The SA Government realised a few years ago that if we are going to ensure that future generations can live prosperous and fulfilling lives in South Australia, our State will need to pull together to get the best outcomes through collaboration between government, community and business. After scanning the best ideas across the world, the government found an interesting model in the state of Oregon in the USA, used this to generate a model that would work for SA- and the South Australian Strategic Plan was born.
This plan is innovative because it looks past one election cycle, and bravely puts pegs in the ground for all of us to work towards well into the future. In new ways, it makes the government accountable for what it is achieving, and helps to focus everyone’s energies on goals that will make a difference.
Every part of government, including education, is now both encouraged and required to make sure it is lined up against the targets in this plan. This means when DECS does its planning, the executives have to ensure they are meeting the plan’s requirements, as well as planning for ongoing and everyday work. In turn, each division of the department has to show how it will make a contribution to the plan’s objectives, as well as how it will achieve its usual work, and finally each child care and school site will have to do the same.
Sometimes the work we have to do day by day can seem unconnected to a plan of this scale, but every coordinated effort helps to achieve a bigger result.
You can find out more about the plan, and read a two page summary of what it is aiming to do, by visiting www.sacentral.com.au and looking for the links to the SA Strategic Plan. On that site you will also find out what important supports to the plan such as the Economic Development Board, Social Inclusion Board, Sustainability Roundtable and Premier’s Science and Research Council are doing to further the plan’s objectives.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Public Value Management (PVM): A New Resolution of the Democracy/Efficiency Tradeoff.
Public Value Management (PVM): A New Resolution of the Democracy/Efficiency Tradeoff.
Draft paper comments welcome: gerry.stoker@man.ac.uk
Gerry Stoker, Institute for Political and Economic Governance (IPEG), University of Manchester. UK.
The starting point of this paper is that network governance brings with it a new approach to management challenges in the public sector that goes beyond both Traditional Public Administration (TPA) and the New Public Management (NPM). The first half of the paper charts the core features of this new management paradigm in contrast to its predecessors. What emerges is a Public Value Management (PVM) paradigm that presents the achievement of public value as its core objective; the formulation of what constitutes public value can only be achieved through deliberation involving the key stakeholders and actions that depend on mixing in a reflexive manner a range of intervention options. Networks of deliberation and delivery are central features of the approach.
The second half of the paper addresses some the implications of the arrival of PVM through a focus on its contribution to the twin goals of efficiency and democracy that are central to any governance system. First it is clear that defining public purposes by the benchmark of public value brings in its wake a challenge to the understanding of in much of the conventional literature of the interrelationship between efficiency and democracy. Moreover the search for public value has resolved some of the tensions between efficiency and democracy associated with paradigms established in earlier eras but has encouraged others. Somewhat paradoxically although it prioritizes political debate and exchange the search for public value, and championing of networks, leaves the role and status of elected politicians unclear and ambiguous. Moreover because of the fluidity associated with network governance there appears to be an absence of formal accountability mechanisms to match those of TPA and NPM. The paper explores these issues but finds that they do not undermine the new paradigm’s potential.
Beyond Traditional Public Administration and New Public Management: Searching for Public Value
Claims that a new paradigm is emerging in any sphere of social and political study are rightly treated with scepticism. In part this is because nothing is ever entirely new and there are always connections to the past. Moreover transition from one era to the next is always a messy business. So the claim of this paper, that the emerging network governance is encouraging a new paradigm of public management led by the search for public value, needs to be carefully qualified. Previous arrangements have not entirely given way to a finally formed new period. Indeed in Western democracies many of the trappings of traditional public administration period still live on and the dominant new force is not the search for network governance but rather the NPM. Yet it is possible to see beyond NPM to a management paradigm that has a different starting point and takes a rather different course. The period of transition is complex given that it is driven by reform programmes that are not entirely coherent and where new ways of working run alongside features of administration and management that would have graced earlier periods. Yet the starting claim of this paper is that a new kid on the block has arrived; a management that defines its task more broadly than previous paradigms and achieves its purposes through a dynamic of network governance (Kelly and Muers, 2002; Perri 6 et al, 2002).
Table 1 outlines out the key features of TPA and the NPM and contrasts them to the emerging public value paradigm. The next three sub-sections explore the features of each in a little more detail. It would be neat if the transition from public administration, through NPM to public value fell into the familiar thesis, antithesis and synthesis format. There are elements of such a pattern to be observed but the relationship between the paradigms is more confusing and complex. In its definition of the public interest, approach to service delivery and commitment to a public service ethos the new PVM paradigm does blend together features of TPA and NPM. However in its key objectives, attitude to accountability and ideas about therole of public managers it goes beyond either of the previous paradigms into territory that marks a clear break with past understandings of the way that governmental actors should behave. Indeed it is precisely because of this the public value paradigm redefines some the previously defined democracy versus efficiency trade-offs.
INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE
Traditional Public Administration
Traditional Public Administration (TPA) provided a particular set of solutions to the challenges of governance. It relied heavily on a Weberian perception of the world. In Weber’s political thought three institutions are seen as essential to coping with the complexity of modernity and for delivering order to the governance process. They are political leadership, party and bureaucracy (Held, 1987: 148- 160).
Weber was not opposed to the idea of direct democracy but felt it was unlikely to be a viable option for most decision-making within a mass democracy. A representative form of democracy, in contrast, is seen as having the flexibility to balance different interests and develop policies to meet shifting circumstances. However Weber placed modest expectations on the representative body of elected politicians. It allowed for discussion and debate but was primarily there to provide a pool of potential political leaders. Elections, in turn, provide the crucial mechanism for popular endorsement or otherwise of political leadership. Competing political leaders lies at the heart of the democratic process. Weber assumed that the public has been largely uninterested in wider political engagement and participation. This concept of elite democracy was a central plank in western political thought for much of the 20th century.
Parties – with tight discipline – are the key institution for both mobilizing support in a mass democracy and in organising the practice of government by holding representatives to a shared collective line. Career politicians emerge who owe their advances to political parties and the parties in turn become key vehicles for fighting and winning elections. Parties get out the vote and organize government. Moderndemocracy was unthinkable save in terms of political parties (Dalton and Wattenberg, 2000).
Bureaucracy forms the third arm for organising the modern state. Mass citizenship leads to increased demands on the state – in areas such as education and health – which can only be managed by standardization and routinisation of administrative tasks. Moreover modern economic systems demand the stability and predictability provided by bureaucracy. From a Weberian perspective bureaucracy delivers organisational effectiveness through four features (Beetham, 1987). The first is the placing of officials in a defined hierarchical division of labour.
The central feature of bureaucracy is the systematic division of labour, whereby complex administrative problems are broken down into manageable and repetitive tasks, each the province of a particular office (Beetham, 1987: 15).A second core feature is that officials are employed within a full-time career structure in which continuity and long-term advancement is emphasized. Third the work of bureaucrats is conducted according to prescribed rules without arbitrariness or favouritism and preferably with a written record. Finally officials are appointed on merit. Indeed they become expert by training for their function and in turn control access, information and knowledge in their defined area of responsibility.
New Public Management
New Public Management (NPM) presents a complex set of ideas. It has evolved and developed different themes (Hood, 1995). The version most clearly embraced by the governments across the western world rested on a critique of existing forms of service provision and a prescription for improvement based on introducing market-like disciplines. Public service organisations, so the argument had it, were dominated by producer interests (the bureaucrats and the various ranks of other employees). Unlike in private sector organisations the power of the producer was not held in check by market incentives and demands. As a result public service organisations tended to be neither efficient in terms of saving public money nor responsive to consumer needs. The solution was to fragment “monopolistic” public service structures and develop quasi-market forces to govern the way that they operated. Key reforms included the introduction of a purchaser-provider divide within organisations and the development of performance targets and incentives. The aim was to create an organisational ‘home’ for the client/consumer voice within the system in order to challenge the power of producers. Consumers or their surrogate representatives as regulators or commissioners would have the power to purchase the services they required and measure performance.
