New forms of leadership are needed as the role of government shifts again in the 21st century.
Illustration by Malay Karmakar/ MINT
At Oxford, many international politicians and public managers pass through—sharing their wisdom, but seeking some “magic management bullets”. For me, this included training Tony Blair’s “government in waiting” at Oxford before their historic 1997 election.
Since then, I have joined various attempts at “modernizing” the UK government machine—most recently, chairing a UK cabinet office conference on public service reform.
India battles with its own agenda for public services, with the World Bank’s 2006 report stressing the need for improvement and spreading the benefits from growth. So, what are we learning about new roles for the government?
In the UK, many return to an 1854 report by Northcote and Trevelyan on the British Civil Service which set the tone for public service—then mainly a service to the governing elite. Out of that emerged the curious professional art of running large and global bureaucracies with discipline and a mind for order and status quo.
For the humble citizen, the mindset was “I belong” to the state. Post World War II saw a significant shift. The citizen moved to “I need”, and government—with the electorate’s blessing—moved to providing not only the welfare state (witness the National Health Service set up in 1948), but a vast array of public services through nationalization. State as bureaucratic (probably inefficient) provider, but “we know best”, was in full swing.
The 1970s and 1980s brought a citizen who said “I want”, with a suspicion that hands-on state was the wrong answer.
Margaret Thatcher and colleagues deployed a first wave of managerialism—efficiency, financial and general managers, and an ideology that the market (often, private enterprise) would provide. Energy, water, transport, telephones were floated off. Central government started reducing its size in favour of arm’s length agencies and providers. The state retained critical control over defence, law and order, and politically sensitive education and health.
In India—particularly since 1990—a similar agenda of liberalization and dismantling of controls has been pursued.
Blair’s 1997 Labour government tried continuing down this “new public management” route—devolving the machines of state into accountable “performance-managed” units. Private and “third sector” take-up has continued through outsourcing and financial partnerships now, including in publicly funded health and education provisions. Governments across the world have tried to “import” similar philosophies.
By 2008, in the UK, there were still around six million people employed in “public service”, but in many different kinds of organizations. The Central Civil Service was down to 500,000 (from one million in 1960)—but still includes much “delivery”, such as passports, tax andbenefits offices.