Administrative reform in a changing political environment: The case of Hong Kong

Since 1989, the Hong Kong government has implemented a programme of public sector reform that is based on the principles of ‘new public management’. The reforms initially focused mainly on financial management reform, including delegating responsibilities for resource allocation; re-defining the roles of the central resource branches; setting up trading funds in departments that provide services directly to the public; and instilling a new corporate culture of service throughout the government. Some progress has been made in implementing the reforms. In 1993, the government realized that further civil service reform was necessary to support the reforms. The government proposed to delegate more authority to department heads on personnel matters; give managers more freedom to manage personnel; and simplify personnel regulations and procedures. These ‘new public management’-type reforms are usually associated with stable, relatively unchanging environments. In Hong Kong, however, the reforms have been proposed and carried out in an environment of considerable political turbulence which has both facilitated and hindered their implementation. Because of the declining legitimacy of the colonial government, British authorities may not have the political capacity to implement the reforms. Opposition from both department heads and civil service unions to aspects of the reforms has already emerged.     

Reconstructing Citizens as Consumers: Implications for New Modes of Governance

This article examines the relationship between government and the public within a producer–consumer market exchange. Four conceptual problems are identified in relation to the application of market models to the relationship between government and citizen. These types of models fail to account for the essentially political engagement between government and citizens, the collective responsibilities of government, the absence of markets in many areas of government service delivery and the complexity of relations between government and citizens.     

The Public Service: Independence, Responsibility and Responsiveness

In recent years there has been controversy surrounding the issues of the independence, responsibility and responsiveness of our public services. Critics come from two opposing directions: (i) there have been charges of politicisation of the public service, with the implication that it has lost its independence and become dominated by the government; (ii) Pusey (1991) has accused 'economic rationalists' in the public service of pursuing their own neo-classical agenda and dominating government policy. Both criticisms reveal a misunderstanding of the respective roles and responsibilities of ministers and public servants and the proper relations between them. In our system of democratic government, it is the prerogative of ministers to decide and the role of departments to propose and advise and then implement the decisions of ministers. This contribution begins by considering the respective responsibilities of ministers and officials, before canvassing the charges of politicisation and what should be expected from public servants in contributing to policy development. Finally there is consideration of the ethical values of public servants and what responsibility they might have for the 'public interest'.     

The dual governing system of the People's Republic of China

The dual governing system of the People's Republic of China has proved to be an effective way to cope with the extraordinary problems of managing a polity on the massive scale of China. Because it is unusual in the world today, perhaps even unique, it is important to clarify how the present order came about and how it functions. Some outsiders may unthinkingly assume that the Chinese government operates as the power governing the country. But in the People's Republic of China, the government is in fact the outward and visible face of the governance system. Behind (and above) the government is the Communist Party of China. The Party now has around 85 million members, between 5% and 6% of the population. This group defines the political class in today's China and functions as a leadership oligarchy. The Party determines policy and oversees appointments at all levels of public service. These officials are in fact in charge, dominating their government counterparts through the dual system of governance. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

公民社会兴起背景下的政府公信力建设

随着我国公民社会的日益兴起,公众的主体意识、权利意识逐步增强,公共服务需求的内容及层次要求也相应地发生巨大变化,它们构成了政府公信力建设的外部环境与压力。如何将外部环境的要求与压力内化到政府管理制度及成员的行为规范之中,这是我国政府公信力建设需要研究的重要议题。确立以公民和社会为本位的价值理念,构建新型公共治理模式,在政治过程中实现与公民社会良性互动,是提升政府公信力的现实选择。     

Public service delivery in South Africa: The political influence at local government level

