ABSTRACT
Joined-up government has become the fashionable solution to many of the problems of co-ordination and control in government. It raises issues of organizational and system design which are inherent in any complex situation. All governments wish to use public policy to achieve change in the real world, and require joined-up government and public service in order to do so. They have to decide how to define their problem and what the best policy is for solving it, how best to mobilize support for these changes, what policy instruments are likely to lead to the right results, how to allocate resources to incentivize and enable people to deliver those results, how to deploy organizational responsibilities and accountabilities for delivery, and how to evaluate and learn from the experience in order to do better next time. How this is done in any given circumstance is likely to reflect the core strategic purposes a particular government sets itself. What are the key themes by which they will be judged? The approach to organizational and system design also reflects the key drivers and enablers of change in the wider political, economic, social and technological environment, all of which will impact on a government’s capacity to achieve its purpose.