The New Public Management (NPM), then, favoured a system that wanted to dismantle the bureaucratic pillar of the Weberian model of TPA. Out with the large, multi-purpose hierarchical bureaucracies, NPM proclaimed, and in with lean flat autonomous organisations drawn from the public and private sectors and steered by a tight central leadership corps. The idea of a public sector ethos was rejected as simply a cover for inefficiency and empire building by bureaucrats. Politicians were seen as having a crucial role but not so much as the conveyer belts of public opinion as the Weberian model implied, since customer surveys and focus groups would provide more of that. Politicians were there as the non-executive directors whose task was to set tough targets and make tough choices over budgets but leave the running of business to the managers. Having good quality political leadership was an asset for NPM as it was for TPA. Both required a separation between the world of politics and the world of officials. Politics has its place in both systems but it is be hedged in and confined. A good Weberian bureaucracy would not brook political interference over its appointments or rules and it protective of the sensibilities of its experts. Equally a good NPM system gives the managers the freedom to manager. Politicians are there to set the goals but then get out of the way. Contracts defined by performance targets and agreed systems of performance measurement drive the system rather than political or bureaucratic oversight.
Steering towards Public Value: an emerging management paradigm?
Steering towards public value is the emerging new management kid on the block. Its origins can in part be traced to those critical of some aspects of NPM but who are, at the same time, unwilling to return to systems driven the approach of TPA (cf. Perri 6 et al, 2002). There is a sense in this model that the public realm is different to that of the commercial sector, so there is something shared with the TPA perspective. Governing is not the same as shopping or more broadly buying and selling goods in a market economy. As a result some of the prescriptions of NPM drawn from private sector experience may not be appropriate. Above all, in the public value model politics is not confided to some specific space and this characteristic makes for a considerable contrast with the other two paradigms. Public administration and NPM seek to confine politics to the role of initial input into the system of management and final judge. When politics escapes beyond these tasks into other spheres it is seen as a failure. But in the public value paradigm politics is the process that breathes life into the whole process. Politics, however, is seen as broader than party politics.
Politics is valued as a mechanism for social co-ordination for, at least, three reasons. First it enables people to co-operate and make choices on the basis of something beyond the individualism of the market. It treats people and encourages them to treat others with recognition of the full roundness of their human qualities and experience. Second political decision-making is flexible so it can deal with uncertainty, ambiguity and unexpected change. Politics is an essential coping mechanism in an uncertain and unpredictable world. Finally politics can move beyond a distribution of benefits - a rationing function also offered by markets - to establish a process of social production in which interests are brought together to achieve common purposes. Politics can influence the basis for co-operation by changing people’s preference and creating an environment in which partnership is possible.
A general statement of the management paradigm that challenges both TPA and NPM would be: the governance of the public realm involves networks of deliberation and delivery is pursuit of public value. It can be fleshed out by five propositions. These are worth exploring in detail in order to mark out the different territory that the paradigm occupies.
1. Public interventions are defined by the search for public value
Mark Moore, Harvard University Kennedy School professor argues, the underlying philosophy of public managers (whether politicians or officials) should be to create public value. The issue that needs to be addressed is whether the public intervention which they are directing is achieving positive social and economic outcomes. The focus on generating public value brings in its wake some implications which carry considerable bite.
Public managers create public value. The problem is that they cannot know for sure what that is. Even if they could be sure to- day, they would have to doubt tomorrow, for by then the political aspirations and public needs that give point to their efforts might well have changed...It is not enough, then, that managers simply maintain the continuity of their organizations, or even that the organizations become efficient in current tasks. It is also important that the enterprise be adaptable to new purposes and that it be innovative and experimental...It is not enough to say that public managers create results that are valued; they must be able to show that the results obtained are worth the cost of private consumption and unrestrained liberty forgone in producing the desirable results. Only then can we be sure that some public value has been created (Moore, 1995).
Providing services is no longer a sufficient justification for state intervention funded by citizens – whether those services are provided directly or commissioned. The question that has to be answered is does the service advance valued social or economic outcomes? A constant readiness to think again about what is being achieved is also necessary. Public managers are expected not to assume that the solution to any problem is the input of more resources. They need to consider what more could be achieved with the resources and assets at their disposal. There is no prejudice against public spending but equally there is no automatic endorsement of it.
2. There is a need to give less emphasis to the legitimacy that stems from party input into the process and give more recognition to the legitimacy of a wide range of stakeholders.
Politicians and officials have a particular legitimacy given that government is elected but there are other valid claims to legitimacy from among others, business partners, neighbourhood leaders, those with knowledge about services as professionals or users and from those in a position of oversight as auditors or regulators. These diverse bases of legitimacy cannot be simply trumped by the playing of the political card (Goss, 2001). As well as a positive challenge to embrace stakeholders the recognition of multiple sources of legitimacy calls into question a narrow concept of party democracy. Parties should be outward-looking and not trapped in a private world of caucuses and meetings. Party politics will continue to have a role to play in organising candidates, elections and the practice of government but it cannot undertake these roles in isolation divorced from a wider world of the public and non-stakeholders. There will need to be much more sharing and communication between the formal world of party politics and that of other stakeholders and politicians need to find ways of getting out of government buildings and into their communities to a great extent.
There should be a shift from a culture that accepts public acquiescence in decision- making to one that expects active citizen endorsement. People are perhaps only on rare occasions going to get wildly excited about the stuff of politics but the system is unsustainable if we do not address the mounting evidence of public disinterest and apathy. The challenge is to find ways of engaging people on their own terms. Voting can be made easier and more meaningful. Consent beyond the ballot box can be obtained through various methods of public consultation and deliberation such as citizen juries. New information and communication technologies offer a range of further opportunities to get people’s participation is a way that is flexible, attractive to them and not too time-consuming. The argument for finding new ways to engage with people is not just that government needs to listen and learn to design better policies and services, although that is important. Effective channels of communication are essential to achieving many social and economic outcomes. For example to launch a waste recycling scheme or change driving habits requires an intensive dialogue and high levels of trust between the public and authorities. More generally there is a need to rebuild public confidence in political institutions 9 and the most powerful way to do that is to seek active citizen endorsement of the policies and practices of public bodies.
3. An open-minded approach to the procurement of services is framed by a commitment to a public service ethos.
Effective procurement requires an open-minded approach to identify the best supplier whether they are in the public, private or voluntary sector. Consulting with users, benchmarking and open competition are among the mechanisms that will ensure a focus on end results. There is no ideological dimension to deciding who provides services and no particular moral virtue in people receiving their wages directly from government. The assumption is that while in-house provision may be appropriate in some circumstances in many others the advantages of private or voluntary sector provision will be greater. The private sector, for example, may be able to combine vitally needed investment with the responsibility for providing services. The voluntary sector may through their wider involvements be able to guarantee a more “joined-up” or “seamless” service for the public.
What marks out the approach from NPM is that an ethic of public service is seen as vital to the system. There is not a specific public sector ethic but there is a public service ethos. Aldridge and Stoker (2002) identify five elements of a new public service ethos that should be adopted by all providers of public services: • A performance culture: a strong commitment to service for individuals and the community reflected in world class service delivery and reinforced by training, support and systems to ensure a sustainable service culture and continuous improvement.
• A commitment to accountability: an emphasis on open access to information both to individuals and to groups of interested citizens with strong public accountability to the electorate at large.
• A capacity to support universal access: recognition of a special responsibility to support the rights of all service users in an environment where their choice of service is restricted.
• Responsible employment practices: well-trained, well-managed and well- motivated staff that act professionally and are fairly rewarded.
• Contribution to community well being: a recognition of the need to work in partnership with others across the public, private and voluntary sectors to contribute to the promotion of community well being and to meet the needs of individuals. This list may well have its deficiencies but the essential observation remains that management for public value requires that all those involved share certain ethical values and commitments.
4. A flexible repertoire of responses and self-reflexive irony should drive interventions
Jessop (2000:31) argues that those concerned with governance should deliberately cultivate a “flexible repertoire” of responses. This in turn involves a commitment to review and re-assessment, to check that mechanisms are achieving desired outcomes and a “self-reflexive irony” in which participants ‘recognise the likelihood of failure but proceed as if success were possible’. Emphasizing the “improbability of success” (Jessop, 2000:30) for governance should not be read as leading to the conclusion that it is necessary to look elsewhere for the salvation. On the contrary by recognizing the incompleteness of any particular governance strategy the aim is to encourage continued experimentation and learning. Rhodes (1997) comes to similar conclusions in his analysis of governance and argues that government needs to keep on picking up the skills of indirect management and learning. Managers have an active in role in making the system work through recognizing that it won’t work unless it is adjusted on a continuous basis.
