence and public squalor is hardly compatible with the much-vaunted ‘European social model’, or even with a British ‘Big Society’.

Contextual variation.  A comparative history of public management reform shows time and time again how contextual differences can make big differences to the success of a particular set of ideas and practices (e.g. Pollitt et al, 2007).  At the macro-level the whole of Europe may be facing the same economic crisis, but that crisis is structured very differently in different states (European Commission, 2009) and systems of political management and control also vary greatly from one country to another (Pollitt, 2010; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011).

The same is true for innovations at a more micro scale – TQM works in one organization and fails in the next one (Joss and Kogan, 1995; Zbaracki, 1998).  Our academic theories usually provide helpful prompts, but are still a long way from hands-on solutions:

‘[T]he salience of diverse contextual factors contributing to complexity means that the status of these ideas can be only that of empirically-backed stimuli for practical reflection’ (Wallace and Fertig, 2008, p274)

One implication of this is that it will be important to have some experienced and relatively independent persons who have time and opportunity to assess innovations in their contexts and to consider the extent to which they may be transferable to other contexts.  This kind of critical realist evaluation is rewarding but time-consuming (Pawson and Tilley, 1997).  Unfortunately one of the impacts of the crisis is that there will probably be fewer such people in circulation.  For public agencies independent evaluators may begin to look like a luxury, while in cash-strapped universities academic evaluators may find it more difficult to take ‘time out’ for pro bono work in public service delivery organizations.  Research councils are cutting back, and ‘safe’ research geared to narrowly defined objectives may be all that survives.

Agents and agency.  A discussion of the effects of cutbacks cannot be complete without recognition that much depends on the reactions of public servants themselves – both the leaders and the led.  For the leaders, current circumstances throw up huge challenges (Bouckaert, 2010; O’Donnell, 2009; Pollitt, 2010). The existence of a ‘burning platform’ may help sometimes (Mulgan, 2007, p24) but it can also hinder, by fertilizing employee resentment (Kelman, 2008, pp48-49).  The ‘social contract’ between public service employers and public service staff is considered, by the latter, to have been violated (Pandey, 2010, p567).  We know from the past that public service leaders can steer their agencies through hard times, gradually build coalitions of support, and push through crucial legislation (Carpenter, 2001).  On the other hands, in more recent times things have changed, in ways that make those sorts of long term strategies more difficult to carry out.  For one thing, politics is more volatile, and support is more fickle.  For another, public service leaders themselves tend to stay in office for shorter periods, and may therefore have less motivation and opportunity to build gradually for the long term (Pollitt, 2008, pp121-123 and 171-176).

Leadership heavily interacts with context.  ‘Political context and institutional form have these effects because they shape the type of dominant change agent that is likely to emerge and flourish in any specific institutional context, and the kind of strategies this agent is likely to pursue to effect change’ (Mahoney and Thelen, 2010, p15).  So this is another reason why it is misguided to search for some best strategy that will work everywhere, or even in most places.

Moving from the leaders to the led, we find a number of politicians promising greater freedom.  Prime Minister Cameron says he is “Liberating the hidden army of public service entrepreneurs” (Prime Minister, 2011) but it remains to be seen what substance will be given to this rhetoric.  No-one has ever managed to do this before – except, perhaps, in war time – and there is as yet precious little detail as to how it is supposed to work.  One promising example might be the ‘Total Place’ programme in the UK, where groups of local agencies first volunteered to take part in an experiment and were then given great freedom with respect to both topics and methods (H.M.Treasury, 2010).  They came up with quite a variety of ingenious ideas for pooling budgets and joining up different services.  Yet even here it is by no means clear that the innovatory side of the programme will win out over the cost-cutting side.  Local governments are now talking about a shift from ‘retrenching to redeveloping’, once the first wave of cuts are over.  However, the substance of this ‘redevelopment’ appears to be increased selling of services to individuals, large scale withdrawal from direct service provision, and a focus on trying to build trust and social capital (Total Place and Community Budgets Update 68, 2011).  It is hard to see how a massive round of contracting out will improve local authorities’ chances of creating trust and building social capital.  Neither are the thousands of redundancies which local authorities have begun to announce since the beginning of 2011 likely to ‘liberate’ many middle managers or street-level operators.

One piece of common ground in the burgeoning literature on public sector innovation seems to be that, quite frequently, good new ideas both arise from and are disseminated by informal, flexible networks.  Formal hierarchies, by contrast, are portrayed as less fruitful in this respect.  ‘Innovations in public services are often spread through open, collaborative networks, and between organizations, services and institutional fields’ (Hartley, 2008, p209).  Wise leaders will therefore foster and pay attention to such networks.

