Reform and the Future

The New Public Service

Well, this is the last of our eight presentations. This final presentation is on the new public service. As you know, that was coined by die-hard. Blank in our textbook. Moisture states that public service professionals are determined not by organizations, but by the elites. Elites such as professional universities and professional associations. Does professionally universities have public administration and political science programs that focus on administrative leadership. There have been many changing views of Public Service over the years. Up through the early 60s. Through JFK government was pretty much favorite, viewed favorably. However, with the advent of the Vietnam War, that seem to be a turning point and an upheaval from the public standpoint about our government and its involvement through the eighties, governments at all levels were under attack as being wasteful and inefficient up through the Reagan years. Up to the Reagan years rather, prior to Obama and Trump, there was a positive attitude during the Bush years and even the Clinton years that the political climate was pretty much stable. However, there have been growing concerns over issues that have required the government to intervene in pollution, homelessness, drugs, aids, and other related issues. In 1989, Paul Volcker was appointed to chair a commission to study the executive departments of federal government. One of the recommendations that they reduce the number of the executive departments and redefine their missions because there was so much overlap between agencies in terms of what their missions were. The managers of agencies should be selected based on their management skills and given some latitude in terms of the changes that they felt were necessary to be made. There should be compensation given to these leaders, these public administrators that should be competitive to attract them because many were moving to the business sector rather than the public sector. Because of the lack of salary. They had untied salaries of senior managers from the congressional pay scales. And they increase flexibility and personnel management. In terms of recruitment, they felt recruitment took too long. And oftentimes the best candidates did not wait, but recruited by others. And so the Volcker Commission had recommended. Speeding up the recruitment process and making it somewhat more simple. Other issues and trends that have occurred. During the 90s and 2000s. Government spending was reduced because of the problems. Privatization, contracting out was important. But there are also issues of accountability, inequity that came as a result, as well as ethical issues in terms of conflicts of interests at the local level. During that time because of cutbacks. Government leaders were asked to do more with less. Actually they did less with less. There was an explosion of information in terms of technology, the internet and websites and so forth in the advent of big data, enlarge databases that data were being collected but not being analyzed. The involvement of citizens and public issues had increased. And that as a result, there was a diminished role of experts in decision-making. So how did new PIP public administration come about? Well, every 20 years there's a conference of public administration scholars throughout the world now that meet at what's called the minnow Brooke conference. The first meeting was held in 960 eight. And that's where public administration was really formed. They focused on three E's economy, efficiency, and effectiveness, and developed a normative theory of public administration, which was the beginning theories of public administration. They focused also on unresponsive this and representation and the equity of government programs. The second Mandelbrot Conference was held in 988. As I said 20 years later, the focus there was a new concept on public and management. And that new comp, concept with somewhat much more liberal were they focused on privatization and the globalization of public administration. This conference led to a mini conference at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg manifesto that help define that norm to theory. Help with John roars, Leadership the constitutional basis for public administration. More research on the active citizen, and also look at authority and dialogue. The new public management, which came about as a result of that second Mandelbrot conference ON use wrote about that instead of that person, the public managers personally responsible for results. And that performance management and economic theory and models should. Form the basis of the new public management, a movement. Also, ******* stated that coordinated thinking and action should be seamless rather than fragmented in terms of public services. Christopher Hood wrote that the new public management was about cutting costs and doing more for less as a result of better quality management. Osborne and Gabe blur. Focus more on performance measurement and performance results. Not only in the US but also globally. And that was a concept that was Part of the Clinton Gore administration. Lane stay that no new public management was part of a revolution. Not only in the US but around the world. Effect at all the countries. And that its affect varied. According to the country. It contain insights from game theory and law and economics. It didn't replace the older frameworks which were established in the first Mandelbrot conference. But it added new approaches to governing public agencies, including contracting out services. As we know, the new public management has led to a view here. In 20th 2014 by Dan Hart. Dan are called the New Public Service. The new public management was about achieving results, about strategy, managing the internal components or the public organization, controlling performance, and also managing external constituencies. As we mentioned, changes in economic theory took place in the 70s. Many of those changes were as result of environmental economics and the environmental movement, which includes maximum role of market forces and institutionalization