are implemented to safeguard constitutional values. Governance signals that a
wider range of agencies and stakeholders from within and beyond the public sector
are becoming involved in service delivery. This raises new managerial challenges in
dealing with a diverse array of stakeholders, including the workforce. Three
features of this governance or network approach and their consequences for people
management are analyzed:
.An emphasis on user-centered services
.The pursuit of a ‘partnership’ approach
.An increased emphasis on service quality and performance.
- 1 User-Centered Services
The user-centered approach to service provision marks a degree of continuity with
aspects of the NPM in focusing on a shift from a producer culture to ‘consumer’-
sensitive services. Many governments, extending beyond the usual NPM exemplars
to include Belgium and India, have introduced service charters and performance
pledges designed to inculcate in employees the need to serve customers. Whereas
under the NPM the emphasis was on individual citizen entitlement to services,
there has been a shift of emphasis within service charters towards collective, civic
obligations (Drewry 2005 ). In other words, the citizen has responsibilities (e.g. for
their health) as well as rights, perhaps reducing a concern that aggrieved
‘customers’ will take out their dissatisfaction directly on public sector workers,
a justiWable worry taking account of increases in violence against front-line public
sector workers.
The attachment of the UK government to ratings and ‘league tables’ of organ-
izational performance is integral to this approach and seeks to enhance ‘choice.’
Such an approach also has crucial implications for work organization. This is
reXected in the establishment of ‘One Stop Shops’ providing the service user
with a single gateway to a range of services. Often accessible by telephone or
on-line, such a service not only requires diVerent skill sets, with employees now
having to deal with a wide range of queries, but it has often been provided by call
centers and in a new type of working environment.
This type of user-centered approach has challenged traditional work practices.
The NHS illustrates the degree to which national policy makers in the UK have
continued to confront the ‘privileged’ position of professionals as reXected in
protected job boundaries. For instance, in the UK, the power of doctors has been
addressed by extending the authority of nurses to dispense certain treatments.
Where recent attacks on the professions have diVered from those in the past has
been in the way in which they have alternated with a government willingness to
engage with professional concerns. It is this more placatory government approach
which can be seen as one element of the greater emphasis on ‘partnership.’
482 stephen bach and ian kessler