This paper analyses poor service delivery at local government level, which is attributed to the politicisation of administrative components in municipalities, resulting in poor local governance. The public service delivery system has been perceived as one of the most important ways of reducing poverty through poverty alleviation programmes. As part of the South African government's cooperative system, key stakeholders in municipalities ought to adopt an integrated approach to public service delivery. An integrated approach to public service delivery demands that local municipalities, together with relevant stakeholders, integrate processes and services to ensure effective and efficient service delivery. This ultimately will result in an improved standard of living and sustainable livelihood for communities. With regard to public service delivery, local municipalities have the obligation of creating income opportunities people, especially the poor, with the sole aim of contributing towards poverty reduction and the realisation of the expectations of people, as stated in the South African government's White Paper of transforming public service delivery. The political interface in local municipalities greatly affects effective and efficient administration, as well as growth opportunities. Administrators, therefore, have the important function of ensuring that explicit assignments of objectives and administrative functions are wholly separated from the policymaking activities of government. This paper, therefore, suggests that municipalities adopt the merit system and abandon the spoils system that is highly characterised by political favours and political interferences. Political favours and interferences are dominant in local South African government, and they hinder the process of providing services equally.     

Management and training for development: The Hombe thesis

A fundamental reason why public service management in many Third World countries has improved so little, despite significant training inputs, is that the political and bureaucratic elite do not want it to. The ‘Hombe thesis’ is that the elite consists of executives skilled in managing the system to meet their own interests and to preserve the status quo. Further, aid organizations and third parties engaged in management development tend to collude with the elite. Three additional basic problems are explored. First, that of developing a style of management appropriate to the local political and social environment. Second, identifying the actual functions of chief executives in the public service and helping managers to develop expertise in their roles. Third, the difficulties of assessing real managerial training needs rather than expressing desires. The paper concludes with a plea to face the fundamental constraints to effective management and training instead of playing around with subordinate issues.     

Of ‘Strong’ Leadership,Crisis Communication,and Pooper Scoopers: Change in the Queensland Public Service Under Newman

Governments have historically offered their workforce a public service bargain founded on stable pay and conditions and job security. However, while the Westminster system aims for public service employment to be protected from the whims of government, public servants are nonetheless affected by the political environment in which they operate and changes to this bargain can occur with a new government. This paper focuses on a Queensland public service change process that resulted in large‐scale forced redundancies, non‐renewal of temporary contracts, and legislative changes that nullified the provisions in job security, organisational change, and redundancy policies. Using communication as a lens through which to understand leadership, it examines how the government communicated with the public service about this organisational change, immediately before and after the 2012 election. In particular, through analysis of public and media commentary, speeches and Hansard records, it examines Premier Newman's change leadership and communication by contrasting pre‐election messages to the public service with post‐election messages about the public service and the justifications for change during this period of downsizing. This analysis is used to reflect on political leadership, communication, fair treatment, and trust in public service change.     

A Portrait of Failure: Ongoing Funding Cuts to Australia's Cultural Institutions

Three decades of government budget cuts have placed significant financial pressure on Australia's cultural institutions. Institutions are increasingly trying to attract non‐government funding to fulfil their legislative mandates to collect, maintain, and exhibit Australian and international art, to educate and inform the public, and preserve Australia's political, social, and cultural history. Evidence suggests that, despite these efforts, sources of funding have not changed significantly. Budget cuts are impacting a range of areas including acquisitions, preservation, digitisation, as well as limiting access to researchers and the public. This paper concludes that a public review of the roles played by cultural institutions is required, including consideration of the level of public funding provided. To do otherwise is to ignore the importance of Australia's cultural heritage.     

The New Public Administration: management innovations in government

Over the last two decades there have been some fundamental changes in the working of government which have resulted in major and visible management innovations in the organizational structures and systems of government aimed at delivering greater efficiency, and more responsive and flexible public services. The innovations have led to the ‘New Public Administration’. This article identifies the innovations in thinking about the role and functioning of government; about service users; about administrative structures and about staff. The article also discusses the strategies and actions employed in the new synergy between the public and private sectors, as well as the reforms in financial planning and control systems. In conclusion, the broad objectives of these reforms have been to shift emphasis from developing plans to developing key strategic areas; to shift emphasis from inward-looking systems to developing partnerships; to shift emphasis from inputs and processes to outputs and outcomes; and to shift emphasis towards managing diversity within a unified public service. Finally, managerial pragmatism and political conviction are highlighted as essential to motivating management innovation in government. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

How responsible is 'responsive' government?

