Introduction

Public administration is constantly in the news. It features in debates on the advantages and disadvantages of privatisation, the extent of corruption or dedicated altruism among public servants, the degree to which local government values a sense of community or whether we are increasingly being dominated by faceless administrators in Brussels or Washington. A large percentage of the work force of any developed nation are public administrators, and in many towns and cities public sector organisations are often the largest single employers. Because of its importance and the rapid changes that have taken place in the structure of public administrative systems in the last two decades, research into the core executive of government or local and regional authorities through expensively funded studies is booming.