Concluding reflections

The good news is that current pressures will almost certainly throw up some new leaders, and spur some valuable public service innovations.  Indeed, it already has (H.M.Treasury, 2010).  The bad news is that these gains may well be outweighed by the widespread misery of deteriorating services, mass redundancies and a disgruntled citizenry.  The duty of academics, I suggest, is to identify, analyse and theorize both the gains and the losses.  The responsibility of public servants is to search high and low for both efficiencies and innovations, collaborating and learning from every likely source.  The pain of the cuts must not tempt us to turn inwards.  One lesson from the innovation literature is that new ideas and synergies can come from anywhere.  They may arrive from front-line operatives, from middle management, from top leaders, from the private sector, from civil society non-profit organizations, even from academia!

REFERENCES

Andrews, R. and Entwistle, T. (2010) ‘Does cross-sectoral partnership deliver?  An empirical exploration of public service effectiveness, efficiency and equity’, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 20:3, pp689-701

Berg, A-M., (2010) Lean and mean or fat and nice?  On the importance of organizational redundancies and diversity, paper presented at the annual conference of the European Group for Public Administration, Toulouse, September

Bogdanor, V. (ed.) (2005)  Joined-up government, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Borins, S. (ed.) (2008) Innovations in government:  research, recognition and replication, Washington DC, Brookings Institution

Bouckaert, G. (2010) ‘New public leadership for public service reform’, pp51-67 in J.Pierre and P.Ingraham (eds.) Comparative administrative change and reform:  lessons learned, Montreal and Kingston, McGill-Queens University Press

Carpenter, P. (2001) The forging of bureaucratic autonomy, Princeton, Princeton University Press

Dunsire, A. and Hood, C. (1989) Cutback management in public bureaucracies, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

European Commission (2009) Economic crisis in Europe:  causes, consequences and responses, Brussels, Directorate General for Economic and Financial affairs

Fernandez, S. and Rainey, H. (2006) ‘Managing successful organizational change in the public sector’, Public Administration Review, pp168-176

Hartley, J. (2005) ‘Innovation in governance and public services:  past and present’, Public Money and Management, 25:1, pp27-34

Hartley, J. (2008) ‘The innovation landscape for public service organizations’, pp197-216 in J.Hartley; C.Donaldson; C.Skelcher and M.Wallace Managing to improve public services, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

H.M.Treasury (2010) Total place:  a whole area approach to public services, London, H.M.Treasury, March

Hood, C.; Emmerson, C. and Dixon, R. (2009) Public spending in hard times, Swindon, Economic and Social Resarch Council Public Services Programme (pamphlet)

Huxham, C. and Vangen, S. (2000) ‘What makes partnerships work?’ in S.Osborne (ed.) Public-private partnerships, London, Routledge

Joss, R. and Kogan, M. (1995) Advancing quality:  Total Quality Management in the National Health Service, Buckingham, Open University Press

Kelman, S. (2008) ‘The “Kennedy School School” of research on innovation in government’ pp28-51 in S. Borins (ed.) (2008) Innovations in government:  research, recognition and replication, Washington DC, Brookings Institution

Mahoney, J. and Thelen, K. (2010) Explaining institutional change:  ambiguity, agency and power, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

National Audit Office (2006) Achieving innovation in central government organizations:  detailed research findings, HC 1447-11, London, The Stationary Office

O’Donnell, G. (2009) Speech to Public services in the 2010s:  prosperity, austerity and recovery, QEII Conference Centre, London, 11 December

Osborne, S. (ed.) (2010) The New Public Governance:  emerging perspectives on the theory and practice of public governance, London and New York, Routledge/Taylor and Francis

Pandey, S. (2010) ‘Cutback management and the paradox of publicness’, Public Administration Review, July/August, pp564-576

Pawson, R. and Tilley, N. (1997) Realistic evaluation, London, Sage

Pollitt, C. (2008) Time, policy, management:  governing with the past, Oxford, Oxford University Press

Pollitt, C. (2009) ‘Structural change and public service performance:  international lessons?’ Public Money and Management, 29:5, pp285-291

Pollitt, C. (2010) ‘Cuts and reforms – public services as we move into a new era’, Society and Economy:  Journal of the Corvinus University of Budapest, 32:1, pp17-31

