between managers and professionals who have diVering goals and orientations.
The early NPM literature noted the capacity of professional groups, such as
medical staV, to resist the budgetary goals associated with NPM. As these policies
became more embedded it is often suggested that professional staVhave fared less
well in terms of their power, authority, and status (McLaughlin et al. 2002 ).
Evidence from the UK points to a more nuanced picture. Senior managers have
become increasinglyreliant on professionals to deliver on central government
targets and professional control of services remains strong (Kirkpatrick et al.
2005 ). Nonetheless, professional roles have altered and in the NHS professional
staVhave been required to undertake more managerial work. Moreover, NPM’s
emphasis on the development of customer-oriented skills has altered job roles away
from an exclusive focus on professionally deWned norms. Pay modernization in the
NHS is reinforcing this process by placing a premium on softer, interactive
competencies such as oral communication; which is deWned as a core skill for all
health service staV(Bach 2004 : 192 ).
The emphasis on strengthening managerial prerogatives also has implications
for employee voice, with the potential to erode trade union inXuence. A dramatic
example of this approach occurred in the UK when the Conservative government
announced in 1984 that 4 , 000 workers at GCHQ (Government Communications
Headquarters) could no longer retain their trade union membership. Given an
economy-wide decline in union membership and density, it is diYcult to evaluate
the extent to which this has undermined the position of the public sector unions in
Britain. Union density in the public sector has remained relatively high, suggesting
an entrenched commitment amongst public servants to a collective voice. There
are, however, other signs that union inXuence may have waned.
The adoption of private sector styles of management is relevant in this respect as
the attention focused on performance-related pay (PRP) illustrates. Many govern-
ments including those in Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, the UK,
and the USA adopted PRP in some form from the 1980 s. Even countries such as
France, traditionally viewed as unreceptive to NPM ideas, have been experimenting
with PRP for top-level civil servants in six pilot ministries since 2004 (OECD 2005 ).
There are a number of reasons for the adoption of PRP practices. First, character-
ized by standard pay rates and service-related increments, traditional pay systems
were perceived as weak tools for the management of employee performance. PRP
was viewed as fostering individual motivation by establishing a link between
achievement and rewards. Second, PRP was seen as a means to establish tighter
control of the pay bill by reducing across-the-board pay increases and annual
increments and, instead, targeting pay increases at high performers. Third, PRP
had a political objective in demonstrating that public sector workers are not
unaccountable and only receive pay increases linked to performance (OECD 2005 ).
In practice, the pursuit of these objectives has proved problematic. While the UK
government was able to introduce PRP into the civil service where it remained the
hrm and the new public management 477