Improving Service Quality in the New Public Sector

Public sector reform movements around the world in the 1990s, codified as New Public Management (NPM) have been aimed at ‘fostering a performanceoriented culture in a less centralised public sector’ (OECD, 1995). Such reforms are characterised by key elements including increasing use of markets and competition in the provision of public services (e.g., contracting out and other market-type mechanisms) and increasing emphasis on performance, outputs and customer orientation. One consequence of these reforms has been the reorientation of public services towards their consumers. This has brought with it pressure for better quality public services, from service users as their needs change and their expectations rise in respect of how well services can be performed (Flynn, 1995). Furthermore, increased service user choice such as that occurring in the UK National Health Service (Vidler and Clarke, 2005) forces public service providers to consider how to deliver high quality public services both efficiently and effectively, generating best value (Martin, 2002). In some instances this requirement is underpinned by statutory guidance. For