Corporate Governance and Financial Accountability: Recent Reforms in the UK Public Sector

During the last decade, several financial initiatives aimed at “reforming” the public sector in the UK have been produced by the Government. These initiatives seek to supplant historically established bureaucratic modes of governance, underpinned by a public service ethic, by market‐based principles. Reflects on these developments and provides a critical evaluation of the markets and hierarchies literature by focusing specifically on recent developments in the governance of health and community care. Argues that the discourse and practices of economic rationalism are not “given” or “natural” but arise within, and serve to secure and legitimize, particular (historical) power/ knowledge relations. It is only by developing more substantially democratic forms of governance that there is any prospect of removing the irrational consequences attributed to markets and hierarchies.