of public choice theory in the government. Also principal agent theory from the private sector. Where the public leader, public manager was the principal agent and had to be more accountable to the citizens. We also mentioned globalization and the competitive spirit in public organizations were also part of this new public management movement. What caused the changes to the new public management while there was an attack on the public sector. Those scholars that Matt felt that the public sector was too large. It was using too many resources. Many of these resources were scarce. That's the scope of government had become too broad. Too many activities leading to too much contracting out and lack of control and accountability at the government level. And also the bureaucracy was becoming a very unpopular form of organization in terms of communication, in terms of ethics, in terms of conflict. Hood mentions that there should be more hands-on professional management. That's a should be some standards and measures of performance that we must emphasize more on the control of outputs. What we produce for the public. To disaggregation of units. The greater competition, the private sector styles that were brought in as a result of contracting out and greater discipline and parsimony in resource use, cutting direct costs, raising labor discipline, limiting compliance and so forth. There are four kinds of changes. Focus on outputs, changes to inputs, reducing the scope of government, a manager's hat, we're more closer to the politicians, which wasn't really a good thing. Dan Hart and others had criticized the new Public Management movement because it was too politicized. It reduced accountability. There were too many problems and performance management. And frankly, as we just discussed, it seemed like everyone had their own definition of what new public management was. And so the movement basically came to a stamps stand still. And after this new public administration movement, we know that men are met again in 2008. They meet every 20 years. During the minimum Brooke 30 conference. What was going on at that time? Well, George W Bush was president and we know that was a very turbulent time because of terrorism. What was going on with Iraq, Afghanistan, 911, also Hurricane Katrina and lots of other issues. What was going on in the field of public administration? There was a orientation to managing BI results. There was increased competitive outsourcing, pay for employee performance. Many more public administration programs were sent abroad. And many of the US universities opened up university partnerships with other countries. And there was a proliferation of journals and conferences. Many of those journals were electronic journals that were open source. There was a more global approach to thinking about the public service institutions and the work that public administrators, that in terms of our democracy. Was more work toward making public administration theory relevant to the public sector. More applied. We needed to improve the relationship between the academics and the practitioners. So you found a greater ink, much more increase in the, in service student, the student that was already working in government coming into the MPA programs. There was more collaborative governance, as we know as a result of technology. Of course, Information Technology and Information Management. Topic 3. Equity and justice, again, as it was in the first two conferences, was also discussed. was also discussed. Accountability and transparency again. And then another issue was how do we train a new generation of public servants? Osborne et al, discuss the new theory for Public Service Management and stated the majority of public goods are not public products, but rather public services. And so the emphasis on the new public service, the new service dominant approach in the New Public Service theory was an approach to strategic orientation means to civic engagement and user involvement, et al. Fav, phases of Public Service at policy-making phase. And then during the enactment of the service itself. As defined by Dan, Hi, Dan Hart, the new public service model was a democratic theory based on active and involved citizenship. Much wider public interest. And it also, the role of the leaders were to facilitate opportunities to strengthen this engagement by the citizens. In terms of finding solutions to the myriad of problems that we find ourselves faced with. Public managers also were required to access additional skills beyond controlling or steering society. And they must pursue solutions to policies that focus more on negotiation, compromise. Resolving these complex partnerships in problems with assistance, help the new public service. The primary role of the public administrator was to help citizens articulate and meet their mutual interests in form of collaboration based on respecting everyone as well as respect for the law and one another's personal values, as well as the values of the community. This table by Dan, Dan Hart from the New Public Service. So serving not stir, steering textbook describes the old public administration, the new public management, and a new public service. And in terms of their theories, models of behavior, public interest, the responsibility and the role of government. Mechanisms for achieving policy. Accountability to discretion, discretion of the public administrator, the structure of the public organization, and motivation. So in terms of this new public service, we also need a new moral leadership in order to institute this new public service. And that Christians can be a great influence on the New Public Service by becoming the new moral leaders in our government. These new Christian leaders know the difference between right and wrong. And Christian public administrators become a model for everyone else to and a role model to others. In terms of how to proper, properly lead as good statesmen and good servant leaders. They know they need to serve and serve with the heart of the Lord. They know that the funds that they manage or not, they're sorted the taxpayers. But they really come from God.