Public Management and Delivery

Module Description

This module provides an opportunity for students of a practical orientation to enhance their personal growth by stimulating new ideas and developing new skills in public policy, administration and management.  The module explores current developments in applied policy analysis and public management; considers how policy problems and programmes are managed in the public sector; evaluates the actions and processes that shape the management of change; and, assesses how policies are managed, implemented, monitored and evaluated.

The module brings together three key inter-related themes: public management theory and practice; the tools of government; and, the role of knowledge in public policy-making.  The focus of the module is on how changes in the nature of government have created problems in terms of delivery.  Hence the module develops ways of understanding new and varied forms of delivery mechanism for public policy.

Module Objectives

This module aims to provide students with:

• an understanding of the complex issues surrounding the formation, implementation and evaluation of public policy;
• a grasp of the political, institutional and organisational contexts which shape the policy making process;
• a familiarity with the ways in which the management and operation of the public sector has been transformed since the early 1980s;
• team work and research skills which will benefit data collection and analysis for the dissertation component of the degree; and,
• inter-professional perspectives and intellectual and professional self-awareness.

Preliminary Reading

Hood, C. (1998) The Art of the State: Culture, Rhetoric and Public Management. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pollitt, C., & Bouckaert, G. (2011). Public management reform: A comparative analysis - new public management, governance and the Neo-Weberian state. Oxford University Press.

Smith, M.J (2009) Power and the State, Palgrave

Hood, C.C.,& Margetts, H.Z. (2007). The Tools of Government in the Digital Age. Palgrave.

Assessment

One essay of 4000 words (100% of total mark).