THE DECLINE OF PUBLIC SERVICE MANAGEMENT SKILLS
By contrast I don't know of anything much being done in the field of public service administration. There is an academic discipline called 'Public Administration' but it seems to be concerned with studying how public administration works rather than training public administrators. To quote an academic article published in the early days of the post-2008 crash policy of austerity: 'In the United Kingdom academic endeavour in Public Administration has the reputation for being an old fashioned backwater, restricted [! - PB] to pronouncing on the functions of institutions like the civil service, local government and nationalised industries.’ (https://research.aston.ac.uk/portal/files/586481/Introduction_to_special_edition_final_post_acceptance_version.pdf). The article refers to 'David Cameron's claim that there is no public service that cannot be run by the private sector.'
Like 'Business Studies', 'Public Administration' was largely developed as an academic discipline in the US and in its early - inter-war - days it seems to have been genuinely concerned with the idea of public service. But the Wikipedia entry on 'Public Administration' informs us that
'In the late 1980s, yet another generation of public administration theorists began to displace the last. The new theory, which came to be called New Public Management, was proposed by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler in their book Reinventing Government. The new model advocated the use of private sector-style models, organisational ideas and values to improve the efficiency and service-orientation of the public sector ...
'Some modern authors define NPM as a combination of splitting large bureaucracies into smaller, more fragmented agencies, encouraging competition between different public agencies, and encouraging competition between public agencies and private firms and using economic incentives lines (e.g., performance pay for senior executives or user-pay models). NPM treats individuals as "customers" or "clients" (in the private sector sense), rather than as citizens.'
In this context the Wikipedia entry on the 'Royal Institute of Public Administration' is interesting. It was founded in 1922 'through the society of Civil Servants'. Its first President was Viscount Haldane - the Liberal Imperialist who, as we know from Pat Walsh, (*) played such an important role in planning the Great War, and subsequently, after the war, joined the Labour Party. The 'Society of Civil Servants' was a union founded in 1918 to represent 'intermediate class clerks.' By 1963, as the Society of Public Servants, it had 46,000 members, more than 90% of those eligible to join it. The Institute of Public Administration launched a highly respected academic journal - Public Administration - in 1923 and in 1929 it organised a Diploma of Public Administration in conjunction with the University of London. Those were the days when there was some degree of intelligence and a sense of purpose within the union movement. It obtained a royal charter in in 1954. But
'In 1992, against a difficult economic background including public expenditure cuts, RIPA experienced severe financial difficulties and negotiations were initiated to dispose of the International Division as a viable commercial enterprise. Two new companies were formed by the International Division's staff. The Institute itself was subsequently wound up and two new companies were formed by its staff. Public Administration International Ltd (PAI) which was incorporated on 14 February 1992, continues to operate as an independent company providing international consulting services and study programmes. The International Division was acquired by Capita Group plc and later transferred to the Strategy Group and rebranded British Expertise International. The Institute itself was wound up.'
* Pat Walsh, Irish Historian - https://drpatwalsh.com/ His articles on the origins of the First Wold War and of the military technique of aerial bombing can be read at the companion site to Labour Values - http://www.british-values.com/index-to-articles/