5. Accountability relies on a complex and continuous exchange between leadership and checks and balance to that leadership
Whatever form of leadership that emerges it should be accountable and visible. It may emerge at a range of levels and from a number of quarters. There should be checks and balances to ensure that the leadership is facilitative rather than simply commanding or even dictatorial. But leadership is needed and the issue of how best that leadership can emerge in a way that is capable of moving people and making them feel willing to join the process should not be ducked. Government needs to learn to steer with a light touch and the capacity and skills to act in such a way will have to be installed in governance systems. They will not automatically emerge.
To summarise the argument thus far: associated with the rise of network governance is a new paradigm about the way that public sphere interventions, actions and services should be managed. The public value paradigm demands a commitment to goals that are more stretching for public managers than those envisaged under previous management regimes. Managers are tasked with steering networks of deliberation and delivery as well as maintaining the overall health of the system. The questions they have to ask of themselves in searching for public value are more challenging and demanding. They are asking more than whether procedures have been followed. They are asking more than whether their target has been met. They are asking if their actions are bringing a net benefit to society. Their challenge is as much to facilitate others as to take action themselves. Managing in this new way is not a comfortable experience and brings in its wake new challenges and dilemmas.
The Search for Public Value Changes the efficiency and democracy trade off
Efficiency has both an allocative and technical dimension that boils down to two questions: are we doing the right thing and are we doing it in the right way? For TPA the issue of objectives was handed over to the political system to provide. The issue of taking action correctly was a matter of following procedures, rules and systems. 1Democracy then delivered the goals and bureaucracy delivered the technical efficiency. For NPM the trade off was somewhat different. Democracy in the shape of the role of formal politicians was only to be trusted with setting the broadest directions for the system, providing a framework for allocative efficiency to be established and not intervening at all in issues of technical efficiency. Managers under NPM were expected to clarify and express the needs of the clients or to put it in NPM terms to take their customers seriously. They were then tasked with designing and implementing programmes to meet these objectives.
In both TPA and NPM these trade offs between democracy and efficiency were perceived to have the potential to go wrong and create significant problems( see Table 2). For TPA the dilemma was finding the balance. There was a danger that politicians on the outside of bureaucracy could not exercise any real control and equally there was a concern that too much political interference would undermine the capacity of bureaucracy to deliver. The solution and the route to balance were constitutions and conventions.
For NPM the issue has become whether it leaves any meaningful sphere for politics. Politicians set the broad targets of the system but those are usually negotiated with managers. The system can appear to lose responsiveness to politics as managers pursue their targets rather than the changing and fluid aspirations of the political system. For example, the police focus on meeting arrest targets rather than focus on community safety (on these and other pathologies of NPM see Stoker, 1999). With the involvement of arms length providers the immediate political control of TPA through overhead democracy gives way to a more attenuated set of exchanges through contracts, performance review reports and inspection regimes. The system from the viewpoint of the politician can appear a lot more difficult to steer (Kettl, 1993). Citizens themselves may feel reduced to mere consumers, not allowed to question the objectives of service delivery but only encouraged to comment on their quality. Allocative efficiency cannot be pursued through politics and is neglected by management as in the end the public sphere cannot concentrate on individual preferences alone. As a result NPM comes to a trade off that places technical 1efficiency- the achievement of a supposed value for money in public services- as the overwhelming objective. Worse still this target may in turn be compromised by the undermining of professional capacity and expertise in the system. The only hope would appear to be that imaginative and assertive politicians are alert to these problems and take the necessary remedial action to re-balance the system.
The search for public value thorough network governance redefines the issues. It recognises that both allocative and technical efficiency require democratic input and indeed involvement in the process throughout. Preferences are not formed in a vacuum and should not be taken as given. Part of the challenge of public managers is to engage the public a dialogue about their preferences but in a way that allows for deliberation about choices and alternatives. Car users might favour more spending on public transport if it as clear those other members of the public supported such a move and would use the public transport provided. People may have preferences that are system wide rather than service specific. They may favour a certain degree of fair distribution or systems of delivery that are ecologically sustainable. Discovering preferences involves a complex dialogue so that allocative efficiency and democracy are trading partners not the object of a trade-off. Moreover technical efficiency is not achieved by handing over the job to bureaucrats or managers. Rather, the key is a learning exchange and mutual search for solutions. Finding the best way of doing things also involves a democratic flow.
So the search for public value brings a new perspective on the long standing perceived tension between democracy and efficiency. But it runs an immediate danger that all the focus on dialogue leads to the neglect of action, perhaps the ultimate nightmare trade- off between democracy and efficiency. There are also other hidden dangers
Rhodes (2000: 77) states the problem of accountability with his native Yorkshire bluntness: networks ‘substitute private government for public accountability’ and ‘accountability disappears in the interstices of the webs of institutions which make up governance’. Exclusivity and lack of clarity about where responsibility should rest combine to produce a major accountability deficit. Add to this the argument that the resources necessary to build networks, as represented by social capital, are declining (Putnam, 1995) or in any case unevenly distributed (Maloney et al, 2000) and it would appear that there is a fatal flaw in governance by networks from a democratic perspective.
The defenders of network governance have been able to muster a number of replies to these doubts about accountability and access to decision-making. There are three main forms of accountability to consider and under any circumstances none of these forms is are easily established in any system. Day and Klein (1987) offer a split between (a) fiscal/regularity accountability (or probity); (b) efficiency accountability (or value for money) and; (c) programme accountability (or achievement of desired outcomes). They go on to comment that accountability has become ‘an ever-more complex and difficult notion to apply in practice’ (Day and Klein, 1987:7). Complicated divisions of labour, the constraining impact of specific expertise and the sheer scale and variety of government intervention make accountability a considerable challenge. In short, we should not exaggerate the accountability achieved in any political system so that the short falls of accountability within network governance should be put in perspective.
In defending network governance from the charge that it neglects accountability another argument can be brought into play. In shifting the attention from inputs and processes to the achievement of desired outcomes the thrust of network governance has been to create a more demanding accountability hurdle. Yet it has to be conceded that accountability for outcomes (programme accountability) is problematic because there is a danger that what is demanded of leaders is accountability without responsibility. Why? Programmes involve multiple actors. What makes for successful policy is almost always a complex mix of factors and the measuring of outcomes is often uncertain. To quote March and Olsen (1995: 161): ‘Democratic political systems have generally insisted on an allocation of personal accountability for political outcomes that most modern students of political history would consider descriptively implausible’. The problem may not therefore lie with network governance but with the inadequacy of our understanding of accountability and democracy. 15 The democratic emphasis is on informed consent as the basis of governmental authority. Those who hold office in these circumstances have to be active representatives, providing both an account of their (proposed) actions and being subject to enforced accountability for results achieved and outcomes. Accountability therefore involves justification and being held responsible. Democratic theory usually demands that someone takes a leadership role in both functions. ‘Leading from the front’ and ‘the buck stops here’ may be myths but they are important ones (March and Olsen, 1995).
Accountability in the context of network governance demands political leadership – people to offer justifications and to be held to account. These leaders are of a new type, organically part of the system not outside it (Wheatley, 1999). Governance is a world where no one is in charge but where leaders at various levels play a key but different role. But equally that form of leadership that is not easily understood or established. Network governance can leave politicians and their public uncertain about their role and relationship.
A complicating issue is that network governance offers a richer form of democracy. It may fail to always deliver a clear cut accountability framework but it does provide more effective governing by providing scope for learning and the development of shared ownership in the search for solutions. Governance offers new forms of accountability through the direct involvement of users and stakeholders in service delivery and decision-making (Hirst, 2000). Moreover there are opportunities to engage in the reconstruction or redistribution of the social capital resources necessary to underwrite mobilization (Stoker et al, 2003) Democracy in the 20th century triumphed as an ideology because of two core virtues: democratic arrangements intrinsically treat all as free and equal (one person, one vote) and moreover they help protect the basic rights of citizens by insisting on the popular endorsement of exercises of public power.
