MANAGING INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN UK PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: ISSUES AND PROSPECTS

The record on the development and use of information-based technologies in UK public administration is reviewed and distinctive risks identified. Risk levels associated with computerization may be increasing rather than abating as a result of both the content of New Public Management initiatives, and also how they are being introduced and applied. This article considers ways forward from the point of view of improving how informatization can proceed, and also how markets can be used to provide information-based services for public administration.     

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE NETHERLANDS: EXPANSION,DIVERSIFICATION AND CONSOLIDATION

The rise of Dutch administrative sciences is related to the post‐war expansion of the country’s welfare state. The growing welfare state needed scientific support for policy‐making and planning. Legal expertise alone was no longer sufficient. After the initial separation from administrative law, the post‐war policy and administrative sciences in The Netherlands were strongly oriented towards our American ‘big brother’. Since the 1980s, a growing self‐identity and self‐confidence has developed. The period from the late 1970s to the mid 1990s witnessed a steady expansion and diversification of Dutch PA sciences. The subject is now taught at 11 of the 13 Dutch universities. The enormous growth of the early 1990s is over, and student numbers have now stabilized – and at a substantial level, thus consolidating the position of PA departments in most universities. From the mid 1990s onwards Dutch administrative sciences have gone through a process of internationalization. Dutch PA sciences have as a result acquired a status of recognized quality in the international scientific community.     

EMERGING ISSUES IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

This article briefly examines five subfields of the public administration literature in the context of the major changes which have occurred in each of those fields since the 1940s. Major changes include: the alleged shift to‘globalization’affecting comparative public administration; the spread of‘economic rationalism’in policy analysis; the new wave of‘managerialism’affecting the study of the public service; the transformation of administrative technique by‘informatization’; and the rise of legal formalization in some fields redrawing the traditional boundary Unes between law and administration. For each of these subfields of public administration, three types of‘emerging issues’are identified. Some of the trends discussed - particularly managerialization and juridification - seem to be in tension with one another, suggesting alternative possible futures for public administration. Moreover, since many of the intellectual and doctrinal shifts seem to reflect a reaction against the shortcomings of an earlier orthodoxy, a counter-reaction in the longer run cannot be ruled out.     

COMPARATIVE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN BRITAIN

According to a strict definition, comparative public administration in Britain is relatively undeveloped. However, once the definition is relaxed it is possible to see that scholars in the British Isles make a substantial contribution to the field. This contribution can be examined under four headings; single country studies, juxtapositions, thematic comparisons and causal explanations. While causal explanation must remain as one major objective of comparative study, such explanations are problematic, and not only in Britain. At best they can only deal in establishing the strength of the evidence supporting plausible hypotheses rather than offer more direct tests of causality associated with statistical techniques. The way forward in comparative research is not to be found in a search for an overall theory, or the institutionalization of administrative data gathering. Intellectually interesting questions are more likely to provoke data collection than the other way around. A stronger dialogue between contemporary and past studies as well as a broadening range of countries covered might help generate the projects which provide the systematic comparative data that many commentators believe we lack.     

THE FUTURE OF PORTUGUESE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND A NEW AGENDA FOR PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION SCIENCES IN THE 21st CENTURY

This paper addresses the changing role of the Portuguese state, the present priority assigned to the process of reform and the new challenges to be overcome by public administration. Such processes are demanding a new agenda for education and research in public administration sciences, shifting from the public law paradigm to an interdisciplinary problem‐solving approach and giving special attention to 10 key areas of study, which we describe in the final section of the paper. It should be noted here that the opinions expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect the position of their institutions.     

THINKING ON: A CAREER IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

This article provides a brief intellectual history of my journey from traditional public administration through modernist‐empiricism to an interpretive approach and its associated research themes; a story of how I got to where I am. I do so to provide the context for a statement of where I stand now and key themes in my research; a story of where I go from here. I have a vaulting ambition: to establish an interpretive approach and narrative explanations in political science, so redefining public policy analysis.     

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REFORM IN SRI LANKA

In 1996, the government of Sri Lanka enlisted the help of international consultants to address significant weaknesses in the countr's public administration. Their study focused on reorganization of public administration structures, rationalization of public sector cadres and introduction of results-based management systems and procedures. The analysis focused on five main topics: consolidation of core strategic functions in the President's office; improvement of the policy coordination process at cabinet and ministerial levels; separation of policy-making, service delivery and regulatory functions of public administration; enhancing the effectiveness of line ministries through realigning tasks; and introduction of a results-based management system that links resource inputs with well-defined outputs of departments and offices. The urgency of public service reform has been an issue on the national agenda for some time. Until the institutional capacity and effectiveness of the public administration system is upgraded, the credibility of government efforts to bring about a more liberal and competitive market environment will be seriously in doubt. The recommendations in this article can be extended beyond Sri Lanka, serving as a general model of civil service reform for other South Asian nations.     

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND THE INFORMATION POLITY

Within the debates in Britain about changes in contemporary public administration insufficient attention has been focused to date upon the significance of new information and communication technologies. In particular, the operational importance of computer networks to government organizations, and of the information flows supported by them, have hitherto been given scant attention. A primary focus for understanding the current transformation processes in both services and organization occurring in public administration should be upon the role and significance of these new information flows. Informational capabilities are increasing throughout government organization and have considerable implications for the reforging of that set of organizations which comprise British public administration and for the relationships between and within them, as well as for the quality of publicly provided services. The shifts occurring in contemporary public administration can be usefully analysed and understood by reference to the new concept of the 'information polity'.     

