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The management of change in a high profile public service with more than its fair share of political influences, demonstrates the scale of change possible, given a clear strategy and a strong managerial commitment. This leads to high productivity, quality and value for money, with a strong element of organizational loyalty and ownership of the end product.

Summarizes the management of change in a high profile public service with more than its fair share of political influences. Demonstrates the scale of change possible, given a clear strategy and a strong managerial commitment. Argues that this leads to high productivity, quality and value for money, with a strong element of organizational loyalty and ownership of the end product.

Since the early 1980s there have been fundamental changes in the structure and management of the UK public sector, based on the introduction of quasi‐markets. The literature suggests that, for markets to operate at their maximum level of efficiency, there is an overwhelming need for entrepreneurial activity. Attempts through a synthesis of the published literature, surveys of educational and health managers and case examples, to determine whether a new strain of leadership ‐ the public sector entrepreneur ‐ is emerging to display many of the characteristics of their business counterparts.

To demonstrate how government policy on fires service reform was initially challenged by a stubbornly resistant fire service corporatism but finally dismantled following the 2003 fire service White Paper.

The paper is based on longitudinal case study data that includes 50 semi‐structured interviews with key fire service personnel at regional and national levels.

This paper examines the roots of corporatism at national and local levels and demonstrates how the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) had significant levels of influence on management decision‐making. This was strongly reflected in the key role of the FBU in the industrial relations process that enabled the union to protect “entrenched” working practices. However, at a local level longstanding corporatist partnerships began to break down as a financial crisis arose and management took a more proactive approach. Corporatist structures at a national level, though, remained and it was not until the Labour government's second term of office that these national structures were overhauled following a White Paper and legislation.

This paper demonstrates that whilst fire service management has consolidated its position under the Labour administration it has proved a disaster for the FBU.