ABSTRACT

Reform and change are not new phenomena for public organizations, since many of them have been experiencing attempts to bring about change and reorganization for a long time. For example, the question of delegation of central authority for public services from a ministry to an autonomous agency has been a central controversy in many countries such as Sweden or Australia for a century.What is new is that since the early 1980s administrative policy has grown into a separate policy area with its own discourse and administrative units, and reforms are now often launched under the auspices of more comprehensive reform programmes.