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The purpose of this paper is to explore the issues around the considerable increase in emergency calls experienced by a large county ambulance trust and implications for the implementation of government policy in relation to the English National Health Service Ambulance Service.

The paper involves a literature review and the analysis of the ambulance service data based on emergency call outs, and discussions with senior ambulance and health authority personnel.

Increased calls were mainly explained by a large increase in cancellations, especially after the vehicle had arrived at the scene. The term “cancellation” is potentially misleading and may carry connotations of wasted resources. There was little evidence of inappropriate calls and no single cause of cancellations or any simple solution. Instead, a wide range of actions were included, many of which seem potentially worthwhile. However, the way the data are presented disguises their diversity and potential value. This reflects the tension between policy and practice, and organisational culture and performance measurement regime.

This is a single case study and is limited by the parameters of the data base gathered by the ambulance service as part of their normal operational procedures.

This paper gives support to the enhanced role of the ambulance paramedic and the need to recognise this changing role through a more appropriate approach to performance measurement. The present emphasis on response times and transportations to hospital may result in undervaluing activities at the scene.

The paper identifies a key area where research into policy and governance issues has been limited and presents recommendations for future analysis.

This article aims to provide an initial assessment of the response of the civil service unions to the government′s most recent initiatives on management and working practices in ministerial departments. It considers in particular the Ibbs Report on “Improving Management in Government”, the most publicised of recent documents emerging from the Cabinet Office. A fairly wide ranging approach is adopted in order that the historical context of the report, and its consequent importance, may be appreciated. The core of the article is the result of interviews with senior officials from the main civil service unions. An assessment is made of their perceptions of the report and its implications for the civil service. It is argued that the ambivalence towards Ibbs evident in the positions of the various unions is a result of the divisions that exist between them, and of the heterogeneity of the civil service itself. Consequently any opposition from the unions is severely constrained, although obstacles to implementation may arise elsewhere.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of the Northlake Homeless Coalition, a collaborative network among homeless serving agencies in southeastern Louisiana. These collaboratives are required for obtaining government funds for housing programs in the USA.

The study involved a literature review and the application of findings to analyse a case study of the Homeless Coalition.

Amongst the reasons for the success of the programme seem to be the longevity of involvement of many participants, which encourages social bonds and commitment to grow; financial interests and individual attributes of agency representatives, including personalities, relationships, and belief systems. Many of the most active members are from agencies with legitimacy due to their governmental or larger organizational bases, but this is to the exclusion of small, faith‐based organizations and shelters that frequently provide services not able to be funded by the grant. The inflexible requirements that are established at the national level introduce a concern for meeting the needs of front‐line service providers. The infusion of funds has increased services to the homeless in this area. However, location in the most impoverished populations in the USA translates into very poorly funded agencies, with high demands.

The close analysis of the case has thrown light upon the key issues raised by the wider literature on collaborative networks.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an innovative qualitative methodology, the beliefs, barriers and control (BBaC) model. The BBaC model facilitates the understanding of how perceptions are formed through actors' interactions with their environments and each other, enabling targeted solutions for social and organisational questions.

The paper draws on a case study of a sports‐based intervention that addresses the physical activity levels of at risk youths in Stoke‐on‐Trent. It is an account of how the BBaC model was used to provide an understanding of barriers to participation in sport and active recreation amongst the target population. The study involved youth workers utilising the BBaC approach in focus groups with young people (YP) and staff. Moreover, the model was used in this case study in conjunction with the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) framework, which demonstrated how this qualitative methodology can be used with “harder” focused management tools to produce strategies for social and organisational improvement.

The BBaC model was used to collect rich qualitative data from the target YP. This was translated into action points using the EFQM model which were used in strategic and policy decision making; delivering improved results for the target YP.

The paper introduces an innovative and original methodology, the BBaC model, and demonstrates how it can be used to deliver strategies that have positive impacts.

