Coproduction and Equity in Public Service Delivery

Public managers and researchers devote much attention to the benefits of coproduction, or the mixing of the productive efforts of public employees and citizens in public service design and delivery. One concern, however, is the distributional consequences of coproduction. This article proposes that disadvantaged citizens may be constrained by a lack of knowledge or other resources necessary to contribute to and benefit from the coproduction process. From this assumption, the authors develop the theoretical argument that if coproduction programs were designed to lift constraints on disadvantaged citizens, they might increase both efficiency and equity. This claim is tested using a field experiment on educational services. A coproduction program providing immigrant parents with knowledge and materials useful to their children's early educational development had a substantial positive impact on the educational outcomes of disadvantaged children, thereby diminishing inequity. Economically, the program was more efficient than later compensation of low‐performing children.     

Knights and Knaves Return: Public Service Motivation and the Delivery of Public Services

ABSTRACT

There are several models for delivering public services such as health care or education, most of which can be summarised under the headings of trust, mistrust, voice, and choice. Each contains assumptions concerning the motivation of the professionals and others who provide the service concerned: that is, the extent to which they are “knaves,” motivated primarily by self-interest, or “knights,” motivated by altruism and the desire to provide a public service. This article highlights the assumptions concerning motivation implicit in each of the delivery models, illustrating the points made by reference to the author's experience as a senior policy adviser to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and to some evidence on the performance of public services under the different models.     

公共需求管理与公共服务标准化

公共服务标准化建设是服务型政府建设的一个重要发展阶段,它是与公共需求的变化相适应的。本文把人的需要分为生存型需要、安全型需要、享受型需要和发展型需要。中国目前公共需求正从生存型向安全型、享受型、发展型转变,政府公共服务精细化、标准化是这一需要变化的必然要求。政府应通过了解需求、整合需求和引导需求,推进公共服务标准化建设,提升公共服务水平。     

Adjusting to New Ways of Working: Experiments with Service Delivery in the Public Sector

In response to the perceived failure of both the state and market models of service delivery, governments have embarked on a reform program that draws on the community sector to expand the suite of available policy and service delivery arrangements. This paper explores and identifies the nature of changed relationships between government and the community sector. It uses a case study that examines the operation of a new type of community organisation, and analyses the affectivity and outcomes from the experience of a community based networked arrangement. Although there is evidence of a shift to more relationship‐ oriented models of operation because of either mandate or preference both community and government sectors have found it difficult to make the necessary adjustments to these new ways of working. Community has begun the shift to this new relational approach but finds it difficult to sustain the momentum and tends to revert to more independent and competitive modes. Governments find it difficult to make the necessary adjustments to power‐sharing and resource allocation and continue to operate as ‘business as usual’ through the traditional bureaucratic authority of command and control. In this way, the rhetoric of collaboration and partnership between government and the community sector is not necessarily matched by policy and action supporting the practice of ‘new ways of working’ although these ‘experiments in service delivery’ have opened the way for adopting more innovative and effective approaches to service delivery.     

城市基层社会管理体制变迁中的公共服务供给碎片化——基于历史制度主义的分析范式

历史制度主义将宏观的外部环境和微观的政治行为连接起来,是观察城市基层社会管理体制变迁的重要中观视角。推动我国城市基层社会管理体制从"单位制"向"社区制"变迁的主要变量是:外部环境——城市化与人口流动;新观念——社区复兴与新公共服务;行动者——基层呼吁与政府创新;关键节点——两办转发民政部《意见》。两办转发民政部的《意见》直接为城市基层治理创新提供合法性来源,使其放开手脚,大胆探索和创新,但在我国城市基层社会管理体制变迁过程中也出现一些因需求增长和行政下沉带来的公共服务供给碎片化的意外后果。     

Service Delivery: The Audit Dimension

Reporting of performance information on public sector services has increased substantially in recent years. The audit of such information, however, is still relatively uncommon. In 1989 the Audit Office in New Zealand was confronted with a legislative requirement to audit Statements of Service Performance (SSPs). This paper backgrounds New Zealand's shift in emphasis from program effectiveness audits to the audit of non-financial performance information, describes the development of audit methodology in this area and identifies lessons learned.     

