Synopses & Reviews
Since the late 1980s, the quality of public services has been a major focus of attention for politicians, managers, and citizens. Unfortunately, most of the material available on how to achieve quality is either set in private sector contexts or confined to a single country. Now, for the first time, Pollitt and Bouckaert portray quality improvement as part of a broader managerial and political strategy, not a set of narrow technical issues. This pioneering volume provides an overview of concepts and methodologies involved in the management of quality improvements and, secondly, offers a set of case studies to illustrate how quality improvements have been achieved, drawing lessons from a spectrum of services in a range of countries. For managers, administrators, and professionals in public services, as well as for academics, consultants, and students of public management, organization studies, this book is a must.
Synopsis
Since the late 1980s the quality of public services has become a major focus of attention for politicians, managers and citizens, but surprisingly there has been little material with a truly European focus. This book remedies this absence.
Part One provides a theoretical framework which helps the reader make sense of the detail contained in the later case studies. It also locates quality improvement in the special political and organizational context of the public sector. It shows how choosing a particular concept of quality has significant political and organizational consequences and also discusses how quality may be measured.
In Part Two seven case studies illuminate detailed operational issues in quality improvement by d