Pollitt, C. and Bouckaert, G. (2011) Public management reform:  a comparative analysis – NPM, New Public Governance and the Neo-Weberian State (3^rd edition), Oxford, Oxford University Press (in press)

Pollitt, C.; Van Thiel, S. And Homburg, V. (eds.) (2007) New Public Management in Europe:  adaptation and alternatives, Basingstoke, Palgrave/Macmillan

Prime Minister (2011) Prime Minister’s speech on modern public services, 17 January (http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/speeches-and-transcripts/2011/01/prime-ministers)

Total Place and Community Budgets Update 68 (2011) 18 January (Nicky.DeBeer@local.gov.uk)

Wallace, M. and Fertig, M. (2008) ‘Orchestrating complex and programmatic change’, pp257-278 in J.Hartley; C.Donaldson; C.Skelcher and M.Wallace Managing to improve public services, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

Zbaracki, M. (1998) ‘The rhetoric and reality of Total Quality Management’, Administrative Science Quarterly 43, pp602-636

The financial crisis of 2008-9 and resulting recession in many western countries has in turn produced new fiscal crises in many, and subsequent radical cutbacks in public spending. This first session will discuss how public management is being affected by, and is coping with, this latest crisis.

Professor Christopher Pollitt (Leuven) will kick off this discussion with a paper entitled: “CUTBACKS AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REFORM:  LET’S NOT KID OURSELVES”
Professor Walter Kickert (Erasmus, NL) who contributes “Preliminary results of an international comparison – Managing the Fiscal Crisis in Britain, Germany and The Netherlands“.

Professor Larry Lynn (Texas and Manchester) will join the discussion later with further reflections and a comment on what has been said by contributors so far.

We’d like to especially encourage people to send in brief “country reports” summarising what has happened in particular places – usually 700 or so words is a good length. But please fell free to comment and contribute on any aspect of the discussion.

TO JOIN THE DEBATE SIGN UP FOR EMAIL ALERTS NOW – (ON RIGHT)

All you need is two or three Session Leaders – preferably recognised experts in the field – to kick off a session by writing introductory posts – either individually or together – setting out the issues as they see them. (Posts are usually best kept to about 750 words, but there’s no limit. But remember: too short and they probably won’t say enough – too long and less people will read them).

Please send proposals to me (colin.talbot@mbs.ac.uk) with:

- a brief summary of the proposed Session;
- who will be the Session leaders;
- when you’d preferably like it to start (and end if you want)?

Specific Sessions I already have in mind (but I’m happy for others to run with) are:

- Coping with the Crisis – how are governments coping with the impact of the global financial crisis and subsequent fiscal crisis in many countries?
- Performance – what has been the specific impact on “government by performance” of the crisis?
- Transitions: Democratic Public Administration – in the light of the ‘Arab Spring’, what do we know about transitions to democracy and public administration?

Traditional ways of developing knowledge – books, journals, conferences – are useful in their own ways, but they provide very limited opportunities for genuine debate and dialogue or sustained attempts to reach any consensus or at least delineate differences.

The “new media” – like blogs, wikis, email listservers, etc – provide much better ways of developing such dialogue and are not constrained by some of the limits of time, cost and location.

This blog is not intended, however, as a replacement for books, articles and conferences but as a useful addition, for those who want to use it.

SESSIONS: FOCUSSING ON TOPICS

“The Public Management Research Sessions” (PMRS) is intended, as the name implies, to have some structure. Initially we are going to try to have three or four semi-structured “sessions” a year focussing on a particular issue. These will hopefully be kicked off by contributions from a handful of leading scholars and then opened up for a wider discussion.

CROWD-SOURCING KNOWLEDGE

However, hopefully PMRS will also be a place where colleagues can seek answers and help from our wider community.

For example, following a controversy in the UK about how the public management side of our (new) Supreme Court works, I asked (via my WhitehalWatch blog and some listserves) for information about similar issues in other countries. Over a dozen colleagues responded with useful information, all of which is publicly available on the blog (see here).

So, if you want to use this community to ask for help – feel free. (But please note, queries will be moderated to prevent time-wasters, spammers, etc. and it’s not a vehicle for research students to get someone else to do their work for them!)

KEEPING UP

People who want to can keep up with the blog by signing up for email alerts.

SHAPING UP

Finally, how this proceeds is up to all those who want to contribute – so please comment on this initial post if you have ideas, suggestions and even criticisms about how this might work.

Colin Talbot

Manchester, April 2011