UK central government: a world leader in public management reform, 1970–2011

The core focus of this chapter is on the history of public management reforms by UK central government, 1970–2011. The argument will be that we have learned remarkably little from the almost ceaseless procession of reforms. In relation to the theme of this book this finding is somewhat paradoxical. On the surface there has been constant change. Below the surface, however, the reform process itself has changed far less, and the absence of firm knowledge concerning outcomes has remained stubbornly constant. The chapter falls into two main parts: the first one, in which lack of learning is identified and evidenced, and the second, in which a theoretical interpretation of these findings is proposed.

Since at least the late 1980s UK governments have seen themselves as international leaders of public management reform, and mainstream public administration academics have, by and large, agreed (Lynn, 2006; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011). Some, indeed, have seen the UK as ‘hyperactive’ (Moran, 2003; Pollitt, 2007). Dorrell was an example of ministerial boasting when he said that the whole world was following UK-style marketising reforms (Dorrell, 1993). The Anglophone academic literature is saturated with UK examples, and governments have themselves from time to time created special units in the Cabinet Office and elsewhere to sell British expertise internationally. British staff, ideas and cases have featured prominently in the management reform work of, inter alia, the OECD and the World Bank.

The first argument here is that while the UK may have been a leader, and a major exporter of public management ideas, its prominence has been built upon shaky foundations. The models and techniques UK governments have implemented at home and sold abroad have been products more of hubris and fashion than of science or carefully husbanded experience. Despite a massive amount of management reform, we have little reliable knowledge about the outcomes – especially of the ‘flagship’ programmes announced in white papers and trumpeted by ministers and Prime Ministers. As far as the results for citizens and society are concerned these huge and complex changes remain both contentious and obscure.