Accountable to Everyone: Postmodern Pressures on Public Managers
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9299.00075 |
| Author | Barry Quirk |
| Date | 01 September 1997 |
| Published date | 01 September 1997 |
PUBLIC MANAGEMENT
ACCOUNTABLE TO EVERYONE:
POSTMODERN PRESSURES ON PUBLIC
MANAGERS
BARRY QUIRK
The changes that we witness in the world ofpublic sector management are
profound and irrevocable. They aredeeply rooted inthe turbulenttran-
sitions of (what has become known as)the postmodern era. Changes in the
world order, in the social order, in thetechnical basis ofservice provision
and delivery and in the psyche of organizations all impact on how we must
manage public institutions into the future. In thisarticle I shall outline the
source of the changes we faceand in particular I shall focus onthe changing
nature of ‘accountability’ in thepublic sector.
This article is written from the viewpoint of the management of a multi-
purpose elected local governmentin innerLondon. Adiverse community
of 240,000 people in Lewishamelect 67people to govern localservices and
to represent this area ofLondon. The Council employsover 10,000 people
to provide and procureservices for the240,000 people intheborough.
Like all publicsector organizations, Lewisham Council is concerned with
improving the quality of services it provides and with improving efficiency
and reducing costs. It is also concerned with improving its approach to
developing its staff. This may appear anintrospective focus largely centred
on improving internal processes. But thatbelies the Council’s bolder
agenda. This includes: creatingtheconditions for morecommunity action
and active citizenship; piloting innovative approaches to improving demo-
cracy at local level; and working with other agencies (public, private and
voluntary sectors) to improve the quality of life locally.
The challenges facedby local government managersin Lewisham are in
a very small part a function of the uniqueness of our locality ininner Lon-
don; and in a much larger part, a function of wider changes insociety: its
fabric and dynamic. In this sense, the challenges faced locally are similar
to those faced by public managerseverywhere, namely:
•the nature of change itself
•the globalizing processes ofall human activity
Barry Quirk is Chief Executive, London Borough of Lewisham and Visiting Fellow in Social Policy
and Politics, Goldsmiths College.
Public Administration Vol. 75Autumn 1997 (569–586)
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1997, 108 Cowley Road, OxfordOX4 1JF, UK and 350 MainStreet,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
570BARRY QUIRK
•the fact that we livein anera of endings
•the need to grapplewith probability andbalance risks
•the needs of ‘knowledge workers’ in new organizational settings
•the importance of trustand transparency
All these changes impact upon thenature of public sector organizations.
The way they are organized andthe way people work within them. In this
article I outline the influences of these changeson public managers. I then
examine in more detail theirimpact upon the nature of accountability in
public sector organizations, particularly referringto the changingaccount-
abilities for local government.
CHANGE AS FIRE
In the public sector we have accepted that we are involved with ‘managing
change’. Change in how we manage people, change in theoperational pro-
cesses of service delivery, and change in the very institutions for delivering
public services. The growth of a new approach to public sector management
with a disaggregation of activities and the developmentof quasi-markets
for public service, has revised the incentives for both publicmanagers and
their institutions. Importantly, public managershave accepted that manage-
ment is about shaping perceptions as much as it is about marshalling
resources. And thus increasingly weare involved in changing‘the culture’
of our organizations. So thatthey lookoutward,notinward; and sothat
they are focused on outcomesandcentredon people.Thelexiconof the
‘change manager’ is now familiarto us all.
But when we describe change we often do so by lookingforward:
envisioning some ideal-type future, and building a ‘bridge’ tothisfuture
through organizational action plans andthe like. Theunderlying premise,
of course is that, asmanagers,wecanachievethechangethat wewant.
And everyone joinsa grand collusion.The management ‘guru’or consult-
ant who must spread the positive message to sell the book or the assign-
ment. As well as the manager whowantsto beseen to be‘incharge’of
events rather than their victim. In truth this degree of control is an illusion
for managers: as the nature of change is much more complex than the mod-
els we use atpresent.
Generally we describe change in predictable, linear or quasi-linear terms.
As continuous change. But not all change is likethat. Indeed change may
not be like that at all. Chaos theory tells us to think of change as discontinu-
ous; as unpredictable, as liquid. This paradigm of change hasits origins in
the ‘uncertainty principle’ formulatedsome seventyyears agoby Heisen-
berg and which liesat the heart of quantum mechanics. Afterseven decades
of experimental physics, it appears true in the physical world: is it true in
the social world, inthe worldof human action? Probably.For even the
most notable determinists, Marxand Engels, whopassionately prophesied
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1997
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