ABSTRACT
This chapter revisits the relationship between management in the public and private sectors. This theme is familiar to students of New Public Management (NPM). The broad pattern is that (at least postulated) private sector practice has been seen as the basis of recommended management practice in the public sector. The chapter also elaborates on how the term 'failure' is used here. The second major area in which the assumed superiority of private sector management practice is manifested is in service provision. A third significant manifestation of the tutelary role of the private sector relates to the importation of organisational and financial structures with at least strong affinities to those operating in private corporations. Finally, the chapter examine some of the reasons for and effects of the absence of a political debate on the status of 'managerialism'.
