In these times of dramatic social, economic and political change, governments around the world are questioning their roles and responsibilities in the public sector. There is a trend away from traditional public sector model and that of market ideology, but there does not yet exist a universally accepted alternative. Brendan Nolan offers a comparative analysis of public administration in several OECD countries (the UK, USA, Australia, and Scandinavia) and explores possible future directions.

Reception and implementation of public sector reform ideas varies across countries. Westminster-type systems (Britain, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada) adopted New Public Management ideas most enthusiastically. Ireland was slower to do so. Continental European countries were the least enthusiastic. This gives us some insight into the political and organizational conditions that underpin adoption of NPM, and of post-NPM, which now coincides with international economic difficulties. The Irish experience provides a useful prism for analysing the issues involved in seeking to alter the 'public service bargain' under conditions of economic crisis. Membership of the Euro provides protection against currency collapse, but also entails severe cost adjustment measures without the cushion of devaluation. The reassertion of central management of budget allocations involves making stark choices between the numbers employed, the volume of services delivered, and the rate of remuneration of employees. The options facing government depend not only on the scale of fiscal problems, but also on the manner in which the crisis is politically managed and the legitimating strategies available.

The articles in this book were first broadcast as Thomas Davis lectures on RTE Radio to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Institute of Public Administration. The authors, drawn from civil service, local government and healthcare sectors, as well as academia, have diverse experience at the highest levels.

Modernising Irish Government presents the major historical turning points in the development of Irish public services with a particular focus on the civil service, covering the mid-nineteenth-century reforms, the foundations of the State and the Lemass-Whittaker economic initiative. It introduces the Strategic Management Initiative, its origins and its impact, discussed in terms of efficiency, responsibility and democracy. Authors Neil Collins, Terry Cradden and Patrick Butler examine the current, key issues within the Civil Service, including the contentious issue of decentralisation. Providing reviews of the institutional framework for regulating monopolies in such sectors as telecommunications, aviation and retail competition, they present a critique of the new kinds of relationships between government and the people by reviewing Social Partnership, the Citizen Charters of government departments and other similar instruments. This textbook at once examines the scale, scope and structure of the delivery of services to the public and their relationship to the civil service, government departments, commercial semi-state companies and other public bodies, while identifying a number of significant failures in service delivery in detail and offering an analysis for their reasons.

This book provides a thematic case-study analysis of the wide-ranging public sector reforms introduced in one of the states most deeply affected by the global financial crisis: the Republic of Ireland. It presents a timely and apposite examination of how a crisis can be used to overcome barriers and facilitate new reform agendas. The study draws upon unique insider access to the centre of Irish government, as well as interviews with over 60 key figures, to examine the implementation of those reforms over the 2011-16 period. The book opens with a contextual analysis of the creation of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Subsequent chapters explore the process of shrinking the Irish state, renegotiating the political-administrative bargain, expenditure reforms, administrative culture reforms, and political reforms. This rich ‘in action’ study of a reform agenda undertaken during a period of crisis will appeal not only to students of executive politics, cutback management and public sector reform, but also to practitioners seeking to implement administrative reforms.