First Management Reform Wave in Great Britain

The Great Problems of Transforming Public Administration with 'New Public Management' Reforms

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject Organisation and Administration, grade: 2,0, University of Constance, language: English, abstract: The 1980s in Great Britain are referred to as the 'decade of Thatcherism', named after their characteristic Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Her government produced revolutionary changes which not only completely transformed economic life, but also fundamentally reorganised the government's tasks and functions, as well as the structure of the civil service. These all public sector divisions encompassing reforms are referred to as the First Management reform wave, in which market forces, as well as management concepts from the private sector were enthusiastically implemented in the public sector. This research paper analyses the reasons for the ineffectiveness, and the sometimes even negative influences of the first management reform wave on the state's performance. Hereby it will be assessed if the causes are to be found in the private sector management techniques and their application to public sector organisations (in form of the New Public Management concept), or if rather the specific kind and context of British reforms was problematic, and rendered the techniques unfeasible and impractical. To this end, the reform process in Britain, starting in 1979 with the election of the Conservatives, until the change of government to Labour in 1997, will be analysed. The first part of the paper will give an overview of the New Public Management concept, its major components and the reforms it proposes for the public sector. Following this introductory part of the concepts, an overview will be given about British government and public administration before the Conservative reforms: the famous 'Westminster model' and the 'Whitehall bureaucracy' (closely related to the classical 'Weberian' bureaucratic model). Furthermore, the major transformations of both concepts that took place in the Conservative era will be briefly explained. The following section will then introduce some of the most important reform initiatives of the Thatcher and later Major decades, especially to the public sector's structure and tasks. Based on the concrete reform elements, their problematic effects and outcomes will be analysed. In this part, the question why the reforms failed to achieve their intended purpose will be answered. Lastly, a conclusion will summarise the major results of the research paper and deal with the question, why the first management reform wave in Great Britain can be overall described as failed. Lastly, an example of a disastrous reform will be given