Improving Public Management [Paperback]

Metcalfe and Richards describe and assess Thatcher's Efficiency Strategy as an exercise in improving public management. They explain how the strategy has gone about improving administrative performance by increasing cost-consciousness in the use of resources and creating flexibility for managing change. They analyze major themes such as: decentralization, information systems and budgets as management tools, organization design, and the management of interdepartmental relations.Now in paperback in an Enlarged Edition, this volume explores the lessons of one of the most comprehensive attempts to improve public management.

Metcalfe and Richards describe and assess Thatcher's Efficiency Strategy as an exercise in improving public management. They explain how the strategy has gone about improving administrative performance by increasing cost-consciousness in the use of resources and creating flexibility for managing change. They analyze major themes such as: decentralization, information systems and budgets as management tools, organization design, and the management of interdepartmental relations.Reviews of the original edition:

`The most authoritative (study) to date' - New Statesman

`a useful and important contribution to the analysis of Thatcherism and the development of recent administrative methods' - International Review of Social Sciences

`provide(s) a useful introduction to, and critique of, developments in civil service management between 1979 and 1985' - Parliamentary Affairs

`The depth of the authors' analysis is enhanced by a tight lG