New Public Management in the UK: Enduring Legacy or Fatal Remedy?

Oliver James

International Review of Public Administration, 2001, vol. 6, issue 2, 15-26

Abstract: In assessing developments in the UK subsequent to the New Public Management (NPM) reforms of the 1980s and 1990s an important question is whether the structures and practices created by the NPM reforms are enduring or whether, as so often is the case in administrative reform, they are quickly being replaced. There is some evidence that certain parts of the NPM reform have been ‘fatal remedies’ -the reforms originally intended to solve problems of public sector performance have led to side and perverse effects, creating the conditions for their own demise. These processes have been reinforced by changes because of policy makers’ altered priorities. The ‘fatal remedies’ have been especially found in some aspects of competitive NPM structures and in disaggregated corporate units involving splitting ‘policy’ from ‘service delivery.’ However, many parts of NPM, especially disaggregated units more generally and the use of private providers appear to be a more enduring legacy. In some of these areas, rather than removing NPM structures, new mechanisms have been developed to ameliorate some of their undesirable side-effects, particularly through the increased use of regulation of government.

Date: 2001
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/12294659.2001.10804976 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rrpaxx:v:6:y:2001:i:2:p:15-26

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RRPA20

DOI: 10.1080/12294659.2001.10804976

Access Statistics for this article

International Review of Public Administration is currently edited by Ralph Brower

More articles in International Review of Public Administration from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().