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Mapping the future Sue Richards University of Birmingham

Mapping the future Sue Richards University of Birmingham. ESRC seminar in support of the Excellence in Public Service Delivery Programme Oxford, 19-20April 2004. Introduction. Reflections from practice Complexity and simplicity Changes in knowledge management Nature of professionalism

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Mapping the future Sue Richards University of Birmingham

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  1. Mapping the futureSue RichardsUniversity of Birmingham ESRC seminar in support of the Excellence in Public Service Delivery Programme Oxford, 19-20April 2004

  2. Introduction • Reflections from practice • Complexity and simplicity • Changes in knowledge management • Nature of professionalism • Management and leadership • What has happened to the Civil Service • Public management and the public interest

  3. Reflections from practice • Management and leadership development, organisation development • Kolb learning cycle • Bridge between theory and practice – two way traffic • Credibility without capture – management without managerialism • Puzzling factors

  4. Complexity and simplicity • Centralisation pre-1997 – Thatcher project • Intractable policy problems of social exclusion - tight/loose – ends/means –but actually tight/tight – linear thinking cont. • How to make complexity simpler – PM action, rearrange the deckchairs, new localism, leadership, reduce regulation, Gershon, market • Local partnership? • Programmatic v situational solutions

  5. Changes in knowledge management • Fundamental technological change – and in the practice of public management • Impact - unforeseen consequences for the public domain – staff autonomy, local economy, civil society, public/private, public value • How to do it - innovative capacity, unresolved clashes / logics of appropriateness

  6. Professional autonomy • Guiding principle of public service for years – impact of Thatcherism • Evidence-based practice, protocols, shifting boundaries, dilution, commodification, regulation. • Consequences for public service? – destruction of old ethos – loss of care for vulnerable people? • Disabling professionals – can a new enabling professionalism be constructed?

  7. Management and leadership • Doing things right / doing the right thing • Management fits codes of public governance • Leadership – personal, values driven, politically oriented, inspirational, invites followership • Excellence in PSD seems to require leadership, but only management may be possible • How is this circle to be squared?

  8. What has happened to the Civil Service? • Perceived loss of quality of output, self confidence, willingness to tackle difficult problems, make things work despite inappropriate frameworks • What is broken? – two parallel civil services, professional leaders who have lost the plot, institutional carelessness? • How can it be mended

  9. Public management and the public interest • What should we in the academic profession do about this agenda – do our professional values encompass a commitment to contributing to improvement? • Or merely to critique? • Your country needs you

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