OBSERVATION,THE POLICE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: INTRODUCTION

This conversation about the merits of ethnography in police studies began at the ‘Ethnography in Policing’ panel at the Political Studies Association Conference held in Leeds in 2005. Subsequent correspondence and occasional one‐to‐one meetings led to this symposium.     

ON THE BUREAUCRACY OF BUREAUCRACIES: ANALYSING THE SIZE AND ORGANIZATION OF OVERHEAD IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS

Governments across the globe try to rebalance their budgets by rationalizing overhead operations. When overhead‐reducing policies are adopted, it is important to understand why some central government organizations have a higher overhead than others, and why organizational models to produce overhead efficiencies are used to different degrees. This study focuses on the Flemish context to analyse differences between central government organizations in the size and organization of two overhead processes: human resources management (HRM) and finance and control (FIN). Significant effects are found for autonomy, organizational size, spatial dispersion and budgetary stress, yet effects vary according to whether HRM or FIN is considered and whether the focus is on the size or the organization of HRM or FIN. Our findings have practical implications to get a process‐sensitive understanding of the size and organization of overhead, and theoretical implications as they cast light on factors that shape decision‐making in public organizations.     

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND THE INTEGRITY OF THE ELECTORAL PROCESS IN BRITISH ELECTIONS

Although Britain has often been held up as being a model of electoral integrity, recent controversies have suggested that this perception may not be wholly justified. This article explores overall standards of electoral administration across Britain, utilizing performance reporting data for returning officers in the 2010 general election to outline a comprehensive measure for the integrity of the administration of the electoral process. Discussion begins by outlining the question of electoral integrity and, most importantly, the issue of electoral administration. The second section considers recent British controversies, while also outlining steps taken to monitor the performance of electoral administrators. The third section introduces the performance standards and the index of electoral integrity developed from these, while the fourth section presents an analysis. The article concludes with discussion of the challenges facing electoral administrators, and highlights the utility of an index of electoral integrity in helping electoral professionals address these challenges.     

WORKING IN WHITEHALL: CHANGES IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 1952–1982

There have been significant changes in public administration over the past thirty years, both internal to Whitehall and in its relationship to the outside world. The author offers a personal assessment based on his working experience. By taking a series of 'landmark reports published over that period he charts the extent to which they influenced, or reflected, changes in the character and style of public administration and in the general climate of public opinion within which the civil service works. He concludes that Whitehall today is better equipped than it used to be in its range of professional expertise and management techniques, but that it also faces a more sceptical and demanding audience. The next ten years may see the development of a style of public administration in which the traditional administrative skills are merged with the newer managerial concern for efficiency and effectiveness. But greater competence also requires improvements in the ways in which policy is formulated and its effects evaluated.     

SOCIAL TRUST,IMPARTIAL ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC CONFIDENCE IN EU CRISIS MANAGEMENT INSTITUTIONS

In this article, we investigate whether differences in social trust and impartial public administration have an impact on public confidence in EU crisis management institutions. Our assessment is based on a cross‐country comparison using aggregate country‐level data of the member states in the European Union. Earlier studies on the EU as a crisis manager have not carefully studied to what extent differences in social trust and administrative culture may or may not matter. Our analysis shows that in countries where citizens are treated impartially by their own national public administration institutions, people are less likely to support EU‐coordinated civil protection efforts. In contrast, in places where citizens perceive their government's treatment of them as partial and unfair, citizens will tend to support EU‐coordinated civil protection.     

IT'S PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION,ROD, BUT MAYBE NOT AS WE KNOW IT: BRITISH PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE 2000s

This paper assesses what happened to academic public administration (PA) in Britain in the 2000s in the light of Rod Rhodes' gloomy prognostications about the future of the subject in the late 1990s. It argues that British PA had such a good decade in the 2000s, in funding, output, academic‐practitioner interaction and institutional developments, that it could almost be said to have ‘never had it so good’, even if ‘British PA’ was probably less internationally distinctive in the 2000s than a century before. But even if the subject flourished against the odds in the 2000s, Rhodes' sombre assessment of its future cannot be dismissed. British public administration faces several potential threats in the 2010s and beyond: in funding, research, and teaching capacity. But extinction still seems an unlikely fate for British PA even when a sombre view is taken of the funding outlook and the changing balance of supply and demand.     

SHIFTING SANDS: TEACHING PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN A CLIMATE OF CHANGE

This article analyses influences which in recent decades have changed the way in which public administration has been taught in British higher education. Focusing mainly on the former polytechnics, the article argues that a curriculum shift away from the social sciences and towards management, and changes in the nature of the British public sector, have profoundly influenced approaches to teaching public administration. It suggests that learning strategies are closely related to debate about the nature of the discipline and its location within the academic spectrum. The article also raises questions about the extent to which public administration teachers in British universities are equipped to present the more applied and skills-based teaching which has often been adopted in recent years, and the tensions which this might pose particularly in the‘new’universities with the increasing emphasis upon academic research.     

THE SHIFTING STATE: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN A TIME OF CHANGE

This is the keynote address given by the Right Hon The Lord Scarman, OBE, Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and the RIPA's President, at the Institute's Conference on'The Shifting State: Rules, Roles and Boundaries in the 198s', held at the University of Aston, 14–15 September 1984.