This chapter identifies the serious issue of the mental health and wellbeing of English paramedics working in the emergency ambulance service. It identifies the case of the extant top-down performance measurement regime and the absence of indicators of wellbeing in ambulance performance reporting. The impact of such measures on frontline staff and the implications for their motivation and commitment are also documented. More decentralised, open and discursive approaches to performance management in the public sector are advocated as key methods for re-imagining ambulance and wider public services in a global context.

Drawing on relevant literature, the chapter provides the context of the English ambulance service and the challenges it faces with reference to the New Public Management (NPM) and New Public Governance (NPG). Key issues concerning performance metrics and staff wellbeing and welfare are then identified and discussed. The notions of communicative rationality, deliberative democracy and agonistic pluralism are introduced as a framework for analysing the state of both wellbeing and resilience and the performance regime within the English ambulance service. The chapter relates these themes to the re-imagining of public services internationally, proposing a more participative and discursive approach.

It is desirable for the evaluation of public services to include the wellbeing of the healthcare provider, as well as the public service recipient. Additionally, there is a case for greater participative and dialogic engagement to address the intertwined relationship of ambulance staff wellbeing and the performance management regime of the service. The process should be revised, therefore, to take into account the wellbeing of ambulance staff as an integral and intrinsic part of the delivery of the service, and it is recommended that deliberative methods of participation are deployed in reimagining ambulance services and public services more generally.

The challenges facing ambulance services and, more generally, health services globally continue to proliferate and intensify. They are exacerbated by foreseeable contextual challenges such as the demographic profile of patients and service users and budgetary cuts. Traditional and more recent NPM approaches are proving inadequate for this challenge and appear unsustainable in practice. The lack of acknowledgement of welfare indicators in the performance metrics make them unfit for purpose. Our suggested discursive approach would help to re-imagine the service by improving its sustainability and resilience in parallel with the improved wellbeing and personal resilience of the people who provide the service.

‘Even in the very few instances where the accused has intrusted his defender with a full confession of his crime, we hold it to be clear that he may still be lawfully defended. The guilt of which he may be conscious, and which he may have so disclosed, he has still a right to see distinctly proved upon him by legal evidence … Human beings are never to be run down like beasts of prey, without respect to the laws of the chase.’

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the problem of management systems in human services dealing with children and young people not supporting efficient resource utilization, as well as how to deal with this problem.

This paper is based on six years (2002‐2007) of research into human service organizations with regard to social activities focusing on children and adolescents. The authors conducted this research in collaboration with representatives of social services, health services, schools and pre‐schools in three municipalities in southern Sweden (2002‐2005) and four municipalities and two county councils (2005‐2007) in different parts of Sweden. The researchers met these representatives at seminars held every month. The seminars primarily served the purpose of discussing problems and opportunities, as well as allowing experiences to be exchanged between the representatives.

The circumstances of dependency between social services, schools and pre‐schools are obviously given in their inter‐relationships. Efficient resource utilization thus presupposes resources being distributed on the basis of transverse dialogues held between different actors. The organisational structure and management control systems should therefore be designed so that they support meetings and dialogues between actors involved in different activities and on different levels in social services, schools and pre‐schools.

This paper shows that dialogue across boundaries will provide the prerequisites for the knowledge‐ and experience‐sharing that is necessary to bring about efficient resource utilization in human services directed towards children and young people. Some proposals regarding a more effective and ethically legitimate utilization of resources are also made.

The purpose of this paper is to cover problematic issues concerning context, culture, strategy and processes affecting the development of performance management in the City of Stoke‐on‐Trent local strategic partnership (LSP) between 2005 and 2007.

The author consulted LSP stakeholders and drew on selected literature on strategy and aspects of soft systems methodology (SSM).

The paper enables the appreciation of performance management as involving various strategic‐related business processes. The development of such processes, in response to central government, represented a rationalising and corporate approach to management.

The paper draws upon different but complementary research approaches and provided an SSM‐style conceptual model of a partnership and its focal management set within a complex context.