Here, Brendan Martin argues for a more participative approach, involving both service users and public service employees to produce changes that keep on working. Ideological and technocratic approaches to public service reform are not delivering the sustainable improvements demanded by society. Yet transforming public service quality and efficiency has never been more important to both economic stability and social justice. The book draws on experiences worldwide, telling the stories through the testimony of the participants themselves. Examples include: slum dwellers from Brazil's Porto Alegre explaining how a "participative budget" to provide infrastructure has encouraged local democracy; Swedish social service carers directing cuts public budgets without cutting jobs or services; doctors' leaders in the Czech Republic saving their country's health care services via a new approach to public-private partnership. Contrasted with the failures of top-down reforms and business school fads, the cases described in this book are shown to be shaping a "new partnership model" rooted in true empowerment.
The results show that efficient public spending, quality public service and secure and satisfying public employment can be reconciled to everyone's benefit.
- ISBN13 9781856495028
- Publish Date 30 April 2007
- Publish Status Cancelled
- Out of Print 25 October 2007
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Zed Books Ltd
- Format Paperback
- Pages 256
- Language English