Table of Contents
For the last two decades of the twentieth-century New Public Management dominated political theory and practice. It involved the incorporation of the market model into the public sector itself and the re-orientation of and reduction in the role of the State in the economy. Departments became agencies, statutory authorities were corporatised and many privatised. Public servants became public sector managers responsible for delivering on agreed performance targets in their agencies, most notably efficiency targets. The level playing field replaced state intervention as markets rather than governments determined resource allocation.
In recent years, however, we have seen a new tendency emerge – Strategic Government. It involves the outlining of a vision, the setting of objectives and targets in consultation with the public, the development of strategies to achieve the objectives, and the formation of collaborative arrangements within government and between the government and private and community sectors to carry out these strategies. It is often linked to a new concern for and belief in the sustainability principle and its triple bottom line of economic, social and environmental objectives.
Strategic Management has emerged from the contradictions within New Public Management – between efficiency and effectiveness and between individual choice and public provision. Democratic pressure has not just pushed for a more holistic resolution of these contradictions but also for new powers and interventions to deal with complex problems associated with poverty and social exclusion, to tackle the new policy agendas in health, education, community safety and welfare, and to respond to the threats posed by terrorism and global warming.
Increased relationship complexity associated with Strategic Government requires new capabilities for public servants and moving beyond the simplicities associated with the ‘Let the Managers Manage’ depiction of public accountability and ministerial responsibility.
Threats to institutional autonomy and individual freedom, created by aspects of Strategic Government, require an increased concern for/and institutionalisation of the principle of subsidiarity and new human rights protections in our laws, as has been done in the ACT and Victoria.