On the front line

As is now well established, the role of the public sector manager in the UK has changed signifi cantly over the last two decades, shifting from traditional ‘public administration’ towards private sector ‘management’ (Morris 1998), and producing what has become known as the ‘new public management’ (NPM). Underpinned by ‘the seldom-tested assumption that better management will prove an effective solvent for a wide range of economic and social ills’ (Pollitt 1993: 1), these developments have revolved around improving performance in a sector which, so Conservative logic ran, had historically been badly managed (Pollitt 1993; Flynn 1997; Lawton 1998; Farnham and Horton 1999).