Improving service quality in the new public sector

Public sector reform movements around the world in the 1990s, codified as new public management (NPM) have been aimed at ‘fostering a performance-oriented culture in a less centralised public sector’ (OECD 1995). Such reforms are characterized by key elements including increasing use of markets and competition in the provision of public services (e.g. contracting out and other market-type mechanisms) and increasing emphasis on performance, outputs and customer orientation. One consequence of these reforms has been the reorientation of public services towards their consumers. This has brought with it pressure for betterquality public services, from service users as their needs change and their expectations rise in respect of how well services can be performed (Flynn 1995). Furthermore, increased service user choice, such as that occurring in the UK National Health Service (Vidler and Clarke 2005) forces public service providers to consider how to deliver high-quality public services both efficiently and effectively, generating best value (Martin 2002). In some instances this requirement is underpinned by statutory guidance. For example, the UK government’s ‘Best Value’ policy was designed to ‘secure improvements in quality as well as in cost’ (Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions 1998:57). As a result, high-quality service is a priority for public service providers worldwide (Borins 2000) and service quality improvement has become a very real issue for new public management (Edvardsson and Enquist 2006).