NPM & Reinventing Govt

‘Steering not Rowing’

 1-New Public Management
• A management philosophy used by governments
to modernize the public sector.

• A broad and very complex term used to describe

the wave of public sector reforms throughout the
world since the 1980s.

• The main hypothesis in the NPM-reform

movement is that more market orientation in the
public sector will lead to greater cost-efficiency for
governments.
 NPM
• NPM reforms shift the emphasis from traditional public
administration to public management.

• Key elements include various forms of decentralizing management

within public services (e.g., the creation of autonomous agencies
and devolution of budgets and financial control)

• increasing use of markets and competition in the provision of

public services (e.g., contracting out and other market-type
mechanisms)

• Increasing emphasis on performance, outputs and customer

orientation.
 NPM
• NPM- techniques and practices are drawn mainly
from the private sector.

• NPM reforms have been driven by a combination

of economic, social, political and technological
factors.

• A common feature of countries following the NPM

route has been due to economic and fiscal crises,
which triggered the quest for efficiency.
 NPM
• In the case of developing countries, reforms
in public administration and management
have been driven more by external pressures
and have taken place in the context of
structural adjustment programmes, include
lending conditionalities and the increasing
emphasis on good governance.
 NPM Features and Practices
• Result Oriented Govt.
– Focus on results and not on conforming to procedures.
– It measures the performance of public agencies focussing on
outcomes, not on inputs
– It is motivated by goals , not by rules and regulations
• Market-like competition- Government must promote
competition among service- providers through;
– Out sourcing or contracting out
– Competition and end to monopolies
– Reorganizing public corporations on private best business
practices.
– Introducing corporate governance systems
– Preferring market mechanisms to bureaucratic mechanisms
 NPM… features
• Treating public as customers and not as ‘cases’
– It re- defines its clients as customers and offers them
choices
• Government should be deregulated
• Introducing public-private partnerships
• The less the government the better it is.
– It must empower citizens by pushing control out of the
bureaucracy into the community
• Empowering the employees and promoting team work.
• Introduce innovation and technology in administration
 NPM… features
• Financial management, improved accounting,
expenditure controls-budget cuts

• Democratization and enhanced citizen participation

• Decentralization
– It must decentralize authority and promote
participative management

• Accountability for performance

– performance auditing or Value –for- Money Auditing
 NPM -----Analysis
• The NPM has presented itself as an alternative
to the traditional “bureaucratic” way of
conducting the public’s “business.”
• The NPM holds that government should
engage in only those activities that cannot be
privatized or contracted out.
• Market mechanisms should be employed
wherever possible so that citizens will have
choices among service delivery options.
 NPM Analysis
• the New Public Management suggests that public managers
“steer rather than row,”

• That they move toward becoming monitors of policy

implementation or purchasers of services rather than being
directly involved in service delivery itself.

• In NPM, there seems theoretical commitments to such ideas as

public choice theory and agency theory.

• In general, NPM uses economic models in the design and

implementation of public policy
 `
• CSS-2012
• Q. 3. Explain the basic theme and theoretical bases of the ‘New Public
Management’. What are the different mechanisms, that have used in
pursuing NPM goals by the governments in different parts of the World,
especially in Pak
• CSS-2011
• Q.8. Write short notes on any FOUR of the following: (a) E-government in
Pakistan (b) Judicial activism (c) F. Taylor’s “Scientific Management
Theory” (d) Theory X and Theory Y (e) New Public Management Concepts.
• CSS-2010
• Q.4. Compare and contrast the Bureaucratic Model with New Public
Management (NPM). Do you think NPM has replaced the bureaucratic
approach to public administration? Support your views with examples
from Pakistan