Public Management and Administration - Owen E.hughes

However, the managerial model is still controversial. Advocates view public
management as offering a new way of looking at and carrying out management
functions within the public sector. As an alternative to traditional administration,
public management may offer a more realistic approach given the manifest
problems of the earlier model. Critics, however, regard it as simply an
unquestioning adoption of the worst features of private management which pays
no regard to the fundamental differences in the public sector environment.
Managerialism is seen by them as somehow against the traditions of public
service, inimical to service delivery and undemocratic, even with dubious theoretical
backing. Some writers, particularly from a public administration tradition,
argue that the good parts of the old model – high ethical standards, service
to the state – are being cast aside in the headlong rush to adopt the new theory.
The argument here is that public management is sufficiently different from
public administration to be regarded as a new paradigm. A new model of public
management has effectively supplanted the traditional model of public administration,
and the public sector in the future will inevitably be managerial, in both
theory and practice. It is important to identify potential problems in the new
approach and propose solutions to them, although it seems most unlikely that
there will be a return to the traditional model of administration. While this new
model may cause some problems and pose some dangers, the benefits are likely
to be far greater than the costs. Public management need not mean the widespread
and uncritical adoption of practices from the private sector. What it should
mean is that a distinctive public management needs to be developed. This should
take account of the differences between the sectors, but still recognizes that the
work being done by public servants is now managerial rather than administrative.
The meaning of management
It was argued earlier (Chapter 1) that management is different from administration
in meaning. Essentially, administration means following instructions
and management means the achievement of results and taking personal responsibility
for doing so. As Rainey argues, public management ‘has semantic
origins that imply taking things in hand’ and this ‘suggests a firmness and efficiency
of the sort attributed in stereotype to business management’ (1990,
p. 158). How management is different from administration can be considered by
looking at what Allison (1982) refers to as ‘functions of general management’.
Functions of general management
STRATEGY
Public Management 45
1. Establishing objectives and priorities for the organization (on the basis of forecasts
of the external environment and the organization’s capacities).
2. Devising operational plans to achieve these objectives.