New directions for public services
What future for New Zealand's state?
We are examining emerging approaches to public service delivery from across the globe to understand what a new wave of reform might look like in New Zealand, and to examine how unions can take a proactive role in helping their members adapt and thrive in the future.
- A public service tipping point I've spent the last few weeks down under where, among other things, I've been discussing the future of government and launching a new Demos report on the future of New Zealand's public services. It's left me wondering whether we might not be at one of those historic tipping points, when a combination of social trends and interesting new ideas starts to really transform the way public services work. What's next?When you look over the history of the welfare state, it becomes pretty clear that it... continue reading 28th November 2006 Comments (1)
- What next for public services? I'm over in New Zealand at the moment getting ready to launch our new report. It's called 'Re-imagining government', and it's trying to contribute to the debate over what the next 15 years of public service reform should look like.We think the key is more democracy - engaging people much more in designing and delivering their services - and we've got some ideas about how to get there.One of the things that's been interesting about developing the report, and the discussions we've had so far... continue reading 15th November 2006
- Famous for five minutes... Me and Duncan were in New Zealand a couple of months ago trying to spot some fresh directions for their government to take in reforming its public services. And while we there we did an interview for the PSA Journal, a union publication which I'm told reaches quite a lot of people. Not sure the photo helps us to keep up our 'international men of mystery' image though. continue reading 4th August 2006
- Efficient at what? It's one of those enduring questions about public services - how do we combine efficiency and democracy, or efficiency and public virtue, or efficiency and... etc etc?Patrick Diamond writes eloquently about this in his new pamphlet on public service reform. Case studying the BBC, he accepts that markets can only go so far, and that they do create tensions with a more traditional set of public service values. His argument is the tried and tested 'trade off' one - essentially that public value... continue reading 19th July 2006