The Traditional Model of Public Service Provision

Abstract

The debate on the role of government in the 1980s and 1990s has not simply been about how its activities can be limited and controlled but also about the institutional character of the state. It is argued that the state must not only be smaller, but also different; it must become market-oriented, fired by the spirit of entrepreneurship (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992). The British welfare state, as it developed in the post-war years, was organised according to principles of hierarchy, planning, direct control, self-sufficiency, centralisation and professionalism (Stewart and Walsh, 1992). Premfors’ (1991) description of the Swedish model captures the nature of the welfare state as now exists in the UK:

The big problems of Swedish society, as perceived by the adherents of the model, were seen to require big solutions. Big solutions meant nationwide and uniform social programmes, planned and administered in a centralised fashion by big, hierarchically organised government agencies, and financed out of all-purpose tax funds. In some services, local governments would be appropriate producers and distributors, but only following a radical programme of amalgamation and centralisation.

It is this model that the new market-based public service management is intended to replace.