ABSTRACT
In this concluding chapter, we consider the likely long-term sustainability of the NPM paradigm within the UK public services. Is it a paradigm whose time is now over or is it likely to continue as a dominant mode of organization? Many of the change programmes within UK public services in the 1980s and 1990s fell under the NPM umbrella (Hood 1991) as they included a simultaneous growth of managerialization and marketization. Early NPM-led restructuring within the UK took place under the radical right governments of the 1979-97 period. However, there was a change of political control from the Conservatives to ‘New Labour’ in 1997. At the time of writing (November 2001), we are at the start of the second term of the New Labour government, so now is an appropriate moment to take stock.