The work of John Rohr focuses primarily upon the constitutional dimension of the work of public servants, most particularly, but not exclusively, career civil servants employed in central government. In stressing public service ethics as a form of constitutional practice Rohr's aim is to help reinforce the legitimate role of career public servants in government and to remind practising public bureaucrats (and academics and politicians) of the nobility of the 'administrative vocation' of state service, a somewhat daunting task in today's political climate. In this article I examine Rohr's work to see what ethical light it might throw upon recent and ongoing political attempts to make the British public administration more 'responsive'. I do so, first, by outlining the main themes of Rohr's work and their location within the US constitutional tradition. I then proceed to discuss the extent to which they translate into other constitutional contexts. Finally, I attempt to put Rohr's work to use in discussing aspects of civil service reform in Britain under recent Conservative administrations and that of the present New Labour government.     

Public sector reform in a poor,aid‐dependent country,Tanzania

African public sectors went through many changes during the 1960s and 1970s in response to political, economic and social pressures. They expanded in size but remained, at least in design, hierarchical and centralized. Their formal relations to society did not undergo any significant changes either. Generally, the reforms now under way are significantly different from earlier ones. Most are inspired by the new public management (NPM) paradigm. They are also much more radical in their aims, among which are: to reduce the core functions of the state; redraw the boundaries between political and administrative responsibilities; emphasize efficiency; redefine relations between public and private sectors; strengthen accountability; reduce corruption; reorganize organizations and staff; change values and attitudes; and exploit new technologies. This article focuses on a paradox of reform in Tanzania: multiple changes are pursued in the public sector despite fragile domestic political support to the reform package as a whole and despite few service delivery improvements on the ground. It is argued that this is the result of substantial external influences, fragmented domestic policy making, weak links between policy making and implementation, and questionable assumptions about some of the key NPM‐inspired reform measures. Moreover, the analyses highlight a number of differences with some of the recent reform literature. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The colour purple: perceptions of accountability across the Tasman

This article explores the changing rhetoric and substance of accountability in the relationships between parliamentarians and public servants in what Alex Matheson terms the ‘purple zone’—where the ‘blue’ of political strategy and ‘red’ of public administration merge in ‘strategic conversation’. The primary focus is on current developments in Australia. As the Westminster system of governance, and the role of public administration within it, undergo profound transformation, the prerogatives of elected parliamentarians (in the blue corner) and the responsibilities of career public servants (in the red corner) are changing fundamentally. In Australia and New Zealand the increasingly complex relationships that exist between government, parliament, public service and the wider community challenge the traditional notions of accountability. Both the lines of accountability, and its standards, are under challenge. The acceleration of Australia's move to contract out the delivery of government services is creating new arenas of creative tension between administrative review and management for results. Public service agencies are increasingly perceived to be themselves in a contractual relationship with government. There is a risk that the public good may become subverted by private interest. How will we ensure that agencies will ‘not contract out responsibility at the citizen's expense’? © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Public Admin. Dev. Vol. 17 , 293–306 (1997). No. of Figures: 0. No. of Tables: 0. No. of Refs: 33.     

Changing the Conversation: Can the Phone Hacking Scandal Lead to a New Covenant on Media Responsibilities?

This article examines the implications of the 2011 phone hacking scandal for press freedom in the United Kingdom. Specifically, it argues that the language of rights has too long dominated public discourse, which has led to discussion of media responsibilities being evaded. The article argues that there is now an opportunity for a radical restructuring of the relationship between the press, the public, and the political system that restores the media to their rightful role as a watchdog on government and steward of the people. It points to the need for independent regulation of the press and a statutory right of reply as means through which the relationship between media and citizen can be recast on the grounds of obligation and responsibility but argues that it is only when we move away from a framework grounded in rights to one grounded in responsibilities that meaningful change can flourish.     

Contractualism, Democracy and Ethics

Contractualism, as concept and practice, may be defined in different ways (Yeatman 1995, 1998). In this article I am concerned with contracting out or outsourcing as it is otherwise known. That is, I focus upon the process whereby functions undertaken formerly by government are now performed by private or voluntary organisations in a contractual relationship with public service departments and agencies. Whereas departments and agencies once provided a full panoply of services directly, government purchasers now select providers by tendering competitively for an expanding range of employment, education, health, social welfare and local government services. Contractualism, then, involves the recon-figuation of public service provision to favour quasi-commercial rather than bureaucratic forms.     

