Structural change and public service performance: international lessons?

Abstract

Large-scale structural reforms have been popular in a number of countries, including the UK. This article seeks to establish what we have learned from these recurrent reforms. Systematic learning actually seems to have been the exception rather than the rule. There are a number of reasons why conclusive evaluations very seldom get done. There is, however, a vast literature on change management, which appears to contain a number of useful prescriptions. Yet this, too, has significant limitations. Political parties in the UK are currently competing to offer the nth bout of restructuring in the past 20 years. It would be nice if they would also consider the case for local, smaller scale, more modular changes, rather than further programmatic upheavals.