PBA396

Introduction to Public Administration

UNIT:2
LECTURE -12
NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT
Lecture objectives

■ To understand the concept of New Public Management

■ To discuss the goals and anti goals of NPM
Why NPM?
■ It arose as the reaction toward the insufficiencies of traditional public
administration approach.

■ Public sector organisations were seen as:

 Unproductive
 Inefficient
 always suffer loss
 low quality
 poor innovation and creativity
■ These conditions triggered the movement to reform public sector
management

■ Then NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT emerged

Introduction

■ Reinventing Government (1992) : David Osborn and Ted Gaebler

 this book heralded the birth of NPM

■ The term New Public Management was coined by Christopher Hood in 1991
 he used it in article: A Public Management for all Seasons (1991)
Main theme of NPM

■ It represents a synthesis of the public administration and private administration (business management).

 What & Why – from public administration

 How- private administration

■ Aims at 3Es:
 Economy
 Efficiency
 Effectiveness
Continued…
■ It assumed that private sector management practices are
better than management practices in public sector.

■ So, in order to improve its performance, public sector

should adopt practices and management techniques
applied in business sector.

■ for example:
– The adoption of market mechanism,
– Compulsory Competitive Tendering Contract,
– Privatisation of public corporations
Continued…
David Osborn and Ted Gaebler
We don’t need more government; we need better government. To be more
precise, we need better governance. Governance is the act of collective
solving our problems. Government is the instrument we use. The instrument
is outdated, it is time to remake it.
Continued…

The government should change from doer of public services to a:

■ distributor of public benefits and
■ facilitators and Promoter of change in society and economy
Theoretical Bases
1. Public Choice Approach
2. Neo-Taylorism
 Several Name refer to Modern Public Sector
Management

■ Managerialism,
■ New Public Management,
■ Market-Based Public Administration,
■ Post-Bureaucratic Paradigm,
■ Entrepreneurial Government
The Goal of NPM (by Christopher Hood)

■ Emphasis on professional management in public sector

■ Laying to explicit standards and measures of performance

■ A shift to greater emphasis on output controls rather than

procedures.

■ A shift to disaggregation of units in public sector

■ A shift to greater competition in public sector

■ A stress on private sector management practices

■ A stress on greater discipline and parsimony in resource use

Anti-goals of NPM

■ Politics- administration dichotomy

■ Hierarchy-ridden organization
■ Centralization
■ Supremacy of rules
■ Rationality
■ Impersonal nature
■ Rigidity in process
Know more at:

■ https://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BCCF9/(httpPublications)/5F280B19C6125F438
0256B6600448FDB
■ https://www.atlas101.ca/pm/concepts/new-public-management/
■ https://www.owlgen.in/explain-the-concept-of-the-new-public-management/
Critically analyze the theme of New Public
Management.
Discuss the goals and anti-goals of New
Public Management