Democratic theory in this light tended to emphasize the separation of state and society, in part to ensure that the occupants of the latter had some scope to be free from the former. Democracy is justified first and 16 foremost as a protection to the individual. From this perspective the extent and variety of individual involvement in democracy is not inherently an issue of concern. The key is people’s right to have a say and the opportunity to use their vote if they choose to express satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
This view of democracy as a protector of our rights can be challenged as inadequate and restrictive for modern society on at least two grounds. First it might have been appropriate to limit democracy to a protective role when the state itself was restricted to such a role but with the rise of the welfare state spending between a third and a half of the wealth of nations it would appear that the state is not an institution that can be separated off, it is de facto a part of every aspect of our lives. We need therefore a more extended capacity to exchange than that afforded by the simple act of voting. Second the state is no longer a local or even a national institution, it also takes a supra national form of which the development of the EU is one of the strongest expressions in the world. Holding the state at bay is an inadequate response in such a globalised world as our lives are affected by global forces and we need a way of influencing those institutions that takes decisions for us on that global terrain.
The key question becomes then the appropriate form and role of democracy in this changed setting. The focus in modern democratic theory therefore goes beyond democracy’s moral or instrumental value in defending basic human rights to an argument that properly organised democracy increases our capacity to address fundamental social problems. Democracy helps to provide solutions by enabling us to exchange and learn from one another. The appeal that lies behind the networked governance is that provides a framework for that more expansive vision of democracy to operate. The conception of democracy that underlies the idea of networked governance is that democracy is a process of continuous exchange between governors and governed. As Hirst (2000:27) argues: ‘democracy in this sense is about government by information exchange and consent, where organized publics have the means to conduct a dialogue with government and thus hold it to account’. The issue is not the subjection of all decisions to majority approval. Elections or even referenda may have a role but they are not what takes centre stage in the construction of a 17 sustained dialogue between governors and governed. What makes democracy work is networked exchange. But what is required is required to confirm its democratic credentials is a way of extending the rights to consultation to the widest possible range of issues and the construction of a dialogue that allows space for the involvement of the disorganized many as well as the organised few.
In a democratic system the participation of all is not required; rather its defining characteristic is its openness to all. Many people prefer to spend their time on non- political activities or they face social and economic constraints that limit their time for political activity. As Held (1987: 95) argues: What is at issue is the provision of a rightful share in the process of ‘government’. (I) It requires that people be recognised as having the right and opportunity to act in public life. However, it is one thing to recognise that right, quite another to say it follows that everyone must, irrespective of choice, actually participate in public life. Citizens may well decide on reasonable grounds not to avail themselves of the opportunities to participate believing that their interests are already well-protected or not threatened. In short if representative politics is working then on many occasions further public participation may be unnecessary. The value of openness does not require or assume large-scale and continuous direct participation. It rests its case on the richness of democratic practice and that options for extending participation are available. These options should operate without making overwhelming time demands and in a way that enhances the broad representativeness of those involved. Effective democratic exchange also requires opportunities for deliberation. Judgement requires the sharing of experiences and the give and take of collective deliberation.
Networked governance offers a challenging perspective to traditional theories of democracy. The protection of individual rights is seen as a necessary but not a sufficient guide to democratic practice in the 21st century. We need also to move beyond the still valuable but limited contribution of formal representative democracy driven by occasional elections. Democracy is more than a safety valve to protect our basic rights. It has the potential to provide the basis for learning, to drive the search for collective solutions to complex and shared problems. Networked governance provides the frame on which a more extended exchange between governors and governed can be built. The PVM paradigm pursued through network governance tells us we can have democracy and efficiency. Indeed that they are partners. In TPA the trade off was that democracy provided the inputs and bureaucracy the efficient solutions. NPM came close to implying that management processes can do it all, defining preferences and the best means of meeting them. For the public value paradigm faith is placed in the system of dialogue and exchange associated with network governance. It is through the construction, modification, correction and adaptability of that system that democracy and efficiency are reconciled. Vigilance by all the partners in the system is central to ensuring that the promise of both democracy and efficiency is delivered.
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Rhodes, R. (1997) ‘From Marketization to Diplomacy “It’s the Mix that Matters”’ Public Policy and Administration 12, 31-50.
Rhodes, R. (2000) ‘Governance and Public Administration’, in J. Pierre (ed) Debating Governance (Oxford: OUP).
Stoker, G. (1999) ‘Introduction: The Unintended Costs and Benefits of New Management Reform for British Local Government’, in G. Stoker (ed) The New Management of British Local Governance (London: Macmillan).
Stoker, G. Smith, G. Maloney, W. Young, S. (2003) ‘Voluntary Organisations and the Generation of Social Capital’ in M. Boddy and M. Parkinson (eds) City Matters. Competitiveness, Cohesion and Urban Governance (Bristol: The Policy Press).
Wheatley, M (1999) Leadership and the New Science (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler).
Draft paper comments welcome: gerry.stoker@man.ac.uk
Gerry Stoker, Institute for Political and Economic Governance (IPEG), University of Manchester. UK.
The starting point of this paper is that network governance brings with it a new approach to management challenges in the public sector that goes beyond both Traditional Public Administration (TPA) and the New Public Management (NPM). The first half of the paper charts the core features of this new management paradigm in contrast to its predecessors. What emerges is a Public Value Management (PVM) paradigm that presents the achievement of public value as its core objective; the formulation of what constitutes public value can only be achieved through deliberation involving the key stakeholders and actions that depend on mixing in a reflexive manner a range of intervention options. Networks of deliberation and delivery are central features of the approach.
The second half of the paper addresses some the implications of the arrival of PVM through a focus on its contribution to the twin goals of efficiency and democracy that are central to any governance system. First it is clear that defining public purposes by the benchmark of public value brings in its wake a challenge to the understanding of in much of the conventional literature of the interrelationship between efficiency and democracy. Moreover the search for public value has resolved some of the tensions between efficiency and democracy associated with paradigms established in earlier eras but has encouraged others. Somewhat paradoxically although it prioritizes political debate and exchange the search for public value, and championing of networks, leaves the role and status of elected politicians unclear and ambiguous. Moreover because of the fluidity associated with network governance there appears to be an absence of formal accountability mechanisms to match those of TPA and NPM. The paper explores these issues but finds that they do not undermine the new paradigm’s potential.
Beyond Traditional Public Administration and New Public Management: Searching for Public Value
Claims that a new paradigm is emerging in any sphere of social and political study are rightly treated with scepticism. In part this is because nothing is ever entirely new and there are always connections to the past. Moreover transition from one era to the next is always a messy business. So the claim of this paper, that the emerging network governance is encouraging a new paradigm of public management led by the search for public value, needs to be carefully qualified. Previous arrangements have not entirely given way to a finally formed new period. Indeed in Western democracies many of the trappings of traditional public administration period still live on and the dominant new force is not the search for network governance but rather the NPM. Yet it is possible to see beyond NPM to a management paradigm that has a different starting point and takes a rather different course. The period of transition is complex given that it is driven by reform programmes that are not entirely coherent and where new ways of working run alongside features of administration and management that would have graced earlier periods. Yet the starting claim of this paper is that a new kid on the block has arrived; a management that defines its task more broadly than previous paradigms and achieves its purposes through a dynamic of network governance (Kelly and Muers, 2002; Perri 6 et al, 2002).
Table 1 outlines out the key features of TPA and the NPM and contrasts them to the emerging public value paradigm. The next three sub-sections explore the features of each in a little more detail. It would be neat if the transition from public administration, through NPM to public value fell into the familiar thesis, antithesis and synthesis format. There are elements of such a pattern to be observed but the relationship between the paradigms is more confusing and complex. In its definition of the public interest, approach to service delivery and commitment to a public service ethos the new PVM paradigm does blend together features of TPA and NPM. However in its key objectives, attitude to accountability and ideas about therole of public managers it goes beyond either of the previous paradigms into territory that marks a clear break with past understandings of the way that governmental actors should behave. Indeed it is precisely because of this the public value paradigm redefines some the previously defined democracy versus efficiency trade-offs.
INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE
Traditional Public Administration
Traditional Public Administration (TPA) provided a particular set of solutions to the challenges of governance. It relied heavily on a Weberian perception of the world. In Weber’s political thought three institutions are seen as essential to coping with the complexity of modernity and for delivering order to the governance process. They are political leadership, party and bureaucracy (Held, 1987: 148- 160).
Weber was not opposed to the idea of direct democracy but felt it was unlikely to be a viable option for most decision-making within a mass democracy. A representative form of democracy, in contrast, is seen as having the flexibility to balance different interests and develop policies to meet shifting circumstances. However Weber placed modest expectations on the representative body of elected politicians. It allowed for discussion and debate but was primarily there to provide a pool of potential political leaders. Elections, in turn, provide the crucial mechanism for popular endorsement or otherwise of political leadership. Competing political leaders lies at the heart of the democratic process. Weber assumed that the public has been largely uninterested in wider political engagement and participation. This concept of elite democracy was a central plank in western political thought for much of the 20th century.
