Politicians and Public Services

Implementing Change in a Clash of Cultures

Kate Jenkins, Visiting Professor, Government Department, London School of Economics and Chairman, KJA Ltd.

As a senior official in Mrs Thatcher’s government, the author describes in detail and from the inside the process of planning and introducing ‘executive agencies’, a major change in one of the largest governments in the world. She emphasises the intense difficulty involved in getting agreement to change and to implement decisions, discussing the problems of conflicting objectives between politicians and officials in dealing with the practicalities of managing large public sector institutions. The UK experience of ‘executive agencies’ has been influential across the world and in many countries. This book describes how the UK system was devised and introduced.

‘This book is an authoritative account of the establishment of the Next Steps agencies, the greatest change in the UK civil service of recent years. The saga is told superbly from the author’s vantage point as a leading participant in helping to shape the change. She reveals the pressures on, and inside, the civil service both for and against reform. She illuminates the relationships between politicians and civil servants. Her wise advice on how they can collaborate constructively to deliver public services also draws on her worldwide experience as a consultant about governance in developing countries, and is especially relevant to current concerns about reform of public services.’
– G.W. Jones, Emeritus Professor of Government, LSE, UK

‘This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why governments fail to deliver what they promise. It is the authoritative insider’s account of the “Next Steps” initiative under Mrs Thatcher by someone who was central to it. Her analysis is uncomfortable but her insights, spiced with some nice anecdotes, are as wise and relevant as ever. Her message for politicians and senior officials alike is uncompromising: look at the job first and equip yourselves to do it properly, or you will fail and the rest of us suffer. Thank goodness she has written it all down. No one can say they weren’t told.’
– Lord Wilson of Dinton, former Cabinet Secretary and now Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge