Posted: December 28th, 2015

An evaluation of how the UK government has dealt with public service reform since 1997 until 2010

The structure: Introduction. In the introductory part I will explain causes and the purposes of the reform. Also I will explore what is Public Service Agreements (PSAs) and why they were adopted. In general, I will just justify in the intro why I’m taking this focus – new labour tried an extensive programme of public service reform and did not always achieve what they wanted, so it is a worthy case study to look at what worked and what didnt in terms of their approach. First part. Main body. I will relate public service reform to the implementation of public policy theory (such as key actors of policy implementation, models of policy implementation (“top-down” or “bottom-up” approaches), assessment of implementation success). I’m going to choose two key policy developments/changes across public services such as health and education as an example. So I will find reasons why implementation of welfare policies like health and eduation was so difficult. Then the question becomes how did Blair try to overcome these implementation problems – he set up the implementation unit/delivery unit, he used PSAs, he set targets, etc. How well did these work and what can we say about these methods for overcoming implementation challenges in public service reform in large welfare states? This is great to focus on. Second part. Original research. I will give evidence of original research – parliamentary debates, media reports, think tanks. There will be analysis of government’s approach to the public service reform: review its main potencial benefits and risks in detail using original research. Third part. Lessons. I will identify some lessons to be learned from the UK government’s experience in public service reform. Conclusion. I will pull together the arguments to make a judgement based on the evidence I’ve presented.