New development: Effective public sector performance—the reform cycle continues

ABSTRACT

This article examines the demise of the 1980s ‘managing for results’ reform in Australia against the likely achievements of implementing the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability (PGPA) Act 2013—current legislation relating to public management and accountability. The PGPA Act mandates that non-financial performance be demonstrated, arguably re-introducing programme evaluation as an important element of accountability. The Australian Public Service (APS) is a large and geographically-dispersed organization, where maintaining reform momentum over the time required for change to be effective can be difficult. The author discusses issues in implementing effective reform, such as extended time, administrative amnesia, geographical factors and an absence of embedding in the management culture and associated processes.

IMPACT

The article will be of interest to many Western-style governments interested in sharing initiatives and practices in public management. Public sector managers will gain a greater understanding of the framework for implementing effective management reform and their participation in those implementation practices. It is important to know and understand what works and what has not worked and why.

KEYWORDS:

• Accountability
• embedding
• geography
• implementation
• managing for results
• non-financial performance
• programme evaluation
• reform momentum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.