Description
The UK is said to have been one of the most prolific reformers of its public administration. Successive reforms have been accompanied by claims that the changes would make the world a better place by transforming the way government worked. Despite much discussion and debate over government makeovers and reforms, however, there has been remarkably little systematic evaluation of what happened to cost and performance in UK government during the last thirty years. A Government that Worked Better and Cost Less? aims to address that gap, offering a unique evaluation of UK government modernization programmes from 1980 to the present day. The book provides a distinctive framework for evaluating long-term performance in government, bringing together the 'working better' and 'costing less' dimensions, and presents detailed primary evidence within that framework. This book explores the implications of their findings for widely held ideas about public management, the questions they present, and their policy implications for a period in which pressures to make government 'work better and cost less' are unlikely to go away.
Winner: W. J. M. Mackenzie Book Prize
About the Author
Christopher Hood, is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and was the Gladstone Professor of Government from 2001 to 2014, and Director of the ESRC Public Services research programme from 2004 to 2010. With Andrew Dunsire, he pioneered the development of 'bureaumetrics' from the late 1970s and was a leading commentator on the emergence of 'New Public Management' in the 1990s. Dr Ruth Dixon, who comes from a natural science background, has worked at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford since 2006, playing a key role in the ESRC Public Services Research Programme before becoming a Research Fellow working on this project since 2010.
Reviews
A Government That Worked Better And Cost Less? should be required reading for students of New Public Management. It provides a model of the often frustrating empirical outcomes which result from great theoretical promise. * Tom Thatcher, LSE Review of Books *
it [the book] has accomplished a truly Herculean labor...Rich in statistics and graphs, the book sets out to prove that, contrary to myth, NPM has not produced a government that costs less and works better, quite the opposite, in fact. To back their argument up, the authors of the book have taken pains to explain their methods and approach and how conclusions are reached. * Demetrios Argyriades, City University of New York and Pan Suk Kim, Yonsei University. Governance *
This is an important book. At a time when there is a great need for evidence-based policy,A Government that Worked Better and Cost Less? makes a major contribution to our knowledge about the effects of New Public Management (NPM) reforms. * Per Laegrid, University of Bergen, Governance *
This study is notable for the important question it addresses, the methods it devises for dealing with data breaks and discontinuities, the data series it constructs, and the results it produces. * Nancy Roberts, Naval Post-Graduate School, Governance *
Awards
Winner of Winner of the 2015 Louis Brownlow Book Award Winner of the 2016 W. J. M. Mackenzie Prize awarded by the Political Studies Association.
Book Information
ISBN 9780199687022
Author Christopher Hood
Format Hardback
Page Count 244
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 238mm * 157mm * 22mm
Winner: W. J. M. Mackenzie Book Prize
About the Author
Christopher Hood, is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and was the Gladstone Professor of Government from 2001 to 2014, and Director of the ESRC Public Services research programme from 2004 to 2010. With Andrew Dunsire, he pioneered the development of 'bureaumetrics' from the late 1970s and was a leading commentator on the emergence of 'New Public Management' in the 1990s. Dr Ruth Dixon, who comes from a natural science background, has worked at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford since 2006, playing a key role in the ESRC Public Services Research Programme before becoming a Research Fellow working on this project since 2010.
Reviews
A Government That Worked Better And Cost Less? should be required reading for students of New Public Management. It provides a model of the often frustrating empirical outcomes which result from great theoretical promise. * Tom Thatcher, LSE Review of Books *
it [the book] has accomplished a truly Herculean labor...Rich in statistics and graphs, the book sets out to prove that, contrary to myth, NPM has not produced a government that costs less and works better, quite the opposite, in fact. To back their argument up, the authors of the book have taken pains to explain their methods and approach and how conclusions are reached. * Demetrios Argyriades, City University of New York and Pan Suk Kim, Yonsei University. Governance *
This is an important book. At a time when there is a great need for evidence-based policy,A Government that Worked Better and Cost Less? makes a major contribution to our knowledge about the effects of New Public Management (NPM) reforms. * Per Laegrid, University of Bergen, Governance *
This study is notable for the important question it addresses, the methods it devises for dealing with data breaks and discontinuities, the data series it constructs, and the results it produces. * Nancy Roberts, Naval Post-Graduate School, Governance *
Awards
Winner of Winner of the 2015 Louis Brownlow Book Award Winner of the 2016 W. J. M. Mackenzie Prize awarded by the Political Studies Association.
Book Information
ISBN 9780199687022
Author Christopher Hood
Format Hardback
Page Count 244
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 238mm * 157mm * 22mm