从新公共管理到新公共服务——西方公共行政理论的最新发展

自20世纪80年代以来,新公共管理理论在西方国家“突破官僚制”的行政改革中,逐渐成为主导性的行政范式。但新公共管理理论对经济、效率、效能的片面追求,使得民主、公民权和公共利益等公共行政应有的价值观念丧失殆尽。在此背景下,一种新的公共行政理论———新公共服务理论应运而生了。它在肯定新公共管理理论固有价值的基础上,对其理论与实践中的缺陷进行了批判,努力构建一种以公民权利和公共利益为指向、顺应现代公民社会发展要求的新的公共行政范式。     

Judicious Incentives: International Public Policy Responses to the Globalization of Environmental Management

Public policymakers and regulators worldwide are grappling with the desire to improve environmental quality through appropriate regulation of business, while also streamlining government. Concurrently, environmentally conscience consumers are calling for improved environmental performance by industry. As a result of these pressures, regulators and lawmakers worldwide are attempting to craft effective policies that create adequate incentives for environmental protection on the part of firms, in the face of decreasing budgets and an increased demand for the use of market‐based incentives. To aid decision makers as they struggle with these concerns, this study provides a detailed case examination of the dilemmas and responses of national‐level regulators as they try to develop appropriate responses to the rise of international and “voluntary” management regimes. To accomplish these goals, this article compares the public policy responses of governments around the world to one such voluntary international environmental regime: ISO 14001. ISO 14001 is a form of industry self‐regulation in response to market forces calling for harmonization in environmental management and as a result of consumer and trade‐partner demands. This study examines the relationships between regulators and the regulated in order to understand if ISO 14001 certified firms are receiving regulatory relief or other forms of public policy/regulatory benefits as a result of their certification. It will also examine the impact that government incentives (or their absence) are having on the certification decisions of firms around the world. This information helps us to begin to understand how the trends toward smaller government and voluntary environmental regimes are affecting one another.     

中国地方政府公共服务合同外包的发展现状——基于二手数据的分析

近年来,合同外包日益成为地方政府提供公共服务的重要机制。本文基于二手数据,在对地方政府公共服务合同外包发展状况(2000~2009)的概括性分析中发现,2000年以来,地方政府公共服务合同外包发展迅猛,其应用的广泛性和深入性均前所未有,并且逐步迈入法制化轨道。由于影响合同外包成效的因素相当复杂,政府显然缺乏相关操作经验,无论是在合同外包的决策当中还是在实施当中,"审慎"是最明智的策略。     

Performance Management in Australia's Public Mental Health Service: A State Based Perspective

This article investigates the implementation of key performance indicators (KPIs) in Western Australia's public mental health system. A nationally agreed performance measurement framework forms part of the much needed reform now taking place within Australia. However, progress in the effective monitoring and reporting of KPIs is slow in most states, including Western Australia. The authors report on the results of a selective case study involving semi‐structured interviews with mental health administrators and offer a more nuanced insight into the intricacies and difficulties involved in performance measurement reform. The principal finding is that effective performance measurement and reporting can be internally problematic, particularly within a fragmented and networked system. This tends to give rise to a conformance‐only approach to performance measurement.     

公共服务、公共管理与法国公共行政的现代化

本文基于胡德(Hood)的新公共管理思想和霍尔(Hall)与赖特(Wright)的新历史制度主义观点,分析了法国最近的几次改革及其相关理念,认为如果不同的政府都采用私营部门的管理方法来解决相似的问题,那么,改革的具体内容则依每个国家自身的环境,或先天条件而定.     

新公共管理：反思、批判与超越——兼评新公共服务理论

通过采用企业化政府的理念,新公共管理提高了效率,但也导致了公共性、公平、责任、价值诉求等公共管理价值的缺失.通过对新公共管理的反思和批判以及对新公共服务的理论基础、原则和内容的介绍,说明新公共服务在理论基础、价值选择、政府责任、公民精神方面不仅可以弥补和纠正新公共管理的偏颇,并可以替代新公共管理成为公共管理的发展趋势.     

New Public Management and ‘Photocopy’ Bargaining in the Australian Public Service

The industrial relations policy of the Federal Coalition Government is to encourage industrial bargaining to occur at the enterprise or individual level, free from ‘outside’ influences. While it encourages devolved bargaining at the agency and individual level within the Public Service (Australian Public Service) this policy creates tensions with its role as a centralized policy maker, economic manager and employer of the APS workforce. It also conflicts with the APS' adoption of New Public Management. In practice, the government retains considerable centralised control over agency bargaining outcomes, which is a de facto method of pattern bargaining. By analysing the substantive outcomes from nine APS agency level certified agreements (hours of work, pay and leave entitlements), the article discusses whether this one size fits all' model is evidence of an appreciation that public sector industrial relations is separate and distinct from private sector industrial relations, or another example of duplicity in the federal coalition government's ideology driven approach to industrial relations.     

New Geographies of Disadvantage: Implications for Service Delivery

Shifts are apparent in the spatial distribution of disadvantage in Australia since the 1970s. Not only are new sites of disadvantage emerging (small rural towns, manufacturing centres, coastal welfare regions, some outer suburbs), but research suggests a possible spatial cleavage between best-accessed Melbourne and Sydney, and 'the rest' of the country. At the same time, examples of provision and delivery of services continue to occur locally andregionally that demonstrate lack of attention to the characteristics of the places in which those services are received. The paper calls for spatially conscious public policy in service delivery, and considers the possibilities of this occurring if governments form partnerships with other organisations to provide services for communities.