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New Zealand is a small country with a rich history of pioneering administrative reforms. This chapter describes administrative reform processes emanating from the ‘core agencies’ of the State Services Commission (SSC), Treasury and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. It describes the famous New Public Management reforms of the late 1980s–2000s, led by the Treasury that restructured ministries (creating more agencies that are single-purpose agencies), rewrote policy rules (e.g., the same laws for public and private sector employees) and created accountability from agency heads to ministers as well as SSCs who evaluate and re-appoint agency heads. It should be noted that in this Westminster system, ministers provide policy leadership but not executive leadership of ministries. The chapter describes in detail two reform processes led/administered by the SSC since the mid-2000s to increase accountability for ministry mid-term policy and organizational capability targets (performance improvement framework) as well as cross-ministry goals (better public services). These efforts have been evaluated over time as being quite effective and are noted for their sustainability and improvement.

This study aims at rereading public governance (PG) and public value management (PVM) in the light of viable systems approach (VSA). Starting from the common points and the dissimilarities between the two theories, an integrated framework for pinpointing the key drivers leading to the emersion of public value co-creation in a public system conception of governance is elaborated. An overview on the emersion of PVM and PG is conducted in order to identify the main features of the new mindset. Then, VSA’s assumptions also are analyzed (with particular focus on their managerial implications) and then subdivided into four macro-areas.

The combination of the two theories allows recognition of four levers (with relative postulates) for fostering public value co-creation: (1) strategic selection of actors; (2) establishment of system and relational boundaries; (3) pursuit of the fit strategy-tactics; (4) system governance diffusion. From a theoretical point of view, the study provides suggestions for the creation of a public system theory of governance. Regarding managerial standpoint, revealing the drivers for public value co-creation can aid managers to better elaborate strategies for stimulating actor’s engagement in order to challenge complexity and user’s demands variability.

This chapter adopts a transport systems approach to explore why the adoption of paratransit modes is low and sporadic. Regulatory and institutional barriers are identified as a major reason for this. The chapter then reviews key trends and issues relating to the uptake of, and barriers to, paratransit modes. Based on this analysis a new regulatory structure is proposed.

Case studies and research/practice literature.

Following an exploration of the nature of paratransit system design and traditional definitions of ‘paratransit’, it is concluded that institutional barriers are critical. However, current societal trends and service developments, and in particular initiatives from the technology service industry, are developing significant new paratransit models. The chapter concludes with a proposed redefinition of paratransit to facilitate a regulatory change to help overcome its institutional challenges.

A paratransit transformation of public transport services would produce travel behaviours different from models and perspectives built around corridor/timetabled public transport services.

Technology firm invaders (e.g. Uber) are viewed as disrupters from normal transport planning to be controlled or excluded. However they may be the key to a transport system transformation.

Existing public transport modes are ill-suited to modern patterns of travel demand. A system involving paratransit could produce enhanced social mobility and system-level improvements in CO₂ emissions.

This chapter identifies the key issues raised by the emergence of new paratransit modes and the new actors involved. A new regulatory structure is proposed which reflects this understanding.

This work aims at investigating how different governments, and political contexts, perform public service organisations as hybrid organisations in the case of health social assistance care services. Run using qualitative methods (interviews and direct observation), it presents a descriptive comparative study upon five local PSOs, from five European countries, engaged in delivering services for people with autism. Analysing their developmental paths in the light of neo-institutional theories, the study points out that the trigger for the development of hybrid organisations lies in the users and governments have the crucial role of being the enabler of the process, within an evolving complex relationship between public sector and third sector, as well as society at large.

This chapter traces the evolution of political–administrative relationships in the South African public service. It traces how segregation and apartheid laid down the foundation of the country’s governmental system. The public service was effectively set up for Whites and poorly resourced self-governing territories were set up for Blacks. The National Party (NP) was in office from 1948 to 1994 and this long period in office led to the politicisation of the bureaucracy, with public servants gradually starting to adopt the government’s way of thinking instead of being impartial. In the 1980s, under President P.W. Botha, the government embarked on public sector reform, which included politicisation of the top levels of the public sector.

The role of the PSC/CoA is discussed – it had omnipotent human resources powers over the public service, particularly during the dying days of apartheid. The chapter then examines constitutional change in the 1990s, looking at both the Interim and Final Constitutions, which laid down the foundation of a democratic society. There is particular emphasis on political–administrative relationships and the declining influence of the PSC.

Performance management is the ‘Achilles heel’ of many reforms and public management practices and requires changes. Governance in general and co-production in particular impose an organizational setting which requires rethinking performance management, which is still conceptually embedded in New Public Management paradigm. This chapter builds on the latest co-production framework and service-dominant logic and outlines new challenges for rethinking performance measurement and management. It also discusses how public service design (PSD) may interact with them. As a result the need to shift between performance control loops has been emphasized, suggesting that service design may significantly support internal ex-nunc performance management. Although it should be facilitated in addressing some of the performance challenges, an outline of a framework for appropriate method has also been proposed.

This paper focuses on the strategic role of elites in managing institutional and organizational change within English public services, framed by the wider ideological and political context of neo-liberalism and its pervasive impact on the social and economic order over recent decades. It also highlights the unintended consequences of this elite-driven programme of institutional reform as realized in the emergence of hybridized regimes of ‘polyarchic governance’ and the innovative discursive and organizational technologies on which they depend. Within the latter, ‘leaderism’ is identified as a hegemonic ‘discursive imaginary’ that has the potential to connect selected marketization and market control elements of new public management (NPM), network governance, and visionary and shared leadership practices that ‘make the hybrid happen’ in public services reform.