Parties – with tight discipline – are the key institution for both mobilizing support in a mass democracy and in organising the practice of government by holding representatives to a shared collective line. Career politicians emerge who owe their advances to political parties and the parties in turn become key vehicles for fighting and winning elections. Parties get out the vote and organize government. Moderndemocracy was unthinkable save in terms of political parties (Dalton and Wattenberg, 2000).
Bureaucracy forms the third arm for organising the modern state. Mass citizenship leads to increased demands on the state – in areas such as education and health – which can only be managed by standardization and routinisation of administrative tasks. Moreover modern economic systems demand the stability and predictability provided by bureaucracy. From a Weberian perspective bureaucracy delivers organisational effectiveness through four features (Beetham, 1987). The first is the placing of officials in a defined hierarchical division of labour.
The central feature of bureaucracy is the systematic division of labour, whereby complex administrative problems are broken down into manageable and repetitive tasks, each the province of a particular office (Beetham, 1987: 15).A second core feature is that officials are employed within a full-time career structure in which continuity and long-term advancement is emphasized. Third the work of bureaucrats is conducted according to prescribed rules without arbitrariness or favouritism and preferably with a written record. Finally officials are appointed on merit. Indeed they become expert by training for their function and in turn control access, information and knowledge in their defined area of responsibility.
New Public Management
New Public Management (NPM) presents a complex set of ideas. It has evolved and developed different themes (Hood, 1995). The version most clearly embraced by the governments across the western world rested on a critique of existing forms of service provision and a prescription for improvement based on introducing market-like disciplines. Public service organisations, so the argument had it, were dominated by producer interests (the bureaucrats and the various ranks of other employees). Unlike in private sector organisations the power of the producer was not held in check by market incentives and demands. As a result public service organisations tended to be neither efficient in terms of saving public money nor responsive to consumer needs. The solution was to fragment “monopolistic” public service structures and develop quasi-market forces to govern the way that they operated. Key reforms included the introduction of a purchaser-provider divide within organisations and the development of performance targets and incentives. The aim was to create an organisational ‘home’ for the client/consumer voice within the system in order to challenge the power of producers. Consumers or their surrogate representatives as regulators or commissioners would have the power to purchase the services they required and measure performance.
The New Public Management (NPM), then, favoured a system that wanted to dismantle the bureaucratic pillar of the Weberian model of TPA. Out with the large, multi-purpose hierarchical bureaucracies, NPM proclaimed, and in with lean flat autonomous organisations drawn from the public and private sectors and steered by a tight central leadership corps. The idea of a public sector ethos was rejected as simply a cover for inefficiency and empire building by bureaucrats. Politicians were seen as having a crucial role but not so much as the conveyer belts of public opinion as the Weberian model implied, since customer surveys and focus groups would provide more of that. Politicians were there as the non-executive directors whose task was to set tough targets and make tough choices over budgets but leave the running of business to the managers. Having good quality political leadership was an asset for NPM as it was for TPA. Both required a separation between the world of politics and the world of officials. Politics has its place in both systems but it is be hedged in and confined. A good Weberian bureaucracy would not brook political interference over its appointments or rules and it protective of the sensibilities of its experts. Equally a good NPM system gives the managers the freedom to manager. Politicians are there to set the goals but then get out of the way. Contracts defined by performance targets and agreed systems of performance measurement drive the system rather than political or bureaucratic oversight.
Steering towards Public Value: an emerging management paradigm?
Steering towards public value is the emerging new management kid on the block. Its origins can in part be traced to those critical of some aspects of NPM but who are, at the same time, unwilling to return to systems driven the approach of TPA (cf. Perri 6 et al, 2002). There is a sense in this model that the public realm is different to that of the commercial sector, so there is something shared with the TPA perspective. Governing is not the same as shopping or more broadly buying and selling goods in a market economy. As a result some of the prescriptions of NPM drawn from private sector experience may not be appropriate. Above all, in the public value model politics is not confided to some specific space and this characteristic makes for a considerable contrast with the other two paradigms. Public administration and NPM seek to confine politics to the role of initial input into the system of management and final judge. When politics escapes beyond these tasks into other spheres it is seen as a failure. But in the public value paradigm politics is the process that breathes life into the whole process. Politics, however, is seen as broader than party politics.
Politics is valued as a mechanism for social co-ordination for, at least, three reasons. First it enables people to co-operate and make choices on the basis of something beyond the individualism of the market. It treats people and encourages them to treat others with recognition of the full roundness of their human qualities and experience. Second political decision-making is flexible so it can deal with uncertainty, ambiguity and unexpected change. Politics is an essential coping mechanism in an uncertain and unpredictable world. Finally politics can move beyond a distribution of benefits - a rationing function also offered by markets - to establish a process of social production in which interests are brought together to achieve common purposes. Politics can influence the basis for co-operation by changing people’s preference and creating an environment in which partnership is possible.
A general statement of the management paradigm that challenges both TPA and NPM would be: the governance of the public realm involves networks of deliberation and delivery is pursuit of public value. It can be fleshed out by five propositions. These are worth exploring in detail in order to mark out the different territory that the paradigm occupies.
1. Public interventions are defined by the search for public value
Mark Moore, Harvard University Kennedy School professor argues, the underlying philosophy of public managers (whether politicians or officials) should be to create public value. The issue that needs to be addressed is whether the public intervention which they are directing is achieving positive social and economic outcomes. The focus on generating public value brings in its wake some implications which carry considerable bite.
Public managers create public value. The problem is that they cannot know for sure what that is. Even if they could be sure to- day, they would have to doubt tomorrow, for by then the political aspirations and public needs that give point to their efforts might well have changed...It is not enough, then, that managers simply maintain the continuity of their organizations, or even that the organizations become efficient in current tasks. It is also important that the enterprise be adaptable to new purposes and that it be innovative and experimental...It is not enough to say that public managers create results that are valued; they must be able to show that the results obtained are worth the cost of private consumption and unrestrained liberty forgone in producing the desirable results. Only then can we be sure that some public value has been created (Moore, 1995).
Providing services is no longer a sufficient justification for state intervention funded by citizens – whether those services are provided directly or commissioned. The question that has to be answered is does the service advance valued social or economic outcomes? A constant readiness to think again about what is being achieved is also necessary. Public managers are expected not to assume that the solution to any problem is the input of more resources. They need to consider what more could be achieved with the resources and assets at their disposal. There is no prejudice against public spending but equally there is no automatic endorsement of it.
2. There is a need to give less emphasis to the legitimacy that stems from party input into the process and give more recognition to the legitimacy of a wide range of stakeholders.
Politicians and officials have a particular legitimacy given that government is elected but there are other valid claims to legitimacy from among others, business partners, neighbourhood leaders, those with knowledge about services as professionals or users and from those in a position of oversight as auditors or regulators. These diverse bases of legitimacy cannot be simply trumped by the playing of the political card (Goss, 2001). As well as a positive challenge to embrace stakeholders the recognition of multiple sources of legitimacy calls into question a narrow concept of party democracy. Parties should be outward-looking and not trapped in a private world of caucuses and meetings. Party politics will continue to have a role to play in organising candidates, elections and the practice of government but it cannot undertake these roles in isolation divorced from a wider world of the public and non-stakeholders. There will need to be much more sharing and communication between the formal world of party politics and that of other stakeholders and politicians need to find ways of getting out of government buildings and into their communities to a great extent.
There should be a shift from a culture that accepts public acquiescence in decision- making to one that expects active citizen endorsement. People are perhaps only on rare occasions going to get wildly excited about the stuff of politics but the system is unsustainable if we do not address the mounting evidence of public disinterest and apathy. The challenge is to find ways of engaging people on their own terms. Voting can be made easier and more meaningful. Consent beyond the ballot box can be obtained through various methods of public consultation and deliberation such as citizen juries. New information and communication technologies offer a range of further opportunities to get people’s participation is a way that is flexible, attractive to them and not too time-consuming. The argument for finding new ways to engage with people is not just that government needs to listen and learn to design better policies and services, although that is important. Effective channels of communication are essential to achieving many social and economic outcomes. For example to launch a waste recycling scheme or change driving habits requires an intensive dialogue and high levels of trust between the public and authorities. More generally there is a need to rebuild public confidence in political institutions 9 and the most powerful way to do that is to seek active citizen endorsement of the policies and practices of public bodies.
