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UK Public Services (uk + public_services)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting100%

Selected Abstracts

Modernising pay in the UK public services: trends and implications

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, Issue 3 2010
Stephen J. Perkins
The emerging character of the UK government's public sector pay reforms during the second and third (New) Labour terms of office is reviewed and contextualised. Three settings are examined where pay reform has been actively employed , with the accent on harmonisation, simplification and devolution of practice, with the express intention of restoring public service workforce morale, while improving services to clients , namely, local government, the National Health Service and the Higher Education sector. The evidence is interpreted as illustrating undoubted change, but also significant areas where progress has been less than intended, measured against the government's original programme goals. Equal pay considerations appear to have dominated all three projects reviewed: the failure to date of public sector managements to capitalise on opportunities the new pay architecture affords them to change local working practices may be attributed to a combination of factors discussed in the article. These have given rise to tensions as efforts have been pursued to transplant private sector pay techniques, somewhat hastily in some cases, without due consideration of the institutional context within which public services and proximal institutions function. [source]

Citizen and consumer involvement in UK public services

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSUMER STUDIES, Issue 5 2010
Catherine M. Farrell
Abstract This paper is concerned with the involvement and participation of citizens and consumers in UK public services. It reflects on levels of involvement over a 30-year period and maps this accordingly. Using models of participation, the paper reviews the citizen and consumer concepts. Conclusions are drawn about involvement and participation in practice and how this will develop in the future. [source]

Going privately: partnership and outsourcing in UK public services

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 3 2002
Damian Grimshaw
Public private partnerships provide an important illustration of the way the traditional role of government as employer and service provider is being transformed. While policy,makers argue that the growing role of the private sector is not driven by ideological thinking , that, in fact, both public and private sector organizations can benefit from working together in partnership relations , in practice it is the norms and rules of private sector management that underpin reforms. This paper assesses evidence from two detailed case studies of partnerships and demonstrates, first, that there is little evidence of mutual gains from partnership arrangements and, second, that because of an imbalance of power between public and private sector partners, any gains achieved are not distributed equitably. These results suggest that current reforms need to be refocused around building on the distinctive qualities of services provision in the public sector, rather than expanding the private sector world of markets and contracts. [source]