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Product Description
How well do governments do in converting the resources they take from us - like taxes - into services that improve the well-being of individuals, groups, and society as a whole? In other words: how well do they perform? This question has become increasingly prominent in public debates over the past couple of decades, especially in the developed world but also in developing countries. As the state has grown during the second half of the 20th century, so pressures to justify its role in producing public services have also increased. Governments across the world have implemented all sorts of policies aimed at improving performance. But how much do we know about what actually improves performance of public organisations and services? On what theories, explicit or more often implicit, are these policies based? The answer is: too much and too little. There are dozens of theories, models, assumptions, and prescriptions about 'what works' in improving performance. But there's been very little attempt to 'join up' theories about performance and make some sense of the evidence we have within a coherent theoretical framework. This ground-breaking book sets out to begin to fill this gap by creatively synthesising the various fragments and insights about performance into a framework for systematically exploring and understanding how public sector performance is shaped. It focuses on three key aspects: the external 'performance regime' that drives performance of public agencies; the multiple dimensions that drive performance from within; and the competing public values that frame both of these and shape what public expects from public services.
About the Author
Colin Talbot is a recognised international expert on performance in the public sector who has worked with governments, public agencies across many countries including Canada, France, and Japan. He has recently been involved in two Prime Minister's seminars in the U.K. . He's been a specialist adviser to two select committees in Westminster (Treasury and Public Administration) and, uniquely, given expert evidence to committees of all four parliaments in the U.K. . He has advised the National Audit Office on all their major performance studies over the past decade. He is currently professor of public policy and management at Manchester Business School, where he founded the Herbert Simon Institute for public policy and management. He has authored or edited five previous books, numerous academic articles and is a regular media commentator including for the Financial Times, Guardian, and B.B.C. . He's also the author of the influential Whitehall Watch blog
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As someone who has been involved in improvement efforts at the academic, political and consultancy level for the past 35 years, I have followed Colin Talbot's writings with some interest. He writes in a clear and stimulating way (for an academic!) about public management; does consultancy and writes a blog. It was therefore with some impatience that I waited for this book and now pause to make sense of it. It is indeed an impressive tour de force - which surveys both the very extensive academic literature and also the global government endeavours in this field over the past few decades. As befits an academic, he roots his contribution conceptually before moving on to survey the field - and this is an important contribution in what is all too often a shamefully theoretically-lite field. For the first time I read a reasonably analytical treatment of the various quality measures which have developed in the last decade such as The Common Assessment Framework. His references to the literature are invaluable. I am grateful to him for introduction to the concept of clumsy solutions - which uses culture theory to help develop a better way of dealing with public problems
http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/semiotics/cyber/douglas4.pdf
On the downside, however, the text is a bit dense and compressed in parts - with too many (all too brief) five point lists and summaries (the chapter on performance and public values was particularly frustrating) .
I also found the basic focus disappointing - I had hoped (the title notwithstanding) that it would give the senior manager charged to make things happen something to work with. After all, his equally academic colleague Chris Pollit gave us The Essential Public Manager - so it would be nice to have someone with Talbot's experience, reading and coherence write something for senior managers - and for different cultures. Those trying to design improvement systems in Germany, Romania, China, Estonia, Scotland and France, for example, all confront very different contexts.
Despite his introductory references to his consultancy work, the few references he makes are apologetic ("it's not research of course"). I appreciated his critical comments about the suggestions about gaming responses to the New Labour target regime - but was disappointed to find no reference to Gerry Stoker's important article on this http://www.soton.ac.uk/ccd/events/SuppMat/microfoundations%20paper%20chilworth%20manor.pdf; a paragraph about Michael Barber's Deliverology book which gives no sense of the dubious assumptions behind that particular approach; and really surprised, finally, to find no reference to John Seddon's systems critiques
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZRwdgnrx0vEC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.
These comments should, however, not detract from the achievement of the book - written by one of the acknowledged masters in the field. I am confident that the book will, deservedly, become the classic in its field.
http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/semiotics/cyber/douglas4.pdf
On the downside, however, the text is a bit dense and compressed in parts - with too many (all too brief) five point lists and summaries (the chapter on performance and public values was particularly frustrating) .
I also found the basic focus disappointing - I had hoped (the title notwithstanding) that it would give the senior manager charged to make things happen something to work with. After all, his equally academic colleague Chris Pollit gave us The Essential Public Manager - so it would be nice to have someone with Talbot's experience, reading and coherence write something for senior managers - and for different cultures. Those trying to design improvement systems in Germany, Romania, China, Estonia, Scotland and France, for example, all confront very different contexts.
Despite his introductory references to his consultancy work, the few references he makes are apologetic ("it's not research of course"). I appreciated his critical comments about the suggestions about gaming responses to the New Labour target regime - but was disappointed to find no reference to Gerry Stoker's important article on this http://www.soton.ac.uk/ccd/events/SuppMat/microfoundations%20paper%20chilworth%20manor.pdf; a paragraph about Michael Barber's Deliverology book which gives no sense of the dubious assumptions behind that particular approach; and really surprised, finally, to find no reference to John Seddon's systems critiques
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZRwdgnrx0vEC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.
These comments should, however, not detract from the achievement of the book - written by one of the acknowledged masters in the field. I am confident that the book will, deservedly, become the classic in its field.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Good overview
3 Feb 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The book provides a thorough overview of the history and recent developments on performance theory. Very useful for me. I still need to read this more carefully.
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