3. An open-minded approach to the procurement of services is framed by a commitment to a public service ethos.
Effective procurement requires an open-minded approach to identify the best supplier whether they are in the public, private or voluntary sector. Consulting with users, benchmarking and open competition are among the mechanisms that will ensure a focus on end results. There is no ideological dimension to deciding who provides services and no particular moral virtue in people receiving their wages directly from government. The assumption is that while in-house provision may be appropriate in some circumstances in many others the advantages of private or voluntary sector provision will be greater. The private sector, for example, may be able to combine vitally needed investment with the responsibility for providing services. The voluntary sector may through their wider involvements be able to guarantee a more “joined-up” or “seamless” service for the public.
What marks out the approach from NPM is that an ethic of public service is seen as vital to the system. There is not a specific public sector ethic but there is a public service ethos. Aldridge and Stoker (2002) identify five elements of a new public service ethos that should be adopted by all providers of public services: • A performance culture: a strong commitment to service for individuals and the community reflected in world class service delivery and reinforced by training, support and systems to ensure a sustainable service culture and continuous improvement.
• A commitment to accountability: an emphasis on open access to information both to individuals and to groups of interested citizens with strong public accountability to the electorate at large.
• A capacity to support universal access: recognition of a special responsibility to support the rights of all service users in an environment where their choice of service is restricted.
• Responsible employment practices: well-trained, well-managed and well- motivated staff that act professionally and are fairly rewarded.
• Contribution to community well being: a recognition of the need to work in partnership with others across the public, private and voluntary sectors to contribute to the promotion of community well being and to meet the needs of individuals. This list may well have its deficiencies but the essential observation remains that management for public value requires that all those involved share certain ethical values and commitments.
4. A flexible repertoire of responses and self-reflexive irony should drive interventions
Jessop (2000:31) argues that those concerned with governance should deliberately cultivate a “flexible repertoire” of responses. This in turn involves a commitment to review and re-assessment, to check that mechanisms are achieving desired outcomes and a “self-reflexive irony” in which participants ‘recognise the likelihood of failure but proceed as if success were possible’. Emphasizing the “improbability of success” (Jessop, 2000:30) for governance should not be read as leading to the conclusion that it is necessary to look elsewhere for the salvation. On the contrary by recognizing the incompleteness of any particular governance strategy the aim is to encourage continued experimentation and learning. Rhodes (1997) comes to similar conclusions in his analysis of governance and argues that government needs to keep on picking up the skills of indirect management and learning. Managers have an active in role in making the system work through recognizing that it won’t work unless it is adjusted on a continuous basis.
5. Accountability relies on a complex and continuous exchange between leadership and checks and balance to that leadership
Whatever form of leadership that emerges it should be accountable and visible. It may emerge at a range of levels and from a number of quarters. There should be checks and balances to ensure that the leadership is facilitative rather than simply commanding or even dictatorial. But leadership is needed and the issue of how best that leadership can emerge in a way that is capable of moving people and making them feel willing to join the process should not be ducked. Government needs to learn to steer with a light touch and the capacity and skills to act in such a way will have to be installed in governance systems. They will not automatically emerge.
To summarise the argument thus far: associated with the rise of network governance is a new paradigm about the way that public sphere interventions, actions and services should be managed. The public value paradigm demands a commitment to goals that are more stretching for public managers than those envisaged under previous management regimes. Managers are tasked with steering networks of deliberation and delivery as well as maintaining the overall health of the system. The questions they have to ask of themselves in searching for public value are more challenging and demanding. They are asking more than whether procedures have been followed. They are asking more than whether their target has been met. They are asking if their actions are bringing a net benefit to society. Their challenge is as much to facilitate others as to take action themselves. Managing in this new way is not a comfortable experience and brings in its wake new challenges and dilemmas.
The Search for Public Value Changes the efficiency and democracy trade off
Efficiency has both an allocative and technical dimension that boils down to two questions: are we doing the right thing and are we doing it in the right way? For TPA the issue of objectives was handed over to the political system to provide. The issue of taking action correctly was a matter of following procedures, rules and systems. 1Democracy then delivered the goals and bureaucracy delivered the technical efficiency. For NPM the trade off was somewhat different. Democracy in the shape of the role of formal politicians was only to be trusted with setting the broadest directions for the system, providing a framework for allocative efficiency to be established and not intervening at all in issues of technical efficiency. Managers under NPM were expected to clarify and express the needs of the clients or to put it in NPM terms to take their customers seriously. They were then tasked with designing and implementing programmes to meet these objectives.
In both TPA and NPM these trade offs between democracy and efficiency were perceived to have the potential to go wrong and create significant problems( see Table 2). For TPA the dilemma was finding the balance. There was a danger that politicians on the outside of bureaucracy could not exercise any real control and equally there was a concern that too much political interference would undermine the capacity of bureaucracy to deliver. The solution and the route to balance were constitutions and conventions.
For NPM the issue has become whether it leaves any meaningful sphere for politics. Politicians set the broad targets of the system but those are usually negotiated with managers. The system can appear to lose responsiveness to politics as managers pursue their targets rather than the changing and fluid aspirations of the political system. For example, the police focus on meeting arrest targets rather than focus on community safety (on these and other pathologies of NPM see Stoker, 1999). With the involvement of arms length providers the immediate political control of TPA through overhead democracy gives way to a more attenuated set of exchanges through contracts, performance review reports and inspection regimes. The system from the viewpoint of the politician can appear a lot more difficult to steer (Kettl, 1993). Citizens themselves may feel reduced to mere consumers, not allowed to question the objectives of service delivery but only encouraged to comment on their quality. Allocative efficiency cannot be pursued through politics and is neglected by management as in the end the public sphere cannot concentrate on individual preferences alone. As a result NPM comes to a trade off that places technical 1efficiency- the achievement of a supposed value for money in public services- as the overwhelming objective. Worse still this target may in turn be compromised by the undermining of professional capacity and expertise in the system. The only hope would appear to be that imaginative and assertive politicians are alert to these problems and take the necessary remedial action to re-balance the system.
The search for public value thorough network governance redefines the issues. It recognises that both allocative and technical efficiency require democratic input and indeed involvement in the process throughout. Preferences are not formed in a vacuum and should not be taken as given. Part of the challenge of public managers is to engage the public a dialogue about their preferences but in a way that allows for deliberation about choices and alternatives. Car users might favour more spending on public transport if it as clear those other members of the public supported such a move and would use the public transport provided. People may have preferences that are system wide rather than service specific. They may favour a certain degree of fair distribution or systems of delivery that are ecologically sustainable. Discovering preferences involves a complex dialogue so that allocative efficiency and democracy are trading partners not the object of a trade-off. Moreover technical efficiency is not achieved by handing over the job to bureaucrats or managers. Rather, the key is a learning exchange and mutual search for solutions. Finding the best way of doing things also involves a democratic flow.
So the search for public value brings a new perspective on the long standing perceived tension between democracy and efficiency. But it runs an immediate danger that all the focus on dialogue leads to the neglect of action, perhaps the ultimate nightmare trade- off between democracy and efficiency. There are also other hidden dangers
Rhodes (2000: 77) states the problem of accountability with his native Yorkshire bluntness: networks ‘substitute private government for public accountability’ and ‘accountability disappears in the interstices of the webs of institutions which make up governance’. Exclusivity and lack of clarity about where responsibility should rest combine to produce a major accountability deficit. Add to this the argument that the resources necessary to build networks, as represented by social capital, are declining (Putnam, 1995) or in any case unevenly distributed (Maloney et al, 2000) and it would appear that there is a fatal flaw in governance by networks from a democratic perspective.
The defenders of network governance have been able to muster a number of replies to these doubts about accountability and access to decision-making. There are three main forms of accountability to consider and under any circumstances none of these forms is are easily established in any system. Day and Klein (1987) offer a split between (a) fiscal/regularity accountability (or probity); (b) efficiency accountability (or value for money) and; (c) programme accountability (or achievement of desired outcomes). They go on to comment that accountability has become ‘an ever-more complex and difficult notion to apply in practice’ (Day and Klein, 1987:7). Complicated divisions of labour, the constraining impact of specific expertise and the sheer scale and variety of government intervention make accountability a considerable challenge. In short, we should not exaggerate the accountability achieved in any political system so that the short falls of accountability within network governance should be put in perspective.
