Introducing Change in Public Service Organizations under Austerity: The Complex Case of the Governance of the Defence in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Introducing, managing, and sustaining change in public service organizations is challenging for policy makers to implement and for scholars to theorize. In 2010, the U.K. Government introduced policy changes to help bring down the national deficit. The executive's planned reforms aimed to deliver a so-called battle-winning military force, a smaller and more professional Ministry of Defence, and an affordable overall defence organization. The article borrows from theories of management and public policy to help enlighten our understanding of change under New Public Management and governance approaches. The article's central claim is that the U.K. Government sought to correct cost-efficiency processes in public service organizations trying to reshape organizational and managerial structures dependent on many internal and external pressures. The article examines the executive's purpose in developing a need for change and the ways to implement it. I question whether the U.K. Government's prescriptive and hierarchical approach to organizational change in public administration is sustainable in the long term. Related Articles: Ariely, Gal. 2011. “Why People (Dis)Like the Public Service: Citizen Perception of the Public Service and the NPM Doctrine.” Politics & Policy 39 (6): 997-1019. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2011.00329.x. Burau, Viola, and Carole Clavier. 2018. “Understanding Gaps in the Coexistence between Different Modes of Governance: A Case Study of Public Health in Schools in a Multilevel System.” Politics & Policy 46 (4): 604-629. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12269. Monza, Sabina, and Eva Anduiza. 2016. “The Visibility of the EU in the National Public Spheres in Times of Crisis and Austerity.” Politics & Policy 44 (3): 499-524. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12163.