Handbook of public services management

The last decade has seen a series of upheavals in the management of virtually every public service. New models of management have been adopted, or have been imposed, in health care, education, the police, social services and the civil service itself. Pollitt and Harrison's Handbook of Public Services Management offers a timely assessment of public services through the experiences and reflections of senior managers and specialists in the field. The focus is on four key areas in which the running of public services presents managers with distinctive challenges: the evaluation of quality and effectiveness, the management of professional staff, resource management, and strategic planning. This is the first handbook to encompass systematically the tidal wave of management change that has swept the UK's public services in recent years. Pollitt and Harrison have brought together nineteen original contributions which offer a thoughtful and authoritative set of guidelines and warnings for public service managers in the 1990s and beyond.