In defending network governance from the charge that it neglects accountability another argument can be brought into play. In shifting the attention from inputs and processes to the achievement of desired outcomes the thrust of network governance has been to create a more demanding accountability hurdle. Yet it has to be conceded that accountability for outcomes (programme accountability) is problematic because there is a danger that what is demanded of leaders is accountability without responsibility. Why? Programmes involve multiple actors. What makes for successful policy is almost always a complex mix of factors and the measuring of outcomes is often uncertain. To quote March and Olsen (1995: 161): ‘Democratic political systems have generally insisted on an allocation of personal accountability for political outcomes that most modern students of political history would consider descriptively implausible’. The problem may not therefore lie with network governance but with the inadequacy of our understanding of accountability and democracy. 15 The democratic emphasis is on informed consent as the basis of governmental authority. Those who hold office in these circumstances have to be active representatives, providing both an account of their (proposed) actions and being subject to enforced accountability for results achieved and outcomes. Accountability therefore involves justification and being held responsible. Democratic theory usually demands that someone takes a leadership role in both functions. ‘Leading from the front’ and ‘the buck stops here’ may be myths but they are important ones (March and Olsen, 1995).
Accountability in the context of network governance demands political leadership – people to offer justifications and to be held to account. These leaders are of a new type, organically part of the system not outside it (Wheatley, 1999). Governance is a world where no one is in charge but where leaders at various levels play a key but different role. But equally that form of leadership that is not easily understood or established. Network governance can leave politicians and their public uncertain about their role and relationship.
A complicating issue is that network governance offers a richer form of democracy. It may fail to always deliver a clear cut accountability framework but it does provide more effective governing by providing scope for learning and the development of shared ownership in the search for solutions. Governance offers new forms of accountability through the direct involvement of users and stakeholders in service delivery and decision-making (Hirst, 2000). Moreover there are opportunities to engage in the reconstruction or redistribution of the social capital resources necessary to underwrite mobilization (Stoker et al, 2003) Democracy in the 20th century triumphed as an ideology because of two core virtues: democratic arrangements intrinsically treat all as free and equal (one person, one vote) and moreover they help protect the basic rights of citizens by insisting on the popular endorsement of exercises of public power.
Democratic theory in this light tended to emphasize the separation of state and society, in part to ensure that the occupants of the latter had some scope to be free from the former. Democracy is justified first and 16 foremost as a protection to the individual. From this perspective the extent and variety of individual involvement in democracy is not inherently an issue of concern. The key is people’s right to have a say and the opportunity to use their vote if they choose to express satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
This view of democracy as a protector of our rights can be challenged as inadequate and restrictive for modern society on at least two grounds. First it might have been appropriate to limit democracy to a protective role when the state itself was restricted to such a role but with the rise of the welfare state spending between a third and a half of the wealth of nations it would appear that the state is not an institution that can be separated off, it is de facto a part of every aspect of our lives. We need therefore a more extended capacity to exchange than that afforded by the simple act of voting. Second the state is no longer a local or even a national institution, it also takes a supra national form of which the development of the EU is one of the strongest expressions in the world. Holding the state at bay is an inadequate response in such a globalised world as our lives are affected by global forces and we need a way of influencing those institutions that takes decisions for us on that global terrain.
The key question becomes then the appropriate form and role of democracy in this changed setting. The focus in modern democratic theory therefore goes beyond democracy’s moral or instrumental value in defending basic human rights to an argument that properly organised democracy increases our capacity to address fundamental social problems. Democracy helps to provide solutions by enabling us to exchange and learn from one another. The appeal that lies behind the networked governance is that provides a framework for that more expansive vision of democracy to operate. The conception of democracy that underlies the idea of networked governance is that democracy is a process of continuous exchange between governors and governed. As Hirst (2000:27) argues: ‘democracy in this sense is about government by information exchange and consent, where organized publics have the means to conduct a dialogue with government and thus hold it to account’. The issue is not the subjection of all decisions to majority approval. Elections or even referenda may have a role but they are not what takes centre stage in the construction of a 17 sustained dialogue between governors and governed. What makes democracy work is networked exchange. But what is required is required to confirm its democratic credentials is a way of extending the rights to consultation to the widest possible range of issues and the construction of a dialogue that allows space for the involvement of the disorganized many as well as the organised few.
In a democratic system the participation of all is not required; rather its defining characteristic is its openness to all. Many people prefer to spend their time on non- political activities or they face social and economic constraints that limit their time for political activity. As Held (1987: 95) argues: What is at issue is the provision of a rightful share in the process of ‘government’. (I) It requires that people be recognised as having the right and opportunity to act in public life. However, it is one thing to recognise that right, quite another to say it follows that everyone must, irrespective of choice, actually participate in public life. Citizens may well decide on reasonable grounds not to avail themselves of the opportunities to participate believing that their interests are already well-protected or not threatened. In short if representative politics is working then on many occasions further public participation may be unnecessary. The value of openness does not require or assume large-scale and continuous direct participation. It rests its case on the richness of democratic practice and that options for extending participation are available. These options should operate without making overwhelming time demands and in a way that enhances the broad representativeness of those involved. Effective democratic exchange also requires opportunities for deliberation. Judgement requires the sharing of experiences and the give and take of collective deliberation.
Networked governance offers a challenging perspective to traditional theories of democracy. The protection of individual rights is seen as a necessary but not a sufficient guide to democratic practice in the 21st century. We need also to move beyond the still valuable but limited contribution of formal representative democracy driven by occasional elections. Democracy is more than a safety valve to protect our basic rights. It has the potential to provide the basis for learning, to drive the search for collective solutions to complex and shared problems. Networked governance provides the frame on which a more extended exchange between governors and governed can be built. The PVM paradigm pursued through network governance tells us we can have democracy and efficiency. Indeed that they are partners. In TPA the trade off was that democracy provided the inputs and bureaucracy the efficient solutions. NPM came close to implying that management processes can do it all, defining preferences and the best means of meeting them. For the public value paradigm faith is placed in the system of dialogue and exchange associated with network governance. It is through the construction, modification, correction and adaptability of that system that democracy and efficiency are reconciled. Vigilance by all the partners in the system is central to ensuring that the promise of both democracy and efficiency is delivered.
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Wheatley, M (1999) Leadership and the New Science (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler).