Power to the people? Decentralizationin Papua New Guinea

Since 1977, after pressure from secessionists, Papua New Guinea has, with both boldness and hesitancy, sought to decentralize its unitary state. Nineteen elected provincial governments, which are financially dependent on the centre, now control the former colonial districts and the national government public servants within them. National parliamentarians, while competing with provincial governments, have gained strong influence over some of these nominally autonomous bodies. The hoped-for popular mobilization and the intended sensitization and improved co-ordination of the public service have not occurred widely, but rather abuses of position, waste of resources and a decline in the legitimacy of the state have resulted. This scheme, which was ill-suited to the political culture, the country's economic and financial balance and the available human resources, is being re-assessed at the national level.     

E-Government and the Transformation of Service Delivery and Citizen Attitudes

The impact of new technology on public-sector service delivery and citizens' attitudes about government has long been debated by political observers. This article assesses the consequences ofe-government for service delivery, democratic responsiveness, and public attitudes over the last three years. Research examines the content of e-government to investigate whether it is taking advantage of the interactive features of the World Wide Web to improve service delivery, democratic responsiveness, and public outreach. In addition, a national public opinion survey examines the ability of e-government to influence citizens' views about government and their confidence in the effectiveness of service delivery. Using both Web site content as well as public assessments, I argue that, in some respects, the e-government revolution has fallen short of its potential to transform service delivery and public trust in government. It does, however, have the possibility of enhancing democratic responsiveness and boosting beliefs that government is effective.     

The Limits of Regulation: Indirect Party Access to State Resources in Australia and the United Kingdom

The way in which political parties use state resources indirectly (e.g., parliamentary expenses) receives substantial attention in public debate, particularly when surrounded by perceptions of misuse. However, scholarly studies of resources indirectly available to parties through their functions in the state, how they are used and regulated, are rare. This article presents an analytical framework that identifies and categorizes the range of indirect resources linked to parties' institutional roles. It locates these resources within a four‐fold matrix of regulation, distinguishing regimes that vary in their detail and whether compliance is externally monitored. Undertaking comparative case studies of parliamentary resource use in the United Kingdom and Australia, we argue that the blurring of party‐political and parliamentary roles can impede the effectiveness of regulatory regimes that democracies adopt, regardless of detail and external enforcement. These findings have important implications for regulatory reforms that seek to constrain parties' behavior to depoliticize democratic governance.     

The Public's Increasing Punitiveness and Its Influence on Mass Incarceration in the United States

Following more than 30 years of rising incarceration rates, the United States now imprisons a higher proportion of its population than any country in the world. Building on theories of representation and organized interest group behavior, this article argues that an increasingly punitive public has been a primary reason for this prolific expansion. To test this hypothesis, I generate a new over‐time measure of the public's support for being tough on crime. The analysis suggests that, controlling for the crime rate, illegal drug use, inequality, and the party in power, since 1953 public opinion has been a fundamental determinant of changes in the incarceration rate. If the public's punitiveness had stopped rising in the mid‐1970s, the results imply that there would have been approximately 20% fewer incarcerations. Additionally, an analysis of congressional attention to criminal justice issues supports the argument that the public's attitudes have led, not followed, political elites.     

Tourism administration in the Northern Territory in the era of Country Liberal Party governance 1978–2001

Particularly since the 1980s, tourism has become an important vehicle to advance the Northern Territory's future development and economic growth, a prime concern for successive governments. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the Northern Territory (NT) government has played an active role in the sector's promotion and development. Starting with a general overview of some of the main characteristics of the Territory's political system the article outlines the NT government's involvement in tourism during the era of the Country Liberal Party governance (1978–2001) and specifically discusses the administrative framework for tourism management and development in the Territory in greater detail. It provides a historical overview of the tourism portfolio and the varying responsibilities of the government agencies involved.