TOPIC 2.4: How do we understand public value?

Public value introduced

While structure is operationally important, the perspective of ‘why government exists’ is also important to drive the types of activities, services and approaches of providing responsive and responsible government and is discussed as Public Sector paradigms in this Topic 4. Further insight will also be offered in module 6 Government Reform.

Since the 1980s, the public sector has undergone major reforms, collectively known as New Public Management (NPM), which concern the purpose of government, its organisation and how services are delivered. NPM is discussed further in topics 6.1 and 6.2.

Traditional paradigms prior to 1980 saw the bureaucracy as an administrative and civil service paradigm of maintaining traditional services and doing much of the service provision ‘in house’; of perpetrating next year as a remake of the previous; as aloof from the public; as being the sole source of advice to the Government of the day, and quite independent of the political wing.

A new wave of thinking is trying to reconceptualise the role of Government towards providing public value, which enables some reconciliation between efficiency and effectiveness. Critics, however, argue that the concept is problematic in Westminster systems like Australia’s (see Rhodes & Wanna 2007)^[1]

A new wave of thinking is moving the role of Government towards providing public value, which enables some reconciliation between efficiency and effectiveness.

These paradigms will be discussed further in Module 6, but an awareness of paradigms is important because of the notion of ‘accountability’ and performance differs with each paradigm. In the reading below, the emerging ‘public value’ paradigm is presented. It is widely adopted across the public sector and will be an important paradigm to understand as you progress further with your career.