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
How to deal with the passively aggressive staff who are so ‘nice’ but subversively working behind the scenes
• Knight of the lucky dip – Sir Ren Dippity (3)
• The ultimate round table knight – Sir Cum Loquatious
• Knight of the electric chair – Sir Ging Currant (3)
• Knight of the cutting edge – Sir Jerry (3)
• Knight of the nip and tuck – Sir Com Scission (3)
• Knight of the diarrhoea mouth – Sir Per Fluous (3)
• The greedy knight – Sir Plus (3)
• The knight of the sword – Sir Cumcision
• Knight of good fortune – Sir Endipity
• Round and round in circles – Sir Cumference
• Knight of plenty – Sir Plus
• The avoidance knight – Sir Shirk-a-lot
• Knight of salaciousness – Sir Loin
• Knight of area – Sir Face
• The kosher knight – Sir Cum Sized
• The last knight of the round table – Sir Vival
• A well-rounded knight – Sir Cumference
• A shot knight. Jewish knight – Sir Cumcision
• The careful knight – Sir Cumspect
• The no longer required knight – Sir Plus
• A damp knight – Sir Factant
• The knight who is always grumpy – Sir Lee
• The obscure knight – Sir Cuitous
• Knight going round in circles – Sir Cumference
• Knight who vents his spleen often – Sir Cumvent
• The sneaky knight – Sir Uptious
• The trendy knight – Sir Cool
• The decisive knight – Sir Tan Tee
• The carnivorous knight – Sir Loin Steak
• The knight who likes a joke – Sir Hugh More
• The knight who is the cut above the rest – Sir Cum Sized
• The shallow knight – Sir Face
• The knight of illusion – Sir Real
• The knight who is sure he’s camp – Sir Tenty
• The knight who cuts to the chase – Sir Gen
• The knight who can sometimes get taken for a ride – Sir mountable
• The educated knight who stutters – Sah Sab Sah (SSABSA)
• The excusable knight – Sir Come Stance
• The embassy knight – Sir Beanne Diplomat
• The acrobatic knight – Sir Gus Tent
• The workaholic knight – Sir Eos Work
• The scholar – Sir Alf Abett
• The know it all knight – Sir Tanne
• The accommodating knight – Sir Tan Lee
• The handyman knight – Sir Q Lasaw
• The green night – Sir Sir LaPannelle
• The Knight of Crime – Sir Cumstantial
• Knight of “The Castle” – Sir Renity (3)
• Knight of the treasury – Sir Plus
• Knight of the hump “the humping knight” – Sir Mount (3)
• Knight of the large girth – Sir Round (3)
• The 13th knight of the round table – Sir Plus To Requirement
• The Jewish knight – Sir Cumcised
• The beefy one – Sir Loin Beef
• The knight who lost his way – Sir Cum Navigate
• The one with their head in the clouds – Sir Real
• The beach knight – Sir Fer
• The one who has a lot to say – Sir Mon
• The one who is never wrong – Sir Tain
• The one who is easy to read – Sir Face
• Jewish knight – Sir Cumsised
• The happy knight – Sir Endipity
• The teaching knight – Sir Rounded by Kids
• The artistic knight (Picasso) – Sir Real
• Fat knight – Sir Rounded
• Greedy Knight – Never Sir Fice
• Geometric knight – Cir Cumference
• Gnarly knight – Sir Fing
• Eventful knight – Sir Cum Stance
• Exploring knight – Cir Cum Navigate
• Unneeded knight – Sir Perfluous
• Condescending knight – Sir Percillious
• The knight who walks on water – Sir Face Tension
• Knight with honourable sex – Sir Cum Respect
• Knight who does it standing up – Sir Cum Stance
• Knight of strength – Sir Loin
• Big Brother knight – Sir Vaylance
• Knight of principles – Sir Vival
• Unexpected knight at the round table – Sir Prize Guest
• The deceased fly by knight – Sir Face Spray
• The always right knight – Sir Tain Tee
• The nutty knight – Sir Ti Fiable
• The flying knight – Sir Qantas
• The additional knight – Sir Plus
• The fat knight – Sir Rounded
• Recently graduated knight – Sir Tificate
• The round about knight – Sir Cum Location
• A knight to remember – Sir Purb
• A knight of loyal service – Sir Vice
• A well-rounded knight – Sir Cumference
• The knight of Baywatch – Sir Fand Rescue
• Knight of the quick snip – Sir Cumcision
• Over thinker and has a stroke/stress case – Sir Reeble Haemorage
• The insane knight – Sir Tee Fied
• The redundant knight – Sir Pluce
• The medical knight – Sir John BW
• The overworked surgeon – Sir Lancelot
• The sulky knight – Sir Lee Character
• The hi-tech knight – Sir Fing the Net
• The ruthless knight – Sir Tan Death
• The IKEA knight – Sir Face Value
• The ultimate round table knight – Sir Cum Loquatious
• Knight of the electric chair – Sir Ging Currant (3)
• Knight of the cutting edge – Sir Jerry (3)
• Knight of the nip and tuck – Sir Com Scission (3)
• Knight of the diarrhoea mouth – Sir Per Fluous (3)
• The greedy knight – Sir Plus (3)
• The knight of the sword – Sir Cumcision
• Knight of good fortune – Sir Endipity
• Round and round in circles – Sir Cumference
• Knight of plenty – Sir Plus
• The avoidance knight – Sir Shirk-a-lot
• Knight of salaciousness – Sir Loin
• Knight of area – Sir Face
• The kosher knight – Sir Cum Sized
• The last knight of the round table – Sir Vival
• A well-rounded knight – Sir Cumference
• A shot knight. Jewish knight – Sir Cumcision
• The careful knight – Sir Cumspect
• The no longer required knight – Sir Plus
• A damp knight – Sir Factant
• The knight who is always grumpy – Sir Lee
• The obscure knight – Sir Cuitous
• Knight going round in circles – Sir Cumference
• Knight who vents his spleen often – Sir Cumvent
• The sneaky knight – Sir Uptious
• The trendy knight – Sir Cool
• The decisive knight – Sir Tan Tee
• The carnivorous knight – Sir Loin Steak
• The knight who likes a joke – Sir Hugh More
• The knight who is the cut above the rest – Sir Cum Sized
• The shallow knight – Sir Face
• The knight of illusion – Sir Real
• The knight who is sure he’s camp – Sir Tenty
• The knight who cuts to the chase – Sir Gen
• The knight who can sometimes get taken for a ride – Sir mountable
• The educated knight who stutters – Sah Sab Sah (SSABSA)
• The excusable knight – Sir Come Stance
• The embassy knight – Sir Beanne Diplomat
• The acrobatic knight – Sir Gus Tent
• The workaholic knight – Sir Eos Work
• The scholar – Sir Alf Abett
• The know it all knight – Sir Tanne
• The accommodating knight – Sir Tan Lee
• The handyman knight – Sir Q Lasaw
• The green night – Sir Sir LaPannelle
• The Knight of Crime – Sir Cumstantial
• Knight of “The Castle” – Sir Renity (3)
• Knight of the treasury – Sir Plus
• Knight of the hump “the humping knight” – Sir Mount (3)
• Knight of the large girth – Sir Round (3)
• The 13th knight of the round table – Sir Plus To Requirement
• The Jewish knight – Sir Cumcised
• The beefy one – Sir Loin Beef
• The knight who lost his way – Sir Cum Navigate
• The one with their head in the clouds – Sir Real
• The beach knight – Sir Fer
• The one who has a lot to say – Sir Mon
• The one who is never wrong – Sir Tain
• The one who is easy to read – Sir Face
• Jewish knight – Sir Cumsised
• The happy knight – Sir Endipity
• The teaching knight – Sir Rounded by Kids
• The artistic knight (Picasso) – Sir Real
• Fat knight – Sir Rounded
• Greedy Knight – Never Sir Fice
• Geometric knight – Cir Cumference
• Gnarly knight – Sir Fing
• Eventful knight – Sir Cum Stance
• Exploring knight – Cir Cum Navigate
• Unneeded knight – Sir Perfluous
• Condescending knight – Sir Percillious
• The knight who walks on water – Sir Face Tension
• Knight with honourable sex – Sir Cum Respect
• Knight who does it standing up – Sir Cum Stance
• Knight of strength – Sir Loin
• Big Brother knight – Sir Vaylance
• Knight of principles – Sir Vival
• Unexpected knight at the round table – Sir Prize Guest
• The deceased fly by knight – Sir Face Spray
• The always right knight – Sir Tain Tee
• The nutty knight – Sir Ti Fiable
• The flying knight – Sir Qantas
• The additional knight – Sir Plus
• The fat knight – Sir Rounded
• Recently graduated knight – Sir Tificate
• The round about knight – Sir Cum Location
• A knight to remember – Sir Purb
• A knight of loyal service – Sir Vice
• A well-rounded knight – Sir Cumference
• The knight of Baywatch – Sir Fand Rescue
• Knight of the quick snip – Sir Cumcision
• Over thinker and has a stroke/stress case – Sir Reeble Haemorage
• The insane knight – Sir Tee Fied
• The redundant knight – Sir Pluce
• The medical knight – Sir John BW
• The overworked surgeon – Sir Lancelot
• The sulky knight – Sir Lee Character
• The hi-tech knight – Sir Fing the Net
• The ruthless knight – Sir Tan Death
• The IKEA knight – Sir Face Value
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Welcome also to the Inner South Conference colleagues
Today I mentioned Peter Drucker and Jim Collins - favourite writers of mine on management. Both have websites that are easy to find.
Quote from one of our participants today - do you want to be the kind of leader that others only follow out of curiosity?
Quote from one of our participants today - do you want to be the kind of leader that others only follow out of curiosity?
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Welcome to the DECS conference blog!
If you haven't visited a blog before, you will soon realise that the newest items are on the top, so read from the bottom up..... this week I will post a public value management article, and the entries from your competition......if anyone has photos of the event, email them to me and I will put them up(depending on size)....I will also put up a short discussion of the links between all the plans as craftily negotiated with me by Geof...I loved last week - hope